The Canyons Board of Education issued this statement at the regularly scheduled Board meeting on Tuesday, April 17, 2012.
The statement was read by Dr. Paul McCarty, a member of the Canyons Board of Education.
“The Canyons Board of Education would like to reiterate its full and unequivocal support of Superintendent David Doty. We are his direct supervisors, and for four years have worked closely with him as he has led our District. We believed he was the right person to lead this District when we hired him four years ago. And we are even more convinced now that he is the right person to lead Canyons School District.
Furthermore, we find the recent KSL-TV news story about him to be completely baseless and the product of shoddy, unethical and intentionally biased journalism. Additionally, the District has on three separate occasions provided KSL-TV with written statements outlining our position on the issues they claim to be covering. In each case they have ignored our statements. Unfortunately, we have become familiar with treatment from KSL-TV. Last year, they aired a story on the Canyons School District K-3 testing program, which was also biased and filled with errors. Even though KSL-TV has been made aware of the factual inaccuracies in their story, more than a year later they continue to promote the story on their Web site.
It now appears that certain members of our community would like to use this malicious reporting to further their own political agenda. KSL-TV is poised and ready to assist them to that end. It is disappointing that an institution such as KSL-TV, which enjoys a prominent position in our community, cannot be more careful, ethical and objective in their reporting.
With regard to the employee transfers that have come into question, the Board obviously cannot and will not comment in public about personnel matters. However, we would like to state on the record that we were briefed on the transfers and the reasons for them before they were made. We unanimously supported them. After the transfers were made approximately eight months ago, about the same time KSL-TV conducted the interviews, we became aware of these allegations. As a Board, we re-examined the transfers and the way they were handled and found that they were correctly and appropriately handled.
For the last three years, each year we have been in operation, we have had budget cuts totaling more than $10 million. Our No. 1 priority for dealing with these budget shortfalls has been to make sure that they have the least possible impact on the classroom. At the same time we are trying to prepare our students for the increasingly competitive demands of a global marketplace. For these and other reasons we have been forced to make sure all of our resources are maximized. Part of this process has been to reduce Central Office costs, and required administrative transfers. We are glad that we have been able to adapt to the significant challenges without layoffs of any kind.
By comparison, KSL-TV’s news media partner recently decided to shift its organization to a ‘more competitive model’ and in doing so laid off over half its work force. We wonder if their employees, rather than being laid-off, would have appreciated the opportunity to transfer to a different position where they could still make important and valuable contributions. While they were not given that choice, Canyons District has gone to great lengths to protect employees from this kind of treatment.
The Canyons School District is home to the best students, teachers and administrators to be found anywhere. We would like to offer our sincere thanks to our teachers and administrators for joining with us in making sure our students receive the best possible education and are college- and career-ready when leaving our schools. You have our heartfelt admiration and appreciation. Thank you.”
