Interim Superintendent Edward Velasquez resigned from his position at the Orange Unified School District after just one month on the job.
Velasquez left retirement in early January to take the role after the board majority voted to fire Superintendent Gunn Marie Hansen and place Assistant Superintendent Cathleen Corella on leave pending an academic audit.
Velasquez—who previously said he expected to spend two months in the position—did not give a reason for his resignation, and he was not immediately available for comment.
District spokesperson Hana Brake, however, told The Epoch Times that Velasquez is approaching his post-retirement earning limits—as he already receives a pension as a retired educator—and felt he had fulfilled his obligation to look at organizational needs and help guide the board in their search for a superintendent.
Brake also said Velasquez partially chose to leave because he felt the district’s focus had been taken off students.
“The district’s focus should always be on our students, and it seems that is not the case right now,” Brake said.
Velasquez stepped into his role amid tension between the board’s liberal trustees, who opposed Hansen’s firing, and those that lean conservative who recently won the board majority in the November election and promised to crack down on critical race theory and promote parent rights.
Additionally, he was faced with conflicting views over his appointment from parents and community members.
Trustee Madison Miner told The Epoch Times that Velasquez, who was hired to conduct an audit of the district’s education practices and curriculum, was “hounded” daily for public data requests by community members, and that he was “inhibited from doing his job because of those constant requests.”
Miner also said that the academic audit Velasquez began will continue once the district finds its next superintendent. Until then, Corella—whose leave is contingent upon the audit’s findings—remains on a leave of absence.
Part of Velasquez’s audit focused on student test scores, and identifying strategies to boost academic achievement.
Some parents told The Epoch Times they were disheartened to hear of Velasquez’s resignation because they hoped he would bring the district’s focus back to education.
“He was willing to listen to parents,” one parent, who only gave her first name as Katie, told The Epoch Times. “He listened to all sides of the situation, and he was uncovering some things that needed to be brought to light that were not good with the prior administration and the district.”
Orange Unified parent Rosa Otero called on the district to return to education as its only mission.
“Education should not be left, right, red, blue, whatever,” she told The Epoch Times. “We as a community want changes to get back to an educational focus, and that’s what we expect from the board.”
