Updated 3/29/23 09:00am

After an extremely long and eventful day at the School District, Board Chair Matt Susin made a motion to place Dr. Schiller, the recently hired interim superintendent on an indefinite administrative leave.

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The discussion item originated with documents that Susin placed on the agenda yesterday related to negotiations that he and Dr. Schiller were having about amending and clarifying his current contract. The conversation quickly turned to addressing issues that School Board Member Jennifer Jenkins brought up during an off-site meeting on January 9th, 2023 about concerns she expressed at the time relating to executed contracts and workplace issues communicated to her from other senior staff.

Once hired, Jenkins had concerns about Schiller unilaterally executing “consulting” contracts with individuals he may have had a professional relationship with for services that fell under his job description. When she requested to see the contract, the consultant suddenly became ill and cancelled the agreement.

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Other members of the board were encouraged to speak to staff members at that time about some of the issues brought forward.

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Yesterday, an email Dr. Schiller had sent Susin related to his contract was made public when it was placed on the agenda by Susin. Within that document was some very harsh criticisms of the actions the board had taken, and other personal attacks to individual board members. Florida Today published a story about the document a few hours before tonights regularly scheduled meeting.

Susin had the 12 page email since mid February, but waited until yesterday to bring it to the entire board’s attention

Between then and this evening, other issues began to come forward from other staff members about Dr. Schiller’s performance.

Board member Megan Wright stated that she was very disappointed to see some of the things Dr. Schiller stated in his “diatribe” regarding the newly elected board, and the consulting firm the board hired to search for a new superintendent.

“I just don’t see how we come back from this, and go forward,” she said.

Susin agreed, and made the motion to place Dr. Schiller on administrative leave indefinitely. The motion passes unanimously.

As a result, the board asked that Dr. Sue Hann fill in as acting superintendent going forward, to which she agreed.

It is unlikely that Dr. Schiller will return to his position prior to the hiring of a new superintendent, which the board has targeted for accomplishing by early May.

So far only 11 applications have been received for the position, nationwide. In comparison, during the last vacancy which Dr. Mullins was selected for, there were over 100 applications received for the position.

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