Sarasota Schools superintendent negotiating resignation ahead of termination vote

Sarasota County Superintendent Brennan Asplen addresses a South County Tiger Bay luncheon.
Sarasota County Superintendent Brennan Asplen addresses a South County Tiger Bay luncheon.

The Sarasota County School Board has begun negotiations with Superintendent Brennan Asplen to resign his position, board member Tom Edwards said.

The resignation negotiations are taking place as Asplen faces a special meeting of the School Board on Tuesday at 5 p.m., where the board could vote to fire him. The negotiations between the board's legal counsel and Asplen's attorney started Wednesday, the day after the board voted to schedule the meeting.

Possible terms of the departure were still fluid as of Sunday, Edwards said.

Sarasota School Board shifts right

The ideological makeup of the Sarasota County School Board shifted toward conservatives following the election of Tim Enos and Robyn Marinelli, who were seated last week following their victories in August's primary vote. They joined incumbent Bridget Ziegler, who won a new term in the same election, and Karen Rose, who is in the middle of a four-year term.

Moments after the three were sworn in on Nov. 22, Rose made a motion to schedule a special meeting to discuss Asplen's termination, and it was approved in a 4-1 vote. The meeting had been set for Dec. 2 but was moved to Nov. 29 because of reported scheduling conflicts.

No discussion took place and no explanation was given for the move.

The special meeting was still scheduled for Tuesday at 5 pm as of Sunday. Enos and Marinelli were not immediately available Sunday for comment about any negotiations for Asplen's exit. Asplen declined to comment.

Ziegler said it's unclear if negotiations would finish before Tuesday's meeting, but anything agreed upon would be brought forward to the public at the meeting.

"My focus is to navigate this in the most appropriate way to ensure transparency for the public, to ensure stability for the district and certainly respect to the superintendent," she said. "That is my focus going forward."

On the reasoning for the move to dismiss Asplen, Ziegler said the community voted in August for change at the School Board level, and the board can exact change in the schools through the superintendent. She cited concerns from her evaluation, but Tuesday's meeting could provide clarity from each School Board member about why they would vote to fire Asplen.

Negotiated exits between publicly employed administrators and the elected boards that oversee them are not uncommon once it becomes clear that the administrator has lost the support of a majority of the board.

It can avoid a messy public spectacle of people taking sides or public airing of grievances, particularly if the board sought to fire Asplen for cause, despite his recent positive performance evaluation. It could also cost the district more money.

Sarasota Schools' previous superintendent Todd Bowden also reached an agreement with the School Board to step down before he was fired in 2019. Bowden, however, stepped away amid controversy that surrounded his tenure.

In the Sunshine? Questions surround Sarasota School Board move to fire superintendent

More: Sarasota County School Board to vote on terminating superintendent Brennan Asplen

Vocal supporters of Ziegler, Enos, Marinelli and Rose have openly called on the School Board to fire Asplen because he was in charge during the 2021 COVID-19 mask mandate in schools, and they claim the superintendent doesn't support parental rights.

Others in the community, such as the teachers' union and Democratic Party leadership, have come out in support of the superintendent. In an email to members of the Sarasota Classified Teachers Association, Executive Director Barry Dubin called on members to come Tuesday and rally for the superintendent. Dubin also said it might be hard for the district to find another superintendent if Asplen is ousted for political reasons.

"The last thing we need now is a new superintendent search and one hired for political rather than educational reasons," Dubin wrote.

Did the decision to fire Asplen violate the Sunshine law?

The speed of the board's action to terminate the superintendent has called into question the circumstances of the move and how it could have been accomplished without public communication within the newly constituted board. Edwards, who ideologically sits on the minority end of a 4-1 conservative majority, said he felt the move was "orchestrated."

According to the state's Government-in-the-Sunshine law, members of an elected board cannot discuss matters which could come before the board for action outside of a setting accessible to the public, such as during a board meeting. The law also applies to candidates as soon as their unofficial election results are posted.

The first time that new board members Enos and Marinelli would have been able to legally discuss the termination of Asplen's contract would have been last Tuesday, after they were sworn in. Ziegler and Rose, as sitting board members, would also have been precluded from discussing issues or using third parties to communicate.

Rose declined to comment immediately following last week's meeting and has not responded to text messages and phone calls.

Follow Herald-Tribune Education Reporter Steven Walker on Twitter at @swalker_7. He can be reached at sbwalker@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Sarasota superintendent resignation negotiations ongoing after board shift