Dr. Z’s Final Hurrah
A Bubbaworld Editorial
The Tulsa School Board and “Dr. Z”, aka Tulsa Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Michael Zolkoski have agreed to what one might call an “amicable divorce”.
Maybe a “slow motion amicable divorce” would be a more accurate description of the breakup.
Unlike most scenarios where a high level manager departs an organization suddenly and rides a golden parachute gently into the sunset, Dr. Z’s departure is prolonged, a lot more prolonged with the golden parachute ride coming 90 days later.
Last Monday the Tulsa School Board and Superintendent Michael Zolkoski went through the motions of discussing and approving a “deal” that had been cooked up and apparently decided well before the executive session held for the benefit of us mere taxpayers.
Basically Zolkoski agreed to an offer from Tulsa Public Schools “buying out” his contract for $400,000 and in exchange Tulsa Public Schools gets to end the disaster that has been Zolkoski’s stint at the helm of the largest public school system in Oklahoma.
On the surface the deal sounds “reasonable”, in that Zolkoski’s salary was basically $200,000 per-year and he has two years left to run on his contract and the financial aspects of the deal coincide with the terms of the “termination without cause” (aka golden parachute) portion of Zolkoski’s employment contract.
What is grossly unreasonable about the TPS/Michael Zolkoski divorce settlement is permitting Zolkoski to remain at the helm of Tulsa Public Schools for another 90 days after the “divorce” is announced. This will take the ill-fated Zolkoski administration approximately two months into the 2008-2009 school year for Tulsa Public Schools.
Here we have a school board willing to pay a person TWO YEARS worth of salary NOT to work for them and yet they are going to let him hang around running the organization for three months!
Permitting Michael Zolkoski an additional 90 days to mismanage Tulsa Public Schools is not only a disgrace on the part of the school board, it is an insult to the taxpayers, parents and most of all students of Tulsa Public Schools who have had to endure “Dr. Z’s” management, or more accurately - mismanagement, for far too long already.
The last thing that the students of Tulsa Public Schools need is a lame-duck superintendent whose decisions, ideas and methods resulted in need for this “divorce” doing more of the same.
Now, what is it that saying about doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different result???
