Abrupt Firing of South Bay’s Top School Official Spurs an Escalating War of Words

Two weeks after Santa Clara County’s top education officer was fired with little explanation, the battle over the move has escalated.

The county’s Board of Education is standing firm in its decision, calling a lawsuit filed by ousted Superintendent Mary Ann Dewan “an astounding attempt to hold on to the power of the office” in a response filed Wednesday.

Meanwhile, a group of parents, community members and staff are calling for a civil grand jury investigation into the abrupt firing, which has also drawn criticism from state lawmakers representing the South Bay.

Tara Sreekrishnan, a member of the county school board, said at a Tuesday press conference that the closed-session decision to remove Dewan from her post has “thrown schools into chaos and created turmoil for staff.”

“We’re here today to ask the civil grand jury to aggressively investigate what happened, to provide policy recommendations and to provide oversight as a watchdog agency for the County Office of Education and the County Board of Education,” Sreekrishnan said. “We need to restore transparency and accountability and bring the focus back to our students, to our classrooms.”

School board members voted to terminate Dewan without cause during a closed-door meeting on Oct. 2. The 4–2 vote, with one member abstaining, immediately elicited strong reactions from community members on either side.

Dewan’s supporters on Tuesday called for the county’s civil grand jury to investigate the Board of Education, alleging that it has exhibited a pattern of acting in ways that are “unchecked and costly” to taxpayers and the students in Santa Clara schools.

The push is the latest in a slew of community efforts backing Dewan since her firing. Six state lawmakers representing Santa Clara County sent a letter on Monday to the school board members, asking them to reconsider Dewan’s ouster.

“While we understand that certain members of the board and superintendent may have some differences of opinion, it is clearly not in the public interest to terminate such an exemplary superintendent,” reads the letter signed by Sens. Josh Becker and Dave Cortese, as well as Assemblymembers Gail Pellerin, Robert Rivas, Marc Berman and Evan Low.

They say that the decision will cost the public hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees and compensation.

But the board isn’t backing down. On Wednesday, it filed a forceful response to Dewan’s lawsuit, which asks the Santa Clara County Superior Court to stop the board from removing her, calling it a “reckless notion.”

“The court should decline this attempt to seize the constitutional and statutory powers of the Santa Clara County Board of Education,” it reads.

Board President Maimona Afzal Berta, who voted in favor of firing Dewan, said in a statement that the suit was “an attempt to undermine the will of county voters by overriding the actions of their duly elected representatives.”

The board plans to appoint Charles Hinman, who currently serves as the interim executive director of Oxford Preparatory Academy in Orange County, as the county’s interim superintendent during Wednesday’s regular meeting.