School Board candidate’s past as rural superintendent questioned

A Clark County School Board candidate is defending his record as the superintendent of a rural Nevada school district after some educators have called attention to the circumstances in which he left that position.

Greg Wieman served for two years as the superintendent of the Eureka County School District before that school board opted not renew his contract. The decision followed claims that he did not develop a positive working environment in the district and that teachers did not feel comfortable with him.

Wieman called the claims unfounded and said they were “quickly dispelled.”

Now, Wieman is challenging Trustee Linda Cavazos, a former teacher who runs a private counseling practice, to represent Clark County’s District G, which encompasses schools across the east valley and part of Henderson.

Wieman, who has been endorsed by the teachers union in the race, retired in Las Vegas four years ago after serving as a longtime teacher and administrator in Michigan, Colorado and Nevada.

Board documents outline concerns

The Eureka County School District is located in a rural, central part of the state and serves about 330 students with 63 employees. The Eureka school board declined to renew Wieman’s contract as superintendent in February 2016 after a meeting at which board members discussed his performance as superintendent.

At its meeting on Dec. 8, 2015, the board discussed Wieman’s evaluation and attached documents outlining concerns from community members who said the superintendent traveled excessively and was not as proactive as he should be in schools, according to a copy of the meeting minutes posted to the Eureka County School District website.

Other concerns that were outlined in the meeting minutes by members of the Eureka County Teachers Association and the Eureka County Classified Association described Wieman as unapproachable and condescending and as someone who demonstrated poor listening skills.

An attached document summarized findings from his evaluation, noting that “teachers do not feel comfortable,” that he did not support administrators, and that he made inappropriate comments.

Those comments included referring to students as a “pain in the ass,” according to the document.

Wieman said the claims were promoted by a disgruntled former employee.

The documents included in the meeting minutes were not his formal evaluation and were put into the minutes by a board member who was misled, he said.

When asked in an interview whether he referred to students as a “pain in the ass,” Wieman said the allegation lacked context, and that he never made such comments on the record.

“To say that I never said that, I couldn’t say that. I’m sure that I have,” he said, noting that he might have made similar comments about lots of people.

Wieman also said board members later were willing to change their minds about renewing his contract, but he decided it was time for him to move on.

“The matter was handled discreetly and professionally,” Wieman said in a statement. “It was put to rest and quickly disappeared.”

Dan Wold, who was principal of Eureka County High School during Wieman’s time as superintendent, recalled that Wieman had high standards while leading the district, an attitude that “some staff appreciated and some staff didn’t.”

“That kind of led to some people that were unhappy and had the board’s ear,” Wold said.

Wold, who became superintendent of the district after Wieman, said he thought Wieman did well leading the district and met the high achievement standards that were already established.

“I think all of us just go in and try to make a place better,” Wold said. “Whether it was done sweetly and cleanly or not, he came in there and made it better. Hopefully I did the same. Now someone else is doing the same.”

Rhonda Wilker, the finance director for the Eureka district, said she could not comment on Wieman’s departure from the school district.

The board ultimately voted 4-1 not to renew Wieman’s contract.

Educators weigh in

Some members of the Clark County school community have called attention to Wieman’s record in the district, including Vicki Kreidel, a reading teacher and president of the National Education Association of Southern Nevada, which has endorsed Cavazos.

Kreidel said her concerns with Wieman started after he attempted to pressure her into giving him an endorsement interview for his campaign. After explaining to him how the endorsement process worked, Kreidel said, Wieman’s emails and tone toward her grew progressively more demeaning, accusing her of having blind loyalty to Cavazos and saying that Cavazos was unqualified to be a trustee.

“You would think someone who wants the endorsement of a group of educators, he would listen first before telling us what the right thing to do is,” Kreidel said. “That wasn’t the case at all.”

After calling attention on Twitter to Wieman’s history in the Eureka school district, Kreidel said, Wieman again reached out to her via email.

“Your personal negative and unproductive behavior contributes to the denigration of the teaching profession,” Wieman wrote in the email, according to screenshots provided by Kreidel.

Kreidel said she responded to Wieman, telling him never to contact her again.

“Those are not the kind of people that we want to be in trustee seats,” she said.

Wieman told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that complaints about his time in Eureka County have been “stirred up by Vicki Kreidel” and those desperate to find something against his character.

He has been endorsed by the Clark County Education Association, the teachers union that represents about 18,000 teachers.

Executive Director John Vellardita told the Review-Journal that the union was aware of Wieman’s background “in its entirety,” from serving as an educator to rising up through the ranks to superintendent of Eureka.

“We’re totally confident in our endorsement,” Vellardita said, noting that Wieman would add a new perspective to the School Board. “Nothing would change our opinion.”

The board has seen its year marked by allegations of a hostile work environment and the ouster and subsequent reinstatement of Superintendent Jesus Jara. Cavazos, who was the board’s president last school year, voted both to fire Jara and against his reinstatement. Wieman has said he did not have enough information about Jara’s performance to make a judgment about his contract, which trustees voted to extend on Oct. 5.

Wieman later criticized the process of renewing Jara’s contract, calling it inconsistent and inadequate.

But for Kreidel, her concerns also extend to the reputation of a school board that has been marked by dysfunction over the last year.

“I think electing a person who clearly has trouble with communication and comes across in a very demeaning and borderline abusive tone, that’s not what we need on a board filled with women,” she said. “I think that would add to the dysfunction.”

Contact Lorraine Longhi at 702-387-5298 or llonghi @reviewjournal.com. Follow her at @lolonghi on Twitter.