The Syracuse City School Board voted 4-3 in favor of extending Superintendent Sharon Contreras’ contract for one year. Some current school board members, such as Pat Body, raised concerns that the vote took place before newly elected board members start in January.
“The district faces so many issues at this point that I was hoping we could wait for a few weeks before we made this decision so that the board could become cohesive, bond a little before we made a decision that might be divisive in the community,” Body said.
Contreras said she thinks it would have been difficult for a new board who hasn’t evaluated her to vote on a contract extension. She said realizes that there are people who like and dislike the way the school district is moving forward.
“I don’t think that it’s anything different than what you see in urban school districts across the nation,” Contreras said. “But I am very optimistic that we will all work together on behalf of students because it’s really not about Sharon Contreras it’s about the 21,000 students that we serve.”
Contreras’ contract now runs through June 2017.
