Supt. Smidt of Ojai Valley Unified Resigns Unexpectedly : Education: His announcement comes amid calls for his ouster. He will leave at end of school year.

Andrew C. Smidt, superintendent of the Ojai Valley Unified School District for the past 12 years, resigned unexpectedly at a school board meeting Tuesday night amid a growing outcry for his removal.

Smidt maintains that his resignation is unrelated to the grass-roots movement by angry parents to oust him.

He said he began negotiations for his new job as deputy superintendent of schools for the Santa Barbara County Department of Education before the controversial resignation of Nordhoff High School’s popular principal last month.

Smidt, who has been involved in education for nearly 40 years, said he will finish out the school year. He was praised by the school board and a handful of members in the audience for his tenure. But few others had kind words for the embattled superintendent at Tuesday night’s meeting.

The timing of Smidt’s surprise announcement appeared suspect to many in the audience. Moments after Smidt’s announcement, the board of education was presented with a petition with more than 200 signatures asking for Smidt’s removal.

Petition organizers said they will work to recall the five-member school board and oust Smidt before June.

They are angry with Smidt and the board because they hold them responsible for Principal Michael Maez’s resignation.

Maez resigned just weeks after this school year started to accept a position as director of child welfare and attendance at the Desert Sands Unified School District near Indio.

Maez and his supporters maintain he was shoved out of town by Smidt and the school board.

“Knowing that support at the top did not exist . . . I withdrew from the playing field,” Maez wrote in a letter read by a supporter to the audience of 100.

The board maintained it knew nothing about Maez’s apparent dissatisfaction and had given him its full support during his two-year tenure. Smidt pointed out that Maez was hired at his recommendation and that Maez’s contract was renewed early last year at his suggestion.

“There’s a perception out there that we could have asked him to stay on,” Smidt said. “But he asked to be released from his contract and was anxious to assume his new position.”

Maez’s wife, Diane, who attended the school board meeting, disputed Smidt’s account of her husband’s resignation.

“Andy [Smidt] told him he only had the support of one board member and my husband believed him,” she said. “Someone isn’t telling the truth.”

The evening was filled with angry speeches by parents and heartfelt responses from board members pleading with the rancorous audience to believe them when they say nothing amiss occurred.

“I have no hidden agenda, no ax to grind and no political connections,” board member Karen McBride said to the heckling audience. “Mike Maez was not forced to leave. He [said] he left because his new position was a promotion.”

But McBride’s words seemed to fall on deaf ears.

“They lied to us,” said audience member Deborah Moe. “This was a farce.”

“Nothing has been resolved for me,” said Bill Barrett of Ojai.

Board members left the meeting just as frustrated, and surprised by the amount of hostility.

Said Rikki Horne: “I am not a liar.”