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Sometimes all I can do is shake my head and chuckle while processing the disbelief that slaps me across the face with certain breaking news.
That’s where I was reading the community message from Pleasanton Unified School District Board President Justin Brown on June 24 that, after all the time and money spent over the past 14 months, the Board of Trustees landed on asking interim Maurice Ghysels to come out of retirement to serve as permanent superintendent for the next two years.
Credit to this school board for not making an outside hire they were uncomfortable with, despite undergoing an expensive executive search process — this district has certainly been down that road before, and it can be even more costly.
The thing is, though, you can have an OK outcome (maybe even the best available) and still be held accountable for the embarrassing, avoidable path you took to get there.
And I don’t see any other conclusion to reach about this dawdle-then-rush process, which was a chest-puffing exercise to begin with, ending with the thud of selecting a candidate not generated from the $63,000 consultant’s recruitment nor from the district’s own cream of the crop but by waiting until the last minute to tap the stopgap leader, who by his own admission had been “ready to ride off into the sunset”, to unretire again.
Well, that and the takeaway that Ghysels bailed the board out big time.
Brown defended the process and decision on Tuesday after I asked him direct questions about my premise.
“I would characterize the outcome not as a fallback, but as the result of a careful and deliberate process,” Brown told me. “The board exercised its responsibility to identify the most qualified and effective leader. We followed the process to its natural conclusion and arrived at the candidate who demonstrated deepest alignment with the needs of our students, staff, and broader community.”
He added, “Superintendent Ghysels’ performance during his interim period, combined with the insights gained through the search, gave the board real-time understanding of his leadership, strategic thinking, and ability to unify the district. This informed our final decision to promote Dr. Ghysels to the permanent role.”
Brown’s observations about Ghysels’ leadership in 2024-25 are actually pretty in line with my own, as well as other sources I’ve spoken to in recent months. Ghysels guided PUSD through a particularly difficult budget cycle, plus he’s a Don through and through – an Amador Valley High School graduate who then began his teaching career there in the 1970s.
Importantly, too, Ghysels is excited and inspired by the chance to lead his hometown district for a longer term.
“I didn’t expect this opportunity, but having been through the interim experience and now stepping into this permanent role, I feel deeply committed to seeing our work through,” he told me on Tuesday. “I plan to serve through June 2027, and I’m excited about what we can accomplish together. There’s important work ahead, and I’m proud to be a part of a district that puts students first and values collaboration, excellence, and community.”
Still, there’s no way this time last year – heck, even this time last month – that the clear choice for the immediate future should’ve been running it back with Ghysels, who had to be coaxed back into public employment to lead PUSD for (only) the 2024-25 year in the first place.
Now the former retiree has a two-year contract, when the trustees’ implied goal was to come out of this spring with their superintendent for the next five to 10 years.
No matter how you shake it, the board’s search couldn’t end with this air of desperation. It just couldn’t. But it did, so it’s time to move forward … after debriefing the lessons learned.
How we got here
It’s fascinating to look back at how Pleasanton’s process played out.
David Haglund announced in April 2024 that he would be retiring as superintendent that summer after seven years leading PUSD and made it known he felt the board should enact his succession plan by elevating deputy superintendent Ed Diolazo – a remarkable power play.
The school board at the time clapped back, opting to bring in a temporary supe and undertake a comprehensive superintendent search during the 2024-25 school year.
That interim would be Ghysels, who had been a superintendent twice on the Peninsula and was retired from public employment but still doing some work as a private consultant.
“When the board chose to pursue a comprehensive, open search in 2024 – rather than move directly to succession – we did so out of respect for our governance role and to ensure legitimacy in the eyes of our community,” Brown told me. “That decision was right then, and I believe it remains the right call now.”
Weirdly, Ghysels’ initial interim contract didn’t really address that he could only work for three months as a public retiree on benefits, so the trustees had to vote in September to formally ask him out of retirement for the full academic year. (Which begs the question: What was the board’s plan there, to have a new supe in place by Oct. 1, 2024?)
My sense is a factor for the prior board, like many governmental bodies, was hesitant for perception reasons to make any major decisions on the permanent superintendent last fall heading into the November election when three seats were due for the ballot.
Executive search firm Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates (HYA) did conduct a stakeholder listening campaign in the fall for $21,245, and the consultants later reupped for another $41,891.91 to lead the superintendent recruitment in the spring.
Because of the academic term, a superintendent recruitment cycle typically kicks into high gear in the first quarter of the calendar year and the goal becomes to make a selection by early-to-mid Q2.
Watching how it played out, I think PUSD got things started a bit too late – despite an eight- or nine-month headstart – and were then getting down to the wire with a lackluster pool of top candidates.
Perhaps a clue that the process was sluggish came toward the end of February, when the board had to extend Ghysels’ interim contract from May 31 to June 30, ensuring a superintendent for the final month of the fiscal year, including the deciding budget hearings for the year ahead.
Quick aside: Executive search firm is a great gig if you can get it. HYA keeps all of its money (no contractual recourse for PUSD; I checked) even though the trustees selected a quasi-internal candidate who didn’t even apply through the consultant’s recruitment.
HYA, as you may remember, worked with the district on the process that landed Haglund back in 2017 (which, of course, occurred after the board settled on hiring Rick Rubino, seen as the best available choice in a lackluster application cycle in 2016, only to fire him “without cause, but not without concern” six months later).
The community learned Haglund was the top finalist May 31, 2017, a Pleasanton delegation went to Santa Ana to interview Haglund’s colleagues and community that next weekend and his final contract was on the board agenda June 13, 2017.
Releasing the finalist’s name to the public two weeks before the final vote was nothing like this time around.
Answering criticisms of how the 2025 process played out, Brown said this search included a nationwide recruitment, board review of applications and phone and Zoom interviews, followed by an in-person, task-based interview with selected candidates and then a panel interview with union leadership and district staff for top applicants. He previously described the interview period as spanning approximately two months.
“The pace of our process, and the decision to return to closed session at certain key stages, was not out of the ordinary for high-stakes executive searches that demand discretion and diligence,” the board president said.
As things wound down this spring, the trustees held multiple closed-session meetings about the superintendent job at the end of May and first days of June. In that time they released an agenda for the regular June 5 meeting where the contract for the new superintendent was going to be revealed – only for Brown to announce on the afternoon of June 2 that the ensuing meeting would be canceled in the tone of back to the drawing board.
Had that process played out as desired, the public would’ve only known the name of the finalist three days before the contract was voted on. No site visit to the finalist’s district nor time for Pleasanton folks to learn much more about this person.
The June 5 cancellation beget another handful of closed-session special meetings, including a Saturday-and-Sunday pair, that were presumably re-reviewing applications and interviewing different candidates.
Then, behind the scenes, the reality set in that they needed to broach unretirement with Ghysels – an outcome revealed with the surprise announcement on June 24 and confirmed when Ghysels’ contract was approved June 26.
It would seem to me the trustees found themselves in a poor position, a collection of external candidates they weren’t comfortable with and a set of internal cabinet members below Ghysels who either didn’t apply or were deemed not ready to make the next big step.
Or another possible factor, perhaps someone fell through in the negotiation phase; it felt like an implied goal, if not direct, was to get the next superintendent below Haglund’s outgoing pay rate.
Faced with a situation they should never have been in, the trustees actually made a sound move to look at the interim superintendent as they approached the doorstep of the new school year with nobody else at the top of their list.
“HYA fulfilled their contractual responsibilities, and the board benefitted from their comprehensive support throughout the recruitment,” Brown said. “Our decision to ultimately select an internal candidate does not reflect a shortcoming in the search itself. Rather, it reflects a convergence of internal stability and strong leadership that emerged during the process.”
“The board was always committed to comparing and contrasting internal employees against potential external candidates throughout the search process,” he added. “Superintendent Ghysels emerged as a leader who not only understands our district’s needs but is already equipped to move our work forward without a learning curve.”
Ghysels was a good choice in the moment, especially considering the alternatives. And he says he’s ready for the challenge.
“I understand there may be outside speculation about the timeline or outcome of the search. But from my perspective, what I saw was a Board being methodical and committed to finding the best leader for Pleasanton,” Ghysels told me. “Their decision to ask me to continue was grounded in a desire to maintain momentum, provide stability, and keep strong leadership in place. I was honored by the offer and said yes because I believe in the work we’re doing, the people I’m working with, and the students and families we serve.”
“One of the things that made it easier to say yes is the strength of our leadership team. Ed Diolazo continues as Deputy Superintendent, and all of our senior leaders remain in place. That continuity is a major asset,” Ghysels said.
“We’ve built a lot of positive momentum this past year, and it’s a privilege to continue that work with such a dedicated and talented team. Pleasanton is the most fantastic organization I’ve ever worked in, and I’m grateful every day to be part of it,” he added. “At this stage in my life, I’m focused on serving wherever I’m needed most — and for me, there’s no better place to do that than Pleasanton.”
I also checked in with the Association of Pleasanton Teachers to see how the union felt about the search process and the outcome. Here’s what APT leadership gave me as a statement in response:
“PUSD has made positive strides toward working collaboratively with APT with Maurice as our Interim Superintendent. APT is hopeful that with his continued leadership, our district will begin to heal, and will see APT for what we are, educators who are passionate about teaching and providing our students with an exemplary education. We are hopeful that Dr. Ghysels will continue to value APT’s partnership and recognize that PUSD’s students and educators are the heart of our district because Pleasanton students deserve the best.”
What comes next
As all the players know, though, leading as permanent superintendent coming out of retirement for two more years presents a much different environment than a one-year interim stint.
Especially since 2025-26 and 2026-27 promise to be unique beasts, with enrollment challenges persisting in Pleasanton, economic uncertainty impacting the state budget, federal cutbacks on education support and the ongoing politicization of more and more things in and around the classroom.
And remember, Ghysels is not without baggage – old news, yes, but career marks that might matter more when judging a permanent superintendent than an interim.
Our sister newspapers on the Peninsula closely covered Ghysels’ ups and downs during his tenure as Menlo Park City School District superintendent from 2011 to 2016 and before that his years as Mountain View Whisman School District superintendent. Notably Ghysels made headlines in Mountain View after entering a romantic relationship with a school principal while both were going through marital dissolutions.
As for my experience the past year, Ghysels has been great and responsive to interview requests, but I’ve not been happy with our public records results under his watch.
We continue to get jerked around by the district on our request from August 2024 related to now-former Amador Valley principal Jonathan Fey’s leave of absence, with digital reams of nothing-burger emails still coming to us each month while the meat remains unserved – including a required explanation about whether documents exist and why they’re being withheld for each specific item we asked for.
Another record request from February on an unexpected administrative departure remains unanswered amid the cost-cutting consolidation of PUSD’s public information structure.
The specter also looms of PUSD and this board, or at least those who remain after the 2026 elections, needing a “take two” on the whole superintendent recruitment thing in the near future.
For now though, Ghysels is the knight in shining armor coming to the trustees’ rescue in their time of need. But the story won’t be written for another year or two (or more) whether the PUSD-Ghysels crusade was successful.
Editor’s note: Jeremy Walsh is the associate publisher and editorial director for the Embarcadero Media Foundation’s East Bay Division. His “What a Week” column is a recurring feature in the Pleasanton Weekly, Livermore Vine and DanvilleSanRamon.com.
New retail, dining options coming to Stoneridge Shopping Center later this yearApril 19, 2026 9:24 pm
PUSD continues to struggle with transparency. One needs to look no further than the notoriously incompetent HR department to see a string of questionable practices. Not surprised PUSD hasn’t complied with records requests, as this has happened to many others as well. Mr. Brown’s flippant responses to questions regarding the process is insulting. Bottom line; admit that PUSD has systemic issues they refuse to address. The lack of focus on program improvement, constant hiring of sub par administrators, a disdain for experienced educators’ input, among many other things. Please continue to ask questions, and engage with long term teachers for the real story on why PUSD is no longer a ‘destination district’.