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Las Lomitas Elementary School District Superintendent Beth Polito is on leave immediately, and will retire effective August 2025, and Assistant Superintendent Valerie Park is interim superintendent effective immediately, Board President Paige Winikoff announced at the district board’s Jan. 15, 2025, meeting.
Polito left the La Entrada Atrium in Menlo Park, where the Las Lomitas board was meeting in closed session, at least 30 minutes before the board returned from closed session. Polito did not respond to a request for comment via text.
Winikoff reported out from closed session that the board accepted Polito’s retirement effective in August and that Park is interim superintendent. Park had previously suggested that she might be a candidate for superintendent during the board’s special session to discuss the superintendent’s search firm.
On the closed session agenda, the board was set to meet to discuss Polito’s employment with her.
The board did not say if Polito would be paid through August. This news organization asked Winikoff to clarify and for a copy of any contract or agreement signed with Polito, which the board is required to provide by the next business day.
Polito’s leave comes after the District Attorney’s office launched an investigation into credit card spending at the district. An Almanac investigation discovered Polito stayed at the Four Seasons in San Francisco on the taxpayer dime in addition to district administrators spending at least $39,000 on food delivery and catering.
On Jan. 10, the San Mateo County Office of Education determined that an “extraordinary audit” was warranted. They occur when the county superintendent believes “fraud, misappropriation of funds, or other illegal fiscal practices have occurred that merit examination,” according to Education Code.
Winikoff previously told this news organization that Las Lomitas will “cooperate fully” with the extraordinary audit and the district attorney’s investigation.
At the Jan. 15 board meeting, County Deputy Superintendent of Business Services Kevin Bultema spoke to the board about the extraordinary audit, although he refrained from giving specific details, claiming it could compromise the auditing process.
Las Lomitas is not the only local district facing an extraordinary audit. The Mountain View Whisman School District is undergoing an extraordinary audit after, among other things, the district signed a six-figure contract with a self-described “certified master energy healer” to provide meditation sessions to district staff.
Mountain View Whisman’s audit is being conducted by the state’s Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team, which has conducted over 50 extraordinary audits. FCMAT also provides training and recommendations to districts to ensure fiscal stability.
Bultema åsaid that the process would likely take months.
This news organization asked him to provide more information on the process but has yet to hear back.
This version clarifies that Polito plans to retire in August.
I don’t understand why she will collect a salary through August 2025 when she is resigning effective this week?
West Menlo Mom –
Superintendent Polito did not resign effective this week. The board only said Polito is retiring in August, something we knew.
It is crucial for the board of trustees to eliminate the “assistant superintendent” position before the new superintendent takes office.
For an elementary district of this size, with two schools and 1,200 students, having both a superintendent and a costly, redundant assistant superintendent is not only unnecessary but also impractical.
Based on previous articles related to the district attorney launching an investigation Into inappropriate credit card use I am not sure why this person would be paid a salary between now and august since she is not working and since the results of the investigation have not been completed.
It seems to me the appropriate action that the board should have taken was to suspend the superintendent without pay effective immediately until the results of the District Attorney’s investigation were complete. On the surface it looks pretty bad with spending of thousands and thousands of dollars on food and high-end hotels. This just seems to be another case of a board that does not value the money that they’re receiving from the residents of their district.