Board Puts Superintendent Back on Monthly Contract

The superintendent of the Centinela Valley Union High School District has been returned to his former interim position and given a month-to-month contract that allows the school board to fire him with 30 days’ notice.

The newly seated board voted 4 to 1 last week to institute the new contract after alleging that Supt. John Rindone had been given a permanent three-year contract during a closed meeting in August in violation of the Brown Act, according to Eric Bathen, the board’s attorney. Rindone had been interim superintendent from July 1996 to August 1997.

“The most important thing a school board can do is hire a superintendent,” Bathen said. There is a new board majority now, and they feel they were locked into having Rindone. . . . The opportunity to select a new superintendent was not made available to them and they want to be able to look at the whole picture.”

Rindone claims the board’s decision was invalid.

“A Brown technicality, if it occurred, does not void a contract, only a court of law can void a contract,” Rindone said. “As far as I’m concerned I have a valid contract and I expect them to honor it.”