Quick Take
After Aptos High School Principal Alison Hanks-Sloan announced that she wouldn’t be returning to the school as principal next year, teachers and parents were shocked and confused. The father of Hanks-Sloan told Lookout he has seen a letter from the district’s human resources department that informs Hanks-Sloan that she’s being reassigned from her position, and isn’t a resignation letter.
After he read articles about his daughter published in local news outlets, Rick Hanks started emailing reporters to inform them that his daughter, Aptos High Principal Alison Hanks-Sloan, did not in fact resign as district officials had said publicly.
On March 14, Hanks-Sloan announced to the school community that she wasn’t returning to her position next year. Shocked at the news, teachers and parents told Lookout that Hanks-Sloan loves her job, is a caring leader and wouldn’t just leave. They believed she was pushed out by Pajaro Valley Unified School District.
District officials repeatedly told Lookout that Hanks-Sloan resigned from her position but declined repeated requests to provide Hanks-Sloan’s letter of resignation or her reason for leaving, citing confidentiality. Hanks-Sloan declined to comment to Lookout for its reporting.
Frustrated with the news reports about his daughter, Hanks emailed media outlets, including The Pajaronian and Lookout, to say that his daughter had been “released and reassigned” from her position at the high school and had not resigned.
“PVUSD ‘officials’ can’t keep informing the press that Dr. AHS ‘resigned,’” he wrote to Lookout. “I, however, have seen the letter that PVUSD sent Alison.”
He shared a paragraph of the letter that Hanks-Sloan received from the district’s human resources department on March 6.
“In accordance with Education Code section 44591 and other applicable provisions of law, you will be released and reassigned from your position as Principal, Aptos High School at the conclusion of the 2024-25 school year,” it reads. “This decision was made at the District’s Board of Education meeting on March 5, 2025. The district will inform you by June 30, 2025, of your particular assignment for the 2025-2026 school year.”
Hanks said his daughter wasn’t aware of his efforts to reach out to local media to correct the public record.
On Monday, Pajaro Valley Unified School District officials did not respond to requests for comment about why they had said that Hanks-Sloan resigned and if she’ll continue working in the district next year.
Days after the district’s governing board approved her reassignment, Hanks-Sloan published a column in the Aptos Times about the role of school district governing boards and how the superintendent works with school boards to make decisions – noting how a superintendent has the power under California’s Education Code to reassign administrators.
“Many of these decisions must be made under the Ed Code guidelines and timelines,” she wrote. “For example, if the superintendent chooses to reassign administrators (principals, assistant principals, supervisors, etc.) in these closed-door discussions, the board must approve it before March 15. Then it would be effective July 1. The superintendent needs no official basis for the removal.”
In the column, Hanks-Sloan also wrote about how constituents vote for their represented board member and how each voter, parent and student can contact their board member with concerns, gratitude or questions.
“Remember that the school board member represents you,” she wrote. “Use your voice and stay informed.”
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