Baker superintendent asked to quit

• By JAMES MINTON
• Advocate Baker - Zachary bureau
• Published: Jun 21, 2008 - Page: 1B - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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BAKER — The Baker School Board voted Thursday night to pay Superintendent John C. Bowman $125,000 to quit, but members never mentioned the terms when they voted to “accept his resignation.”

The board added the item to the agenda to begin the meeting, but members did not refer to the terms outlined in a two-page agreement they were handed in their package of meeting materials.

The agreement shows Bowman was pushed out after serving less than a year on the job.

The document says the board “has decided that it is in the best interest of the City of Baker Public School System that the contract be terminated, and the superintendent agrees to the cessation of the contract” under several specified conditions.

Board President Dana Carpenter refused to show the agreement to a reporter who asked to see Bowman’s resignation “letter,” although the document says Bowman agrees that it “will serve as his written resignation.”

Questioned after the meeting, member Doris Alexander alluded to a document pertaining to Bowman’s resignation but said she was not at liberty to share it.

The board also did not take a roll-call vote to accept Bowman’s resignation, leading some in the audience to believe that only George Gallman voted against it when Carpenter asked who opposed the motion.

Member Jane Freudenberger said Friday she also voted against the motion, apparently leaving Carpenter, Alexander and Pam Malveaux in a 3-2 majority.

Gallman said Friday night he thought Bowman was doing a good job but the board was not letting him do his job. He also said some “board members evidently had meetings that other members didn’t know about.”

Bowman declined to comment Thursday night and again Friday.

Bowman’s contract called for an annual salary of $98,000, a $300-per-month car allowance and a $100 cell phone stipend.

In addition to paying Bowman $125,000 to settle the board’s contract obligations, the agreement calls for the board to reimburse him for “all outstanding documented travel expenses” for attending a June 16-17 Boston, Mass., conference on text analysis, the use of computers to examine unstructured data for common themes.

Bowman told the board in a public interview session last year he had used the technique to analyze thousands of pupil disciplinary reports in Lafourche Parish, where he was a middle school supervisor.