Quick Take
Morales’ resignation comes as the district has been mired in a budget crisis that has forced it to issue dozens of layoff notices to teachers, school workers and administrators and prompted the resignation and firing of two senior budget administrators. District officials now say some of those budget cuts may have been unnecessary.
Live Oak School District Superintendent Daisy Morales resigned Friday amid an escalating crisis that has seen senior budget administrators depart and the district issue dozens of layoff notices, some of which officials now say may have been unnecessary.
Morales announced her resignation in a letter to the Live Oak School District community, saying she writes “with a heavy heart and a deep sense of responsibility.” Her last day will be June 30.
“I have heard your concerns, and I take them to heart,” she wrote in a note sent to staff, teachers and parents, which several people shared with Lookout. “Upon reflecting on my time here, I acknowledge my imperfections.”
In a press release, district officials said the governing board entered into an agreement with Morales for her resignation during Wednesday’s board meeting. The board will start its search for a new superintendent immediately.
“The board and superintendent Morales have reached an arrangement believing it is in their respective best interests as well as the best interest of our educational community,” board president Kristin Pfotenhauer wrote.
Morales didn’t respond to a request for comment Friday but provided the district’s press release about her resignation.
Board member Jeremy Ray said Morales’ resignation is unfortunate. He added that the board thought Morales had the right skill set and motivations when they hired her.
“I feel like certainly mistakes were made,” he said. “Priorities were probably put on objectives and measures more so than relationships sometimes, and that leaves us where we are.”
Morales’ resignation comes as the district has been mired in a budget crisis that has forced it to issue dozens of layoff notices to teachers, school workers and administrators and prompted the resignation and firing of two senior budget administrators.
In January, the County Office of Education told the district that it wouldn’t meet its financial obligations in the 2024-25 year and subsequent years, based on a budget report prepared by the school district. Because of that, the COE gave the budget a negative certification, which required the district to develop a fiscal stabilization plan with significant cuts to avoid a takeover by the state.
However, district officials now say that the report provided to the COE, which triggered the negative certification, had errors and that the negative certification was likely unnecessary.
Ray said the district probably would have had to make some cuts regardless, but said there would have been no need for the district to draft a fiscal stabilization plan, no threat of a state takeover and fewer layoff notices.
“If it was done correctly, we would have still had to issue layoff notices by March 15,” he said. “It would have been fewer positions, because when you’re being forced to develop a fiscal stabilization plan under the threat of state receivership, you have to have a little cushion. So we had to propose reducing more positions than we would have.”
Morales acknowledged the issues in her resignation letter. “Errors were made,” she wrote, “with the most recent being an avoidable negative budget certification that led to unnecessary stress and hardship for many.”
Ray said the COE should have looked at the report more closely. “There should have been more due diligence done to make sure everything was accurate,” he told Lookout.
On Wednesday, the district’s former assistant superintendent of business services, Hanwool Kim, urged the board to look into terminating Morales, saying he had been fired on Tuesday without warning.
Kim and Assistant Superintendent of Human Resource Heidi Winner Odom were in charge of drafting Live Oak School District’s budget stabilization plan. Odom announced her resignation last month. Her last day is June 30.
On Feb. 27, the teachers union issued a vote of no confidence in Morales for the budget crisis and creating a poor working environment. The teachers wrote in their resolution that Morales’ behavior has left her “employees with low morale, frustrated and insecure.”
The vote of no-confidence accused Morales of allowing a business department to “operate irresponsibly” resulting in the current crisis, to have “non-existent” communication during the crisis, use “unprofessional and disrespectful language in negotiations or conversations with labor unions” and hire “unqualified personnel for upper administration,” among other accusations.
Del Mar Elementary School kindergarten teacher Henrique Coura said Morales lost his trust and the trust of the district’s teachers. When he learned about her resignation, he said he wasn’t surprised.
“That’s what she should have done,” he said. “That’s the only way out of it.”
Lauren Pomrantz, co-president of the teachers’ union, said the union is “relieved” by Morales’ resignation and teachers can now move forward.
“This crisis, leadership and fiscal, has required too many hours of work and advocacy which has taken away from students, caregivers as well as our own families,” she said. “We acknowledge the difficult decisions that the board had to make to arrive at this outcome but we feel her resignation and the restructuring of the district office is in the service to students, caregivers and all [union] members.”
Ray said Morales, along with the district leadership and the board, will focus for the next couple of months on what positions will be maintained and which ones will receive final layoff notices by May.
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