Principal’s Firing Upheld by Board

At a meeting Tuesday punctuated by hisses from protesters, the Ventura County school board let stand a controversial decision to fire a principal who challenged his boss in a race for superintendent of schools.

The Ventura County Board of Education adopted a legal opinion from the Ventura County Counsel’s office that Supt. of Schools Charles Weis acted within his authority when he fired Principal Dan Flynn.

The decision sparked angry comments from about two dozen Flynn supporters in the audience, including one woman who announced her plans to run for the county board in November.

The board had asked for the county counsel’s opinion after an attorney for Flynn publicly called for county trustees to reinstate the principal.

Flynn, who had worked under Weis for three years as principal of the county’s three juvenile court schools, ran unsuccessfully against Weis for the superintendent’s position in the June 7 election.

Less than three weeks after the election, Weis told Flynn he was not renewing his contract effective July 1.

Although Weis has stated the firing was based solely on Flynn’s poor job performance, some of the principal’s supporters have charged that the action was a political pay-back.

Some Flynn supporters at Tuesday’s meeting used the public forum as an opportunity to assail Weis for the firing.

When board President John McGarry warned the protesters to confine their comments to the narrow legal topic of the specially called meeting, some people hissed while others yelled out that their right to freedom of speech was being suppressed.

Another Flynn supporter, Ventura resident Angela Miller, announced her plans to run this fall for the seat held by Trustee Juanita Sanchez-Valdez.