Skip to content
LBUSD Timeline
Framing dispute
Part of: Is the Board Following Its Own Rules? →

Austin Appointment — Routine Process or Predetermined Outcome?

On May 14, 2026 — two days after the board's 3-2 separation vote with outgoing Superintendent Jason Glass — the LBUSD Board announced the appointment of Dr. Don Austin as the next Superintendent effective July 1, 2026. The vote was taken in closed session; no public report-out of the vote count was made. A FUEL statement issued the same day raised concerns about the timing of the post-meeting district press release, sent district-wide via ParentSquare (documentary send-time 6:27 PM per the ParentSquare post, a two-minute correction to FUEL's contemporaneous 6:29 PM). The board's press release did not state a search process or vote count.

On this page
Explain it like I'm 5
Two days after the board ended the current superintendent's job, they announced they had picked a new one and would start him in July. They picked him in a private meeting and didn't say what the vote was. A parent group pointed out the press release was sent out about 37 minutes after the private meeting ended — long enough for a typed-out announcement with quotes from the new hire to already be ready. They argued the board must have decided beforehand. The board didn't respond to that claim on the record.
Settled — not in dispute
  • On May 14, 2026, two days after the 3-2 vote ending Glass's contract, the board announced Dr. Don Austin as next Superintendent, effective July 1, 2026.
  • The vote was taken in a 3:30 PM closed session under Bylaw 9321. No public report-out of the vote count was made; the press release did not disclose it or describe a search process.
  • The press release was distributed district-wide via ParentSquare (post ID 80599066) at 6:27 PM (documentary system timestamp). FUEL's contemporaneous account cited 6:29 PM — a two-minute correction. The closed-session-end to ParentSquare-blast window is approximately 37 minutes (5:50 PM to 6:27 PM).
Contested — the framing question

Whether the ~37-minute window between closed-session end and the fully-produced ParentSquare blast is evidence of coordination outside the noticed closed session (raising Brown Act serial-meeting concerns), or whether it reflects a routine post-vote communications cadence with a pre-drafted release ready once the closed-session decision was finalized.

How the sides frame this

Routine appointment framing
board-majority-aligned

The May 14, 2026 board appointed Dr. Don Austin under Board Bylaw 9321 closed-session procedure for personnel matters. The press release framed the appointment as a 'return home' for a former LBHS principal of five years with prior superintendent experience at Palos Verdes Peninsula USD and Palo Alto USD. Roychowdhury was appointed as Interim Superintendent for the transition window. The press release did not state the vote count or describe the search process — practices consistent with the closed-session-only handling of personnel matters established earlier in the 2025-26 year.

Predetermined-outcome framing
board-minority-aligned

The closed session ended around 5:50 PM, the open portion began around 6:00 PM, and a fully-produced district press release with prepared quotes from Board President Morgan and from Austin himself was sent district-wide via ParentSquare at 6:27 PM (documentary timestamp from the ParentSquare post; FUEL's contemporaneous account cited 6:29 PM). FUEL's same-day statement characterized that window — approximately 37 minutes per the documentary timestamp, 39 minutes per FUEL's account — as too short to have written the press release after the meeting, implying coordination with Austin (and pre-staged communications) before the closed-session vote, which would invoke Brown Act serial-meeting concerns and contradict the closed-session-only framing. Coverage by the Laguna Beach Independent (Venter) named Bylaw 9322 explicitly as a friction point in the surrounding context.

~37-minute window 1 2 3 4
  1. 3:30 PM · Closed session began — Bylaw 9321 personnel matters
  2. 5:50 PM · Closed session ended
  3. 6:00 PM · Open session began
  4. 6:27 PM · ParentSquare blast sent (documentary) — Fully-produced release w/ Morgan + Austin quotes. FUEL's contemporaneous account cited 6:29 PM; ParentSquare system timestamp shows 6:27 PM.
May 14, 2026 — closed session through ParentSquare blast. Pre-blast times are from FUEL's contemporaneous account; the 6:27 PM send timestamp is documentary (ParentSquare post 80599066). The dispute: Could a fully-produced press release with prepared quotes from two named individuals — including Austin himself — be drafted in ~37 minutes? FUEL's contemporaneous framing (citing 6:29 PM and a 39-minute window): "That press release was not written in 39 minutes. It was not written after the meeting. It was written before it."

Agreed facts

Appointment basics

  1. On May 14, 2026, two days after the board’s 3-2 separation vote with Superintendent Jason Glass, the LBUSD Board announced the appointment of Dr. Don Austin as the next Superintendent of Schools, effective July 1, 2026. (event · district press release)

  2. The board appointed Chief Business Official Manoj Roychowdhury as Interim Superintendent for the transition window between Glass’s departure on May 31 and Austin’s start on July 1. (event)

Procedural conduct

  1. Per the May 14 agenda and the open-session recording, the appointment votes were taken in a 3:30 PM special closed session preceding the regular open meeting, under Board Bylaw 9321 (Closed Session). No public report-out of the vote count was made at the open session, which itself adjourned to a second closed session at the end without a captured report-out.

  2. The district press release did not state the board’s vote on the appointment or describe a search process.

Austin’s background

  1. The press release framed the appointment as a “return home”: Austin previously served as principal of Laguna Beach High School for five years, and as superintendent of Palos Verdes Peninsula USD and then Palo Alto USD.

  2. Austin’s Palo Alto tenure ended in a February 20, 2026 mutual separation agreement. Multiple Palo Alto-area news sources covered the PAUSD separation: Palo Alto Online, Paly Voice and follow-up faculty coverage, EdSource, and the Gunn Oracle reporting on the settlement terms.

The ParentSquare timing

  1. FUEL’s May 14 statement reports the following timing sequence:

    • The board’s closed session ended around 5:50 PM
    • The open portion of the meeting began around 6:00 PM
    • At 6:29 PM (per FUEL’s contemporaneous account), a ParentSquare message went out to the entire district community from the Board President: a fully-produced press release with prepared quotes from Board President Sheri Morgan, prepared quotes from Dr. Austin himself, multiple paragraphs of background, and a media contact line listing Morgan’s direct phone number and email address.

  2. The documentary send-timestamp. A subsequent capture of the ParentSquare post itself (post ID 80599066, “Info LBUSD” account) shows the post timestamp as 6:27 PM on May 14, 2026 — a two-minute correction to FUEL’s contemporaneous account. The closed-session-end to ParentSquare-blast window narrows from FUEL’s 39-minute framing to a documentary 37 minutes. The channel (ParentSquare), the posting account, the press-release content, and the rough timing are corroborated; the timestamp of record is now the ParentSquare system value.

  3. FUEL’s framing of the window: “That press release was not written in 39 minutes. It was not written after the meeting. It was written before it.” FUEL’s contemporaneously-cited 6:29 PM and 39-minute figures differ by two minutes from the documentary ParentSquare timestamp; the underlying argument — that a multi-paragraph press release with quotes attributed to two named individuals is not a product of the post-vote window — does not turn on which figure is used.

Coverage

  1. The Laguna Beach Independent (Alicia Venter) named Bylaw 9322 as a friction point in the surrounding context. Stu News (Sara Hall)‘s coverage republished the district press release as the primary text without further investigation of the FUEL timing allegation.

What’s still open

The press release was clearly pre-drafted — a fully-produced release with prepared quotes from two named individuals (Morgan and Austin himself) is not a 37-minute product. With the ParentSquare send-timestamp now documentary at 6:27 PM, the corroborated record is: closed session ended ~5:50 PM, district-wide ParentSquare blast at 6:27 PM, window of approximately 37 minutes. What remains open is when the substantive coordination with Austin occurred — when he was contacted, when contract terms were agreed, and when his attributed quote was prepared — and whether any of that required prior board approval or a properly-noticed prior vote under the Brown Act. The corpus does not yet contain a documented sequence for that coordination.

Sources, events & open questions (16)

Related meetings (1)

Open questions (6)

  1. Identify the vote count on the Austin appointment. FUEL's May 14 statement asserts 3-2; the district press release did not disclose it; the open-session recording adjourned to a second closed session without a captured report-out. Minutes when posted on Diligent OnePortal should be authoritative.
  2. Determine when substantive coordination with Austin (contract terms, the agreement to issue the press-release quote attributed to him) occurred. The ParentSquare send-time is now documentary at 6:27 PM, but that timestamp narrows the window without resolving when the pre-drafting and Austin coordination happened.
  3. Capture the LBUSD superintendent search process documentation — RFP for a search firm if used, candidate-pool size, interview rounds, applicable Board Policy or Board Bylaw on superintendent selection.
  4. Document Don Austin's stated departure circumstances from Palo Alto USD. Existing site sources ([Palo Alto Online](/sources/pao-austin-leave-pausd), [Paly Voice](/sources/paly-voice-board-separates), [EdSource](/sources/edsource-austin-pausd-departure), [Gunn Oracle](/sources/gunn-oracle-austin-settlement)) characterize the February 20, 2026 PAUSD separation as a mutual agreement. Cross-reference against the LBUSD press-release framing of 'return home.'
  5. Determine whether Austin holds any consulting or board roles (e.g. SimpleWins) that would warrant disclosure under [BB 9270 (Conflict of Interest)](/policies/bb-9270-conflict-of-interest) once his LBUSD term begins.
  6. The records sought by Erika Rule's June 3, 2026 [45-item CPRA request](/events/2026-06-03-rule-cpra-superintendent-transition) — Form 700 filings, conflict-of-interest disclosures, closed-session minutes, the Austin contract, the 2025 Leadership Associates search records, and the May 14 meeting recording. The request alleges the May 12-14 transition may have departed from BP 2120/2121/2140 and BP 1100/1112; no records have been produced and the policy-compliance questions are not yet adjudicated.

This controversy page follows the editorial standards in EDITORIAL.md : agreed facts are sourced to primary documents; framings are attributed to the camp that holds them; open questions are recoverable with the listed corroboration targets. Last updated 2026-06-03.