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The Pleasanton Unified School District Board of Trustees is set to vote this Thursday to accept Superintendent Maurice Ghysels’ retirement letter and endorse a new contract for a superintendent who has not been identified publicly to date.
The Pleasanton Weekly reached out to the district on Monday to ask if the agenda item means Ghysels will be stepping down from his post this week, but district officials declined to comment until after the board meeting. His current two-year contract, which the school board approved in 2025, is supposed to expire on June 30, 2027.
During Thursday’s meeting, the board is also scheduled to discuss and vote on approving an employment agreement for the superintendent position, which adds to the ambiguity of whether this will be Ghysels’ last board meeting at PUSD.
A copy of the proposed contract is not included in the board’s packet released to the public before the regular meeting. The district has declined to release Ghysels’ retirement letter and forthcoming employment agreement to the Weekly as of Wednesday morning.
According to the brief staff report, the proposed employment agreement “establishes the term of employment, salary, benefits, duties, and other conditions of employment for the Superintendent”.
“In accordance with Government Code section 54953, the Board President will provide a verbal summary of the agreement’s financial terms before the Board takes action,” the staff report reads.
Ghysels was first appointed to the superintendent position in July 2024 on an interim basis following the departure of former superintendent David Haglund.
After about a year of undergoing a lengthy superintendent search process, which included listening tours and speaking behind closed doors, the board decided to ask Ghysels – who did not apply for the permanent position – to stay on for two more years.
The two-year contract that the board approved back in 2025 came with the caveat that Ghysels would remain in the position for only two years.Â
The board’s open-session meeting is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. Thursday (Sept. 24). Read the full agenda here.
In other business
* The school board will be reviewing and voting on a resolution that would confirm the district’s commitment to fiscal solvency and support the approval of the district’s 2026-27 annual budget.
This vote comes as the district’s 2026-27 annual budget was conditionally approved by the Alameda County Office of Education.
“The resolution will outline the Board’s commitments, process, timeline and any minimum required reductions for 2027/28 and 2028/29 to ensure fiscal solvency,” according to Thursday’s agenda report. “As required by ACOE, passing this resolution will support approval of the budget section of the 2026/27 LCAP and Adopted Budget.”
The budget, according to the district, was conditionally approved with the following stipulations: PUSD must provide the county with budget updates and strategies to remain fiscally solvent throughout the fiscal year; the district needs to review and respond to concerns the county has regarding its budget during a school board meeting by next month; and the district needs to approve a resolution that includes a plan and timeline to implement “budget-balancing solutions, if necessary, that address any budgetary shortfall.”
* The board will be voting on a separate resolution to amend a previously-approved contract for the Pleasanton Middle School Kalwall Skylight Replacement Project after the contractor discovered the new skylight panels did not fit the existing skylight frames.
This resolution, if approved, recognizes the previous contract did not include the new modifications to the frames, which costs just over $47,300 more than what was originally agreed upon in the original contract that the board approved in February 2025, and approves a change order to the existing contract to include those additional services.
* Trustees are set to vote on a nearly $147,500 agreement with Opening Technologies to have the company rekey the entire Hart Middle School campus as the district wraps up the school’s Field Renovation Project this fall.
