At a meeting on Dec. 12, the Mingus Union High School District Governing Board unanimously approved contract addendums for Mingus Union High School Principal Genie Gee and Finance Director Lynn Leonard, giving them additional responsibilities as, respectively, acting superintendent and Human Resources director following the resignation of former Mingus Union High School District Superintendent Penny Hargrove last month.
The supplemental contracts include additional compensation of $1,500 per month for Gee and an additional $750 for Leonard. Gee will also receive $85 per month for use of her personal phone.
“We’ve got a really supportive school board and community and a strong school,” Gee said. “I’m encountering some situations that I haven’t encountered before as a school principal. But by reaching out with our consultant or brainstorming with the team it’s been successful.”
At a previous meeting on Nov. 28, the board also approved a consulting services agreement for Gail Malay, a former superintendent of the Lake Havasu school district, in order to provide help to Gee and Leonard with the transition.
“I came over on the 28th, and I met with the principal — Genie — and Lynn Leonard,” Malay said. “I walked away from meeting those two women going, ‘wow, they are really committed to the Mingus Union High School District and its students. These two women want to do a really good job. And really, what I’m doing is partnering with them and facilitating.”
Malay taught for 15 years in the Lake Havasu Unified School District before moving up to prin- cipal of Nautilus Elementary, then into human resources and personnel director for the district. She spent time working in human resources in the private sector, before moving back to education as the superintendent.
Board member Jim Ledbetter had worked as counsel for Lake Havasu Union High School District on behalf of his law firm and got to know Malay through that. He saw her as a perfect fit to help the Mingus Union High School District administrators take over the superintendent duties.
“I’d seen her as a positive force in schools and someone who cares about kids, cares about education, and really cares about the people with whom she works,” Ledbetter said.
“I’ve reached out to her a few times for some advice and she is phenomenal,” Gee said. “What I most appreciate from her is her wisdom, but also the fact that she and I are similar in how we view education and our role with people. It’s love, partnered with accountability. She gives advice based on her mindset and she’s really great. She doesn’t offer advice that makes me worried about putting it in action.”
Gee and Malay said that one of the major points of Malay’s
advice concerned the importance of increased communication, which she said is different for a superintendent than a principal.
“We’re in an information-rich environment so we’ve got to commu- nicate more than once,” Malay said.
Leonard had previously worked as a human resources director in both Sedona and Beaver Creek, and said that the transition hasn’t been too difficult.
“If I’d walked through the door and I didn’t have a year here, then it would be a little bit harder, but having a year to become accustomed to the way things work at Mingus and to put some systems in place of my own that I feel comfortable with, makes it a lot easier to handle.”
Leonard said that this is actually a good time of year for this kind of upheaval, coming right before winter break and in the middle of the school year. She did not feel too busy to be able to take on the extra tasks.
Gee said she similarly feels able to handle the extra work load for the time being, but hopes that the school board can find a more permanent solution in the near future. She said she hopes to do her best to serve the school for as long as she is handling the dual roles.
“There’s a weightiness to it,” Gee said. “The superintendent is the decision maker of the school. And so with all of the things to consider — politically, financially, all of those other things — if anything I have a much greater appreciation for the role of a district in what happens with a school. All of my experience has been on school side with students and teachers, and I feel really comfortable with what that looks like. But learning what goes on in the district, there’s a lot of time and intention and hard work that goes into making sure that a district functions efficiently. So I think that my eyes were opened.”
Jon Hecht can be reached at 634-8551, or email jhecht@larsonnewspapers.com
