On the heels of the Sedona-Oak Creek School District Governing Board agreeing to give two teachers on the verge of retirement full-time positions after facing public backlash, the board voted against rehiring 61-year-old Fred Barton, another 29-year employee of the school who was set to retire after one more year.

During the Tuesday, Feb. 4 SOCSD Governing Board meeting at West Sedona School, substitute and former WSS Montessori teacher Patricia Falsetto and WSS art teacher Jessica Nelson thanked the board for agreeing to give them full-time positions for the 2020-21 school year, although exactly what the jobs will be are still unclear.

Nelson also told the board that with their “humane” change of heart to move her from half-time to full-time, which allowed her to keep her health insurance she uses to help pay for her cancer treatment, she “can only hope that this will usher in a new era of respect, transparency, communication and kindness that will determine the fate of my fellow colleagues.”

However, the fate of one of Nelson’s colleagues was sealed for the worse by the end of the meeting. Barton’s title is plant foreman, and since 1991 he has been doing everything from overseeing construction projects to maintaining the energy management system and mowing lawns at the schools. He described himself as “essentially a one-person maintenance department” throughout his tenure in the district. Barton’s wife, Maureen, has also worked in the district for 18 years as a journalism teacher.

“There are four significant days of my 29-year career with the Sedona-Oak Creek School District, which are relevant to today’s meeting,” Barton told the board. He went on to reflect on how he had felt proud when he was hired on July 1, 1991 by the then-SOCSD Governing Board, which he said supported him whole-heart­edly on things like being responsible for overseeing the construction of Sedona Red Rock High School and the Big Park Community School in 1994. Barton saw Big Park Community School through its creation and subsequent closure. The next significant date that Barton mentioned was after BPCS’ closure on June 26, 2018:

“This was the day when a fellow administrator dropped a bookcase on my foot and shattered it in the back of a U-Haul truck during the move of the Big Park school,” he said.

Barton said that his foot still isn’t recovered from the accident, and he had to file workers compensation, go to many medical appointments and was out of work while he healed it. Barton said that on June 21, 2019, he met with SOCSD administration on what they told him would be a meeting on his “future plans.”

“I was told at the begin­ning of the meeting that I had excessive absenteeism of 50 days,” he said. “In the first few minutes of the meeting I was told, ‘I would rather see you retire and go out with dignity than for me to fire you. That’s kind of where I’m at right now. I’m probably going to move in that direction, to terminate you.’”

While Superintendent Dennis Dearden didn’t deny he said this, he added, “There was a reason for that three-hour meeting,” and that Barton was “taking one part of a three-hour meeting and sharing that, but there is much more than that.”

Barton said the days of absence were earned and accrued by him through the years and approved by the district, and his time off was spent at medical appointments, resting his foot on doctor’s orders and helping his 99-year-old father-in-law after a stroke. Barton also noted that, “10 of these days were bereavement days I used to bury both my father and my mother, who died within a five-month period.”

The final significant day in Barton’s career that he mentioned was Feb. 4, 2020 — the day of the board meeting.

“This is the day you are going to vote on whether or not to approve the district’s recommendation regarding my contract,” he told the board. “I do not want to leave the district after 29 years. I had no plans to retire until completing my 30th year.”

After the board went ahead with approving the next school year’s jobs for the administration, teachers and hourly workers, Board President Randy Hawley asked Board Vice President Heather Hermen and board members Lauren Robinson, Karen McClleland and Karl Wiseman to vote on the termination of some employees’ contracts, including Barton’s. Hawley said the employees facing cuts represented “a reduction in force caused by a lack of sufficient funds.”

Wiseman brought up the fact that at the Jan. 21 budget meeting, a new administra­tive position of student funds coordinator was confirmed.

“So is this really caused by a reduction of funding or is it really moving some­body out to move somebody in?” Wiseman asked. “I’m not convinced that moving Mr. Barton from our ranks is such a good idea.”

Hermen also said she was concerned with removing Barton from the district.

“There’s a message that’s being sent that our senior staff is somehow disposable at the end of their career and I think that sometimes we have to make changes,” she said.

Long-time SRRHS teacher Jerrin Morgan pleaded with the board before their decision as well. 

“I’m sure when you look at the nuts and bolts of it and the numbers, it makes perfect sense, but when you look at our family, it doesn’t make perfect sense,” she said of the other long-term employees. “It just feels like this has become corpo­rate America, where we’re looking at those hard-earned teachers who have been here 25 to 30 years and are making the most money, and we’re taking them out one by one by one. And he — I know, is not a teacher — but he’s the glue that holds this all together.”

The board, Dearden and Heather Shaw-Burton, head of human resources and finance, discussed going back to the drawing board and reallocating funds for the 2020-21 budget to include Barton working another year. Hermen mentioned that she thought teachers would be OK with receiving two-step raises instead of the three-step raises that they were promised, at least for a year, so that one of their fellow employees could finish 30 years. But in the end, the board expedited the vote. Hawley, Robinson and McClleland voted to keep the recommendation and not rehire Barton. Hermen and Wiseman voted to reconsider hiring Barton.

The 3-2 vote means Barton’s job will be terminated, and unless he qualifies for an open job that will come up within the district, he will be forced to retire. Retiring at 29 years versus 30 years means funds earned throughout retirement will be much less. For the board, it means saving $84,450 from employee salary, benefits and insurance costs, according to the Budget Plan Powerpoint given at the Jan. 21 prior meeting.

“It is an unfortunate situ­ation. But don’t think we haven’t made any sacrifices here,” Dearden said of how the administration has had to double up on positions without pay increases to take the district out of debt. Hawley added that the decision wasn’t arbitrary or based on Barton being near retirement.

“It wasn’t that [the admin­istration] picked out names of people they wanted to get rid of …. They looked at the positions that were no longer needed because they’re being accomplished in other ways,” he said. “It’s my understanding that a part of this issue was that we now have electronic systems — computerized systems for maintenance — that makes it much less necessary to keep as many people in that position as we have.”