Unanswered Questions About Big Decisions at Sonoma Valley Unified School District

Community Is in the Dark

By Anna Pier

At the regular June 5 regular meeting of the Sonoma Valley Unified School District trustees, County Superintendent of Schools Dr. Amie Carter presented a proposal for a collaborative intervention with the District, focused on two essential issues: the budget deficit and the search for a new Superintendent. Her intervention included deploying two retired superintendents to work with the Board and District staff.  Two members of the Board, President Catarina Landry and Trustee David Bell, were designated to represent the Board on an AdHoc Advisory Committee that Dr. Carter requested, specifically to address the search for a new superintendent and school consolidation. They also identified communication with the community as a focus area. 

Despite that, there has been a noticeable lack of communication from the District or the Board over the summer, even though they have been meeting and working.

With the first day of the school year 2025-26 two weeks away, we asked the Board President about the work of the Ad Hoc committee, especially with regard to the superintendent search. This is the entire response:

The ad hoc advisory committee, comprised of two board members from Sonoma Valley Unified School District, the SVUSD administrative team and SCOE advisors has defined the following primary focus areas :

1. Leadership support services and transitional issues, including strategies around school consolidation and continued financial stability.
2. Fiscal oversight and budget planning, to ensure sound long‑term financial health during key district transitions, including school consolidations and budget reserve planning.
3. Facilitate the Superintendent search, including a local and experienced retired superintendent (Brandon Krueger) to conduct the search on behalf of the board to include community engagement. 
4. Communications, partnership will offer strategies, tools, and guidance to help strengthen internal communication systems and ensure more effective and consistent messaging with labor partners and across the district/community. 
5. Master scheduling consultation, SCOE has offered to provide consultation services related to master scheduling at the secondary level with the aim of identifying potential cost-saving opportunities. 

The AdHoc committee has met three times to strategize and collaborate primarily on school consolidation, and the superintendent search. Brandon Krueger will be engaging with as many stakeholder groups as possible including district leadership meetings, site admin meetings, school staff meetings, School Site Council (SSC) meetings, PTA/PTO meetings, Student Council/School Leadership meetings, labor partners and community partners and local non-profits. These meetings will begin in the Fall, and once the schedule has been developed it will be shared with the community.

Meanwhile, we in the community are in the dark about the questions basic to the superintendent search: when, where, what are they looking for, and how will the search for a new superintendent be conducted. Likewise, since the Trustees rescinded their vote to close Flowery, we have not heard any more about the  decision on which elementary school to close, a decision slated to be made by December of this year.  The Study Session on this subject has not been announced, but can be found on the large calendar on the District website, for August 20, but once again, at 3:00 in the afternoon, not a time available for much of the community. As of press time, we have not seen an Agenda for the regular August 14 Board meeting.