San Miguel Joint Union School District has been plagued by problems for a long time.  The tiny, rural school district has been in the No Child Left Behind (“NCLB”) doghouse for years, consistently performing below expected levels.  Special education students have suffered greatly within the District.  In fact, it was a San Miguel student’s case that inspired us to launch SLOCOESDC.info in the first place, back in 2007.

On February 12, 2010, news broke on KSBY that Dean Smith, superintendent of the District and principal of Lillian Larsen Elementary School had been suddenly replaced with no explanation.

Cal Coast News subsequently reported that Smith had been replaced, at least temporarily, pending investigation of his relationship with a teenage girl and his job performance.  A later report indicated that the governing board of SMJUSD hired an investigator to look further into Smith’s alleged misconduct.  Yet another report accused Smith of ditching a superintendent’s conference (paid for by taxpayers) to spend time with his teenaged girlfriend.

Given that KPS4Parents has had several cases in SMJUSD and has had to contend with Smith and his outrageous conduct on numerous occasions, we are following these developments with great interest.  We will be compiling all the reports we can find here and relating what is uncovered by the ongoing investigation to what we already know from past experience for the benefit of our readers.

We will also be watching with great interest the performance of Marshall Dennis, the assistant principal who has suddenly found himself the acting superintendent of the District for the moment.  Dennis has been observed bullying students on both of the District’s two campuses and keeps a clay jar in his office with a label describing its contents as the ashes of “problem students.”