Lyon school trustees take superintendent disputes to mediation

Lyon County School Superintendent Nat Lommori will not face administrative action in regard to conflicts with the Lyon County School Board.

The board decided Wednesday to choose a mediator to help work out problems between Lommori and board members.

"I'm pleased," Lommori said. "I think we need to move forward."

According to board Chairman Russ Colletta, the board has a list of mediators and will choose one who will work with board member James Huckaby.

The mediator will solicit information from all board members and create a list of issues that need to be worked out. The mediator will then sit down with Lommori and Huckaby to find a solution to those issues.

The vote of the board to mediate the situation was unanimous.

The problems brought up at previous meetings included:

• A failure to communicate and inform the board about various employee grievances and lawsuits, a failure to provide details about how attorneys have been retained to handle these matters and a failure to provide a status on these matters.

• The superintendent giving preferential treatment to certain administrative employees ... on step increases and salaries.

• Treating principals who have requested leaves of absences differently without explanation.

• Failure to include agenda topics on meeting notices once these topics have been requested by school board members.

• Failure to provide follow-up reports to the board on agenda topics once the board has so requested at a public meeting such as the topic concerning broken fire sprinkler pipes.

• Failure to have personnel subordinate to the superintendent carry out specific directives of the board.

"I think what the board decided was that most of these differences was about a lack of policy, because there was no policy, or an ambiguous policy regarding these issues," Colletta said.

The board agreed to set aside several hours at its second meeting of the month for the foreseeable future to take a look at all its policies.

Colletta was happy with the decision to go with a mediator.

"It's very difficult and very inefficient for us to try to do fact-finding at a public meeting," he said. "The mediator will identify clear issues that should be considered."

He said the dispute with Lommori had taken the board's time and focus away from other important issues.

"It has caused us to set aside very critical issues that he board needs to address," he said.

• Contact reporter Karen Woodmansee at kwoodmansee@nevadaappeal.com or 882-2111 ext. 351.