UPPER LAKE, Calif. – At its Tuesday evening meeting, the new Upper Lake Unified School District Board took action to officially hire its first employee and met in closed session to discuss hiring two others.

The board unanimously approved a memorandum of understanding with the Upper Lake Union High School District that will allow the high school's Principal/Superintendent Patrick Iaccino to also act as interim superintendent of the district.

He has agreed to fill the interim position for six months, with no additional pay.

Iaccino is one of the architects of the effort to successfully unify the high school district with the Upper Lake Union Elementary School District.

The two existing districts will officially cease to exist on June 30, at which point they will be fully unified under the new Upper Lake Unified School District.

The meeting of the new district board at the Upper Lake High School library followed by an hour a special meeting in the same room of the Upper Lake Union High School District Board – whose members include Keith Austin and Claudine Pedroncelli, who serve jointly on the new board – to approve the same agreement.

Board member Diane Plante questioned the briefness of the memorandum of understanding, saying she was expecting it to be more specific in outlining the tasks expected of the interim superintendent.

Iaccino noted that it was intentionally left broad, explaining there are many tasks and he understands what's ahead.

Plante referred to the language that said there will be some time and some services provided. Iaccino replied that, in truth, there will be a lot of time and a lot of services necessary.

Upper Lake Union Elementary School District Superintendent Valerie Gardner said she had worked with Iaccino on the tasks that need to be done. “We thought what we would be doing is bringing to you our suggestion,” she said, noting that the board also has a consultant hired to help give them the bigger picture.

“It's so detailed what we've already done, I don't know how you could put that in a document,” she said, adding that it would be good to offer an update on the subject during a board workshop planned for this Saturday at the high school.

Iaccino confirmed that the board will be updated on the work being done to finalize the unification process at that workshop.

“A lot of this is new,” he said, and not just to the new district but to state officials due to some changes in educational rules.

“It's a work in progress. It's things that are going to change over time,” he said, adding all of that is difficult to include in a document.

Additionally, he said the legal services firm serving the new district drafted the document and it was purposefully left ambiguous and broad.

Gardner said it also was difficult to say who would do what tasks, and ultimately the board would have the final say.

Claudine Pedroncelli asked what Iaccino's hiring as interim would mean for the high school district.

“I don't leave them high and dry,” he said, explaining he has met with his management team, the members of which may need to take on some additional tasks as they work to dissolve the current district over the next five months.

Austin said that the agreement ultimately has nothing to do with Iaccino but is between the two districts, explaining that the high school is choosing to allow Iaccino serve in the interim superintendent role.

Wally Holbrook, the former Lake County superintendent of schools whose firm Education Leadership Solutions was hired to consult with the district on board training, establishing procedures and other matters, told the board that, as written, the memorandum of understanding also gives them a lot of flexibility, and it can be amended.

After the Saturday workshop the situation will become clearer and the board and Iaccino may want to make updates to the document, Holbrook said.

The board voted to accept the agreement 5-0, then Board President Mel O'Meara invited Iaccino up to take his place at the table along with the board members, getting applause from the small audience of teachers and staff as he took his seat.

The board also approved a resolution authorizing Iaccino to sign orders and other documents on behalf of the governing board for the time period of Jan. 1 to June 30.

Iaccino said there will be times when they will need more than one signature on certain documents, and he wanted to add one or two more people to the list of approved signatories.

Gardner said that it would be appropriate to have representatives of both districts on the list of approved signatories. Iaccino agreed, and suggested Gardner and her chief business officer, Becky Jeffries, should be added, along with his chief business officer, Sue Milhaupt.

“There's no way all four of us are not going to be here,” Iaccino said.

Milhaupt cautioned that there will be certain documents she and Jeffries cannot sign due to a conflict of interest, with Gardner noting that between the four of them they could cover what needed to be signed.

Austin pointed out that Iaccino is a district employee and asked if Gardner was, too. Gardner said she wasn't. “So that's an interesting point,” she said.

Austin said the Lake County Office of Education has said that Jeffries and Milhaupt can both be signatories for the new district.

It was decided that the board would go ahead and accept the signing authorization document with only Iaccino's name on it and bring back an updated list of signatories at its next meeting.

Board members didn't believe there would be a need for more signers in the interim, with both Jeffries and Milhaupt noting that the new district didn't yet have a bank account.

Holbrook and his partner in the consulting firm, Richard Smith, then briefly went over the agenda for the Saturday board training workshop, which along with the board will include Iaccino and Gardner, and Jeffries and Milhaupt.

The workshop begins at 10 a.m. in the library at the high school, 675 Clover Valley Road.

Holbrook said the public is welcome to attend but the primary participation will come from the board and the district officials.

During his first report as interim superintendent, Iaccino said he visited the elementary school, noting that every high school teacher should regularly spend time with the little children in the grade school.

“That's a whole other ballgame,” he said, adding it was a lot of fun. Next up, he plans to visit the middle school.
The open session of the meeting lasted just over half an hour before the board went into a closed session to discuss the district's administrative configuration and the hiring of a new chief business official.

The board returned nearly two hours later and reconvened briefly to announce that it had taken three actions.

The actions taken, O'Meara said, included wanting to pursue a memorandum of understanding with Dina McCrea, Iaccino's administrative assistant at the high school, to serve as support staff for the new unified district.

Second, the board wants to enter into discussions and meet to put together a proposed contract with Iaccino to serve as superintendent of the new district from July 1 of this year through June 30, 2017.

Third, the board wants to enter into discussions with Jeffries to possibly become the new district's chief business officer.

The board's next regular meeting will be at 5 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 9, in the high school library.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.