Freelance journalist Michelle Deininger has asked a Third District Court judge to dismiss the defamation lawsuit former Park City School District Chief Operating Officer Mike Tanner filed against her.

Deininger wrote an article published in The Park Record in November 2024 detailing Tanner’s salary, work agreements and contracts. The article raised concerns about the amount of compensation the COO was receiving, whether “special assignment” duty contracts were repetitive and how Tanner was dividing his time.

While Tanner alleged that the article — and numerous others Deininger authored as the former news director of KPCW — portrayed a “negative message” about the COO and the school district, Deininger denies any wrongdoing and asserts her reporting was “truthful and accurate.”

“Deininger’s … reporting on the job performance and remote work arrangements of a highly compensated District executive is a matter of public concern and protected under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and Articles 1 and 15 of the Utah Constitution,” the 12-page court filing states.

Attorneys for Tanner said in their lawsuit that the November article included “false statements of fact, manipulated figures, and distorted half-truths, patched together in a malicious attempt to damage Mr. Tanner’s reputation and livelihood.” 

Tanner was employed as the school district’s COO, responsible for overseeing construction projects and security initiatives, from 2019 through March 2025. District administrators said Tanner was let go in a “reduction-in-force.” However, his lawsuit claims he was “fired” because they believed he was guilty of various types of negligence and misconduct that Deininger had alleged.

Lawyers for Tanner argued Deininger should have taken more care in confirming the details of the story. They said he was subject to “public disapproval and humiliation,” which has harmed his professional and personal reputation.

Deininger argues she “exercised the requisite degree of care and prudence in undertaking” the reporting at all times. Her reply to the lawsuit states that any alleged damages suffered by Tanner were caused “by his own negligence and/or actions and/or fault.”

The Utah Society of Professional Journalists awarded Deininger the Don Baker Investigative Journalism Award for her reporting about the COO’s work arrangements in June. Tanner filed the lawsuit the following month.

Tanner asked a judge to award compensatory damages for an amount to be determined at trial, award the costs associated with bringing the case forward and award punitive damages for Deininger’s alleged malicious intent. The Park Record is not named in the lawsuit. Deininger asked the judge to dismiss the case with prejudice.

Deininger provided communications and documents supporting the claims in her article before it was published in The Park Record. The school district threatened legal action after the November article was published, but no specific corrections were requested and district officials did not respond to questions intended to address any discrepancies.

A court hearing had not been set as of Tuesday afternoon. Attorneys for Deininger and Tanner declined to comment further.

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Former Park City School District Chief Operating Officer Michael Tanner suggested in a July 2024 interview with KPCW from Illinois that he was finishing up Air Force Reserves duty. Yet newly obtained documents indicate he retired from the military in 2021.

The revelation appears to validate ethical concerns raised by community members and district employees, particularly as his military leave requirements were cited as one of two reasons former Superintendent Jill Gildea authorized a formal agreement granting remote work, allowing Tanner to spend an unknown amount of time in Illinois while his COO duties describe oversight of operations and safety as an essential job function.

Tanner was hired as the school district’s first COO in 2019. Officials announced the position was eliminated as part of a reduction in force earlier this month. His last day was March 31, though Tanner will be available through June 30 to assist with any transition-related needs. Tanner was put on paid administrative leave Feb. 25 and received $161,000 in severance payments as part of the separation agreement.

As COO, Tanner was responsible for facilities and grounds, maintenance, transportation, safety and security, master facility planning and school operations. The job description states: “On a day-to-day basis, the COO shall oversee and coordinate the activities of District Administration and senior management for the effective and efficient operation of all school campuses and offices, as well as the daily operations of security/safety coordination.” 

A November 2024 article in The Park Record, written by freelance journalist Michelle Deininger, raised questions about how much time Tanner spent living and working part-time in Chicago as well as his salary and benefits, which included a $77,000 extra-duty contract for all “district level safety and security issues” in 2024. It’s unclear how the special assignment differed from Tanner’s regular work.

Last summer, Tanner said in an interview with KPCW that his work as a contingency airlift director for the Air Force Reserves was ongoing. He did not say how many hours the work involved, but affirmed that most of his time is spent in Park City. Tanner also indicated he was nearing retirement and wanted to shift to more personnel-focused duties.

However, a document obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request said Tanner retired on Nov. 17, 2021, with a rank of lieutenant colonel. Tanner’s LinkedIn profile said he joined the Air Force in 1987 and entered the Air Force Reserves in 1997.

Ned Reilly, a retired Army colonel and former school bus driver, sent a whistleblower letter to district leadership in December alerting officials to behavior Reilly felt warranted an investigation, including allegations that Tanner misrepresented his Air Force affiliation and violated school district policies by storing his car at the bus barn while working remotely in Illinois.

“According to Mr. Tanner’s profile, he is or was a USAF pilot. All USAF pilots are commissioned officers (USAF policy). All commissioned officers have a defined maximum length of service (federal law). Unless Mr. Tanner is a General Officer or has a multi-year waiver from the Secretary of the Air Force, he cannot be a currently serving commissioned officer in the USAF,” Reilly’s letter said.

Essentially, Tanner appears to have “timed out” of service. Only a few exceptionally unique circumstances would have allowed him to remain on active duty or in the reserves for longer.

Reilly told The Park Record he did not receive a response to his letter from district officials, so he forwarded it to the incoming school board, Summit County Attorney’s Office and the local media. Despite presenting what he saw as strong evidence, Reilly said the school district initially failed to act. 

The Park Record asked the school district to comment on the allegations several times throughout 2025. However, officials declined to answer, citing personnel matters and an ongoing investigation. 

In response to questions asked in light of Tanner’s departure, Public Information Officer Colton Elliott said on Tuesday district officials cannot verify the statements Tanner made about working for the Air Force Reserves in July 2024. However, he offered to verify whether the document listing Tanner’s retirement date is one the district has “prior knowledge of.”

Elliott did not say whether the permission for remote work was appropriate given that Tanner retired from the Air Force in 2021. He did not answer a question about whether Tanner ever applied for military service leave during his tenure, saying the district does not provide specific information about an employee’s leave. 

Gildea let Tanner work partially remote from Illinois to continue military work and help care for a parent since his hiring in 2019, and as recently as July 2024, per a memo to the school board.

If Tanner requested and took military leave as a retired service member, it could constitute fraud. The Summit County Sheriff’s Office and Utah Attorney General’s Office were asked to investigate Tanner, but declined to pursue charges.

“Regarding the remote work arrangement, we are not in a position to speak to the specific terms or rationale behind it and cannot speak to how other administrators felt about his reserve service,” Elliott said in a statement. “However, as we have stated, as a district we respect and honor the service of those employees with military commitments.”

Elliott continued that the district is under new leadership, including a new superintendent and several new school board members who are focused on ensuring “appropriate procedures and oversight are in place moving forward.” He would not comment further on Tanner’s separation agreement, which included a $78,000 payment for “emotional distress.”

Officials did not respond by the time of publication to follow-up questions about the need for transparency and accountability, when and how the district learned of Tanner’s retirement, and if any school district policies were violated.

“Why did we decide to reward that behavior and pay him out, as opposed to just terminate him? It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me,” Reilly said.

Reilly was placed on administrative leave after a Feb. 24 argument involving Tanner, but returned to work about two weeks later. Reilly ultimately resigned a few days later because he didn’t feel his place of employment aligned with his values: integrity and honesty.

Moving forward, Reilly said he wants the school district to ensure those who substantiated whistleblower claims are protected, not retaliated against, and that the school board closes the gap on policies related to remote work, military leave and special assignment contracts. 

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Former Park City School District Chief Operating Officer Mike Tanner was put on paid administrative leave almost a month before his position was eliminated and he received $161,000 in severance pay as part of a separation agreement.

District officials announced on April 3 Tanner was being let go through the loss of his position in a reduction in force, with his final day of employment listed as March 31. Tanner will still be available through June 30 to assist with transition-related services, but he won’t be paid for any work, the district said.

The separation agreement — obtained by The Park Record through a Government Records Access and Management Act request — highlights the departing terms of the school district’s No. 2. It was signed by Tanner on March 19 and Superintendent Lyndsay Huntsman the following day.

The agreement reiterates that Tanner’s position, which was created in 2019 by former Superintendent Jill Gildea, was eliminated to help reduce administrative overhead costs in response to declining enrollment, and the COO duties were reassigned to other district administrators. 

His salary was about $135,000 for the 2019-20 school year. It was estimated to be around $250,000 as of 2024, not including benefits, according to Transparent Utah.  

School district officials have not answered questions about what Tanner’s actual salary and benefits were at the time of his departure.

Starting Feb. 25 until his separation date, Tanner was on paid administrative leave. District officials did not answer questions about why Tanner was put on leave by deadline.

However, an email sent by a whistleblower — a military veteran employee who disputed Tanner’s service in the Air Force Reserves and raised accusations that he was storing his private vehicle in the school district bus garage — to district officials, school board members and the local media claimed a confrontation took place during a transportation department meeting on Feb. 24. 

The email said around 15 to 20 employees were in attendance when supervisors, including Tanner, began retaliating against witnesses involved in the allegations. The whistleblower said he felt compromised during the meeting and confronted Tanner, asking him to resign and causing the disagreement to escalate. 

Huntsman said in an email on Feb. 25 the district’s human resources department would be “conducting a thorough investigation of the incident in accordance with district policy.”  

Tanner’s separation agreement states he received all his salary and benefits, including a special assignment contract, while on administrative leave. The secondary contract was crafted by Gildea and gave him a yearly stipend of more than $77,000. The extra duty stipend was awarded for responsibilities related to district level safety and security issues, and was expected to end June 30.

The special assignment contract, as well as Tanner’s salary and the amount of time he spent working remotely, drew criticism last fall because it appears to describe many duties already assigned in the COO job description.

District officials and school board members have said the special assignment contract didn’t breach existing policy, but Huntsman said in an email that she’s in the process of reviewing all contracts and directed staff to route approval for new contracts through the superintendent’s office.

She added the district is committed to establishing a military leave policy consistent with federal requirements; revisiting the extra duty assignments policy; reviewing existing special assignment contracts; reiterating district processes for concerns and grievances; and evaluating communication channels. Huntsman also asserted she’s committed to strengthening trust among staff and the greater Park City community. 

Tanner will also receive a one-time lump sum severance payment of $160,965.50 by April 30. The separation agreement said the money was allocated as follows:

• $78,500 for wages.
• $78,500 for “alleged emotional distress, liquidated and/or other non-wage damages.”
• $3,965.50 for attorney’s fees.

District officials will also pay Tanner $14,886 to use for insurance coverage or as a contribution to his health savings account.

The separation agreement also includes a clause that prohibits Tanner from seeking future employment in the Park City School District. The district also agreed to issue a public statement announcing Tanner’s separation from employment was due to a reduction in force.

A March 3 update on district leadership and interim reassignments stated Randy Upton, the district’s business administrator, will oversee construction projects in partnership with Todd Hansen, director of building and grounds, and Colby Pearce, assistant director of facilities. 

Director of Family and Community Engagement Eric Esquivel will oversee all safety and security efforts with local law enforcement and other community partners.

It is unclear if the school district has eliminated any other administrative positions as part of reduction-in-force efforts. 

District officials have also declined to comment about an internal or external investigation into the accusations raised against Tanner. The Park Record requested any final findings, reports or summaries of an investigation through a GRAMA request, but was denied.

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The Park City School District turned the last page on a fraught chapter when it RIFFed the chief operating officer position, rather neatly resolving a “personnel matter.”

I’m impressed and a little surprised, considering the real mess they had on their hands in 2024. In the first quarter of 2025, the school board made just the right hire for superintendent, and she set a new course for the district while delicately managing the last vestige of a difficult era. I think this bodes well.   

The Park City Follies around this time a year ago were withering, but not wrong, mocking then-Superintendent Jill Gildea, who at least metaphorically had locked herself in a bunker; then-Board of Education President Andrew Caplan, who mistook himself for emperor; a civil rights case splotched with unmitigated abuse among students; toxic soil left near children for way too long; iffy management at best of construction projects that seemed to make a habit of missed deadlines and incomplete paperwork.

And the real “fun” hadn’t even begun.

Soon the school board president, the vice president and another board member quit their campaigns for reelection in quick succession. Soon after that, the president declared that the board would renew the embattled superintendent’s contract, which is exactly what the lame duck majority did over the wishes of the two incumbents who would remain, the candidates for the positions the lame ducks were leaving, and pretty much everyone else with an interest in how the school district fares.

Mysteriously, the superintendent’s new contract sweetened a bit without discussion before that vote. But then, the board under Caplan didn’t entertain much open discussion about anything that I could tell. There may not be a more hostile, dissembling and generally unhelpful local board majority, administration or communications team on balance than at the Park City School District last year.

Diagnostically speaking, it made covering them frustrating, sure, but also way more fun. When reporters can’t get a story straight up from a forthright and honest leadership, they have to go deeper into the fabric, let’s say. I’ve always found the best work coming from such challenges, and that’s where reporter Brock Marchant, now with The Salt Lake Tribune, did his best, I thought.

The superintendent, it turned out, very understandably had been looking for a new job, even if not informing the board violated her contract. The lame ducks rammed through her sweetened contract renewal in August, and she told them a week later she was retiring while she was the only candidate left for another job in Colorado, which she soon took.  

The lame ducks’ reasoning for renewing the contract against pretty much everyone’s wishes was they were doing a green new board a favor, like it or not. I’m not claiming they made any sense, and anyway that bit of amateur Machiavellia or whatever blew up soon enough.  

Let me just say bravo, by the way, to the new school board for not wasting time this year in choosing Lyndsay Huntsman for the role, exactly the right person with exactly the right attributes for the mission right now. I liked the interim, Caleb Fine, well enough, too, cast in an impossible position last fall with that board in that environment.

By then, things had gotten stranger. With Gildea gone, employees in the administrative offices began to quietly share more information, including about a COO who maybe spent as much or more time working in Illinois than Park City, who claimed publicly as late as last July he was in the Air Force Reserves but maybe wasn’t, who had documented permission from the superintendent who created his position and had worked with him before to work remotely in part based on his supposed service in the reserves.

Reports floated up of intimidation, confrontational meetings, taking advantage of his position to store and service private vehicles at the district’s bus garage, missing some important events, and possibly more blame than entirely merited for screwups with construction projects and toxic soil mitigation. This is hard to sort through, and the results of an investigation the district launched that would clear so much up have not been shared with the public. At least not so far.

Finally, freelance writer Michelle Deininger reported on some of this. Her story’s facts matched the documents, and she had cultivated first-hand sources — the anonymous ones fearing retaliation were known to us and willing to speak in court if it came to that. Her questions were not complicated.

I can say it now, but she overcame a lot: refusals to answer, partial answers and what I’d define technically as weasel talk from the school district leadership of the time, all intended to throw her off, I believe. We’re still not getting answers to some basic questions I think qualify as public record, but the tone is much different now.

Then it was all duck and dodge. Now it seems more designed to thread a legal needle while letting a problematic COO, the last of the mess, go as gracefully, non-litigiously and least expensively as they can manage. That’s understandable.  

In the immediate wake of the story in November, the previous school board president in a remarkable board session taunted the press, shouted down a mom asking about the story during public comment, and crowed about how the lawyers would come for The Park Record.

Tellingly to me, the district never reached out to correct errors or to clarify information they thought misleading. Our aim always is to get a story right, especially a tougher story with many facts and documents difficult to unearth, and key sources who treat us as adversaries. We welcome feedback in the interest of facts that might need correction or clarification. I know we’re far from perfect.

We did receive a demand letter several weeks later from attorneys who said they represented the school district and would happily sue us if we didn’t retract everything we’d written. The problem was we had the documentation they claimed we didn’t have, talked in depth with the sources they said we hadn’t consulted, claiming we’d misquoted some we’d double checked, and the letter itself was riddled with obvious mistakes.

There was nothing to respond to, simply put. It had the feel of a football game when a team tries to draw the other off-sides on fourth down. We didn’t bite, the full board in executive session recognized they didn’t have a case, and what I surmise was an embarrassed school board president quietly let the clock run out on his tenure from there.

We accomplished a difficult job. But that’s simply what we are supposed to do. I don’t feel any great triumph beyond the work itself, although I do think the community is in a little better place with respect to education and the leadership of the district. The experience should make us a better paper, as well.

I’m also mindful that the same people who I think frankly stayed too long were brilliant during COVID, and the district did as excellent a job as any in the country in weathering the pandemic from the standpoint of education. That bears recognition, too, even with the messy ending.

The current leadership surely will trip up a time or two, and we’ll surely bump heads in coverage, and surely we’ll get things wrong sometimes, too. That’s the nature of our respective callings. This is where willingness to learn together from the inevitable lessons to come and having the heart for doing right by the community matters. In that, I see the school district today on a good path, thankfully.

Don Rogers is the editor and publisher of The Park Record. He can be reached at drogers@swiftcharge.net or (970) 376-0745.

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When Jill Gildea became superintendent of Park City schools in 2018, she reorganized the district office, creating a new COO position and tapping a former colleague from her Chicago days, Mike Tanner, to head it.

Tanner started in 2019 with a salary of $130,000 and responsibilities including “directing leadership, administration, and supervision of Park City School District with a focus on … daily operational functions,” duties previously divided between the superintendent and business administrator, who worked entirely in Park City. The COO role is second in command to the superintendent.

Since his hiring, Gildea let Tanner work partially remotely from Illinois to continue military work and help care for a parent. Under that arrangement, Tanner spends his summers mostly in Illinois, and during the school year he’s regularly out of the office as well.

She also crafted a second contract giving him a yearly stipend of $55,000 (now over $77,000) for “special assignment” duty as district security director, bumping his pay to $185,000. His COO job description calls such oversight an essential function. District officials declined to explain how his special assignment extends beyond regular duties.

Tanner’s compensation including salary and benefits is now $394,000 a year — the highest in Utah K-12 schools for that role, according to Transparent Utah. And he said recently his work as a contingency airlift director for the Air Force Reserves is ongoing.

“Our area is responsible for all the global Department Of Defense airlifts and has about 1,600 aircraft within the DOD that we can use to support the nation’s wartime needs, plus we have the ability to rent about 1,000 commercial aircraft,” Tanner said from Chicago during a phone interview with KPCW in July. “The operations have been very busy during this time supplementing the work in Ukraine and Israel. That’s what our unit does and we’re very good at it.”

He declined to specify how many hours that involves, saying only that he spends a majority of his time in Park City. He also said he’s nearing retirement from his Air Force Reserves role and is working to extract his duties from being operations-based to personnel-focused.

Tanner’s Park City home deed and property taxes list his name and an Illinois address. Three social media accounts identified him as an independent contractor in greater Chicago, though one was updated after media questions, replacing his Air Force Reserves title with his Park City School District title while still identifying his physical location as Illinois.

He doesn’t appear to be registered to vote in Utah, and his local car sports Illinois plates.

Tanner didn’t respond to emailed questions about how he divides his time and fulfills COO duties remotely.

Routine out-of-state remote work for an operations role appears uncommon. Surveys of other Utah school districts and local governments didn’t turn up any examples of it occurring elsewhere.

Park City School Board President Andrew Caplan, who with the school board hired Gildea and has defended her leadership through multiple investigations and findings of legal violations at all levels of government, called questions about employee remote work and pay “harassment” and declined to answer them. 

More than 90% of the school district’s $111 million budget comes from property taxes, which the school board in August increased more than 5% to fund raises. 

Interim district Superintendent Caleb Fine said he was unaware of Tanner having other work. 

“I’ve had full confidence in Mr. Tanner’s professionalism and capability,” Fine said. “He has successfully overseen six construction projects, implemented significant security improvements, and has been consistently reliable and highly responsive in operational matters.”

Former Human Resources Director Shad Sorenson worked with Tanner for nearly three years in the district office. He said Gildea informed him Tanner had residences in both Utah and Illinois, Tanner and his family spent summers in Illinois, and Tanner had military responsibilities outside the office. 

Sorenson said Gildea told him Tanner could work remotely as needed. Sorenson described being surprised that a high-level cabinet position had such flexibility, but said Tanner was always accessible by phone when not in the office. Sorenson said he didn’t track Tanner’s remote work, but estimated he was physically present two-thirds of the school year, and considerably less over summer break. 

Summer means construction, and Tanner oversees the district’s $150 million bond-funded facilities projects, which have been plagued by missteps and delays, missing permits and unlawful storage of harmful contaminants on school grounds.

“The school district’s internal controls are insufficient to reasonably assure compliance with environmental regulations,” Utah auditors wrote in a 2023 report. “This is concerning given the increased risk of financial liability and negative impacts to health and safety …”

In other words, storing dirt containing harmful levels of lead and arsenic for six years where students walked and played could prompt future lawsuits if people develop diseases linked to exposure to those contaminants. 

Flawed construction oversight also caused delays and higher costs to taxpayers, the report found. 

Three months ago, construction snafus nearly derailed the start of classes at Ecker Hill Middle School.

Utah Deputy Fire Marshal Ryan Nelson inspected that campus three times over the final week of summer vacation. Nelson said during the first two, so much was unfinished he didn’t even write reports. Then on Aug. 19, Nelson spent seven hours on-site overseeing last-ditch efforts to pass inspection. Crews finished a few hours before the doors opened.

“It was very close to a disaster,” Nelson said. “[The district] was making plans for what to do the next day. The job super, who makes more money than anyone, was riding a floor cleaner at 1 a.m.”

Fine said Tanner returning to Park City from Chicago the evening of the 18th shouldn’t concern the community.

Ecker Hill parent Sarah Crockett said the school’s construction zone atmosphere detracts from teaching and learning, and wondered whether the work might have benefitted from more oversight.

“I’d assume if you have multiple projects going on that an on-site presence would be an asset, especially at such a highly compensated executive level,” Crockett said. “How many days is he working from here and how many days is he working out of state? The right response would be some transparency.” 

Despite emergency response oversight duties, an employee said Tanner wasn’t present in April 2023 during a close call near the district office, and didn’t communicate about it afterward. A supervisor confirmed a bus driver left a campus with a bus full of students after broadcasting alarming comments over a two-way radio, then turning the radio off, violating policy. Panicking colleagues devised a response, locating the bus using GPS and creating a truck barricade to intercept it, after which the driver was taken away by emergency workers.

Fine and Tanner declined to comment on that event.

Gildea left the district abruptly Sept. 16 amid reports she appeared to violate her contract by not disclosing her job search. School board President Caplan declined to comment at the time on whether she had informed the board of her search. 

Like Tanner, she was Utah’s highest compensated in her role. She announced she was retiring from Park City schools after a special board meeting that day, and Fine took over the next morning. Six weeks later, Gildea started a new job in Colorado.

Fine maintained that Tanner doesn’t have any special agreements, and said by email that no employees do. 

But Gildea told the school board in July that nearly two dozen employees — including Tanner and Executive Assistant Lorie Pearce — have formal remote work agreements that are reviewed annually by supervisors and human resources. 

In response to a public records request for Tanner’s agreements, Pearce said no records existed. Responding to another records request, Pearce provided compensation information for Tanner about $50,000 lower than what the district shared with Transparent Utah. District officials didn’t respond to multiple requests to clarify discrepancies. 

Other employees in Gildea’s inner circle also received higher pay and more perks than peers. 

Pearce’s compensation has doubled since she began reporting to Gildea in 2018. According to Transparent Utah, Pearce received a $50,000 raise in 2024 following a $20,000 raise in 2023. Her annual compensation with benefits now totals $249,000. That also is apparently the state’s highest, equaling superintendents’ executive assistants at the two largest school districts combined. Her compensation is higher than any Park City School District teacher and most principals, equaling the two highest-paid principals. Pearce could also work from her area home two days a week with Gildea’s permission.

Fine said he appreciated the school board prioritizing employee pay.

In another unusual arrangement, a former director of parent education and community engagement, Anna Stampfli, stayed on the payroll for five months with a $65,000 salary after moving to Tennessee. Gildea granted her fully remote work for a role that included helping families with paperwork and hosting district functions. 

And communications, a department that worked in tandem with Gildea, dwarfs larger districts’. Jordan School District, for example, is 10 times bigger than the Park City School District but spends about $200,000 less on communications annually, according to Transparent Utah. Park City’s district spends nearly $700,000 in compensation on three and a half communications people — and outsources some communications work, as well.

Park City School District ranks 23rd in size among Utah’s 42 school districts with about 4,100 students and 700 employees at seven campuses. Enrollment has declined about 20% since 2018. 

Josh Mann has a child in the district. He chronicled Gildea’s tenure in his blog, and dissatisfaction led him and fellow parent Karl Persson to launch a petition over the summer urging the school board not to renew her contract. It gathered 561 signatures, but Caplan and outgoing board members Wendy Crossland and Anne Peters prevailed, renewing an updated contract with a raise and more lucrative departure terms in a 3-2 vote shortly before learning about her job search. 

Continuing board members Nick Hill and Meredith Reed voted against renewing the contract. The incumbent majority had earlier quit their bids for reelection, and all but one remaining candidate for their seats asked them to leave the decision to the new school board taking over in January 2025.

The board didn’t answer questions at the time regarding contract updates, though one board member described being unaware it had been altered. Changes included extending the amount of pay Gildea would receive if she was terminated and inserting an automatic renewal clause that was later removed after the board learned such clauses appeared to violate Utah law.

“We need a reset at the top,” Mann said. “My hope is that with a new school board and superintendent, we can build a strong foundation that prioritizes our community, streamlines administration, and ensures accountability.”

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