Longtime educator Shawn Carey said the massive leadership staff turnover at the Santa Barbara Unified School District needs to be examined, in the latest episode of the podcast “Santa Barbara Talks.”
Carey spent 26 years in the Santa Barbara Unified School District, with time as teacher, Dos Pueblos High School principal and eventually assistant superintendent of secondary instruction. In a stunning move, Carey voluntarily quit Santa Barbara Unified in June, and took a job as director of school and district support for the Santa Barbara County Office of Education.
“It’s widely known that there’s been an unusually high number of departure of administrators from Santa Barbara Unified over the past two years and I do think it is important and healthy to examine that,” Carey said.
The district has experienced an exodus of staff under the leadership of Superintendent Hilda Maldonado. Only one cabinet member remains from the day she was hired: Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources, John Becchio.
Maldonado was criticized heavily in an internal staff and teacher survey, teachers protested outside of the district’s headquarters, and eventually the board issued a letter to employees acknowledging the concerns around the superintendent.
In the May 2022 letter, the board said it would regularly include a superintendent evaluation as part of the school board’s closed session to provide meaningful, timely feedback to the superintendent; conduct a board survey of all staff twice during the year to assess progress; and hire a firm to hold voluntary exit interviews of employees, among other suggestions.
The change in culture at the top was one of the reasons Carey left, she said in the podcast.
“There also have been changes in just organizational culture and practice, and it became clear to me over time that those changes were just not so compatible with the practices that I have cultivated over time and in our local context,” Carey said. “Those professional differences, combined with some reflecting on what’s best for the wellbeing of my family prompted me to pursue what’s really a new growth opportunity.”
Carey in the podcast also talks about her commitment to diversity and inclusion. She mentioned the focus on social-emotional learning, and the ethnic studies graduation requirement.
“Those are not add-ons,” Carey said. “Those are not things that we ‘must do.’ That is where we must begin, by really putting all of the needs of the student at the center of our thinking about how best to have helped that student learn.
Educators need to understand all aspects of a student’s identity, Carey said.
“We’re not going to achieve transformational change without bravely letting go of things as we know them” Carey said.
Carey said students learn better when they are valued.
“If students are not fully present, in the form of being fully seen, fully valued, experiencing a sense of belonging, their learning is curtailed,” Carey said. “Their learning is curtailed.”
Carey also talks about growing up in West Virginia, her background as an athlete at UCSB, her family, and her future at the Office of Education.
Josh Molina has been a journalist in Santa Barbara for 20 years. He also covered City Hall for the San Jose Mercury News. In addition to working as a reporter at Noozhawk, he teaches journalism at Cal State University, Northridge and Santa Barbara City College. Please subscribe to his You Tube channel for more content.