Contract Renewal, Then Pink Slip: How Edmond Schools Left Taxpayers Holding the Bag

When superintendent Josh Delich arrived at Edmond Public Schools, he apparently had a plan—but nobody told the school board about the fine print. The district renewed employment contracts for its top administrators on March 2, including binding agreements that locked in salaries and benefits through June 2027. By April and May, those same administrators were getting notices that their jobs were being eliminated. Oops.

The fallout has already cost taxpayers nearly $90,000 in cash settlements, with more bills still to come. Cara Jernigan, the executive director of elementary education who had worked in Edmond for 25 years without a single formal reprimand, was handed her termination notice on April 2—just 30 days after her contract renewal. She agreed to resign on July 1 for a lump-sum payment of nearly $54,000, which she pointed out doesn’t even cover the salary gap between her Edmond position and her new job as a school principal elsewhere. Mark Andrus, the district residency and truancy officer with 31 years as an administrator at EPS, settled for over $35,000 in cash plus health insurance after his position was eliminated, despite his contract running through June 2027. A significant chunk of his settlement—$25,119—compensated him for state retirement benefits he could have claimed if he’d been given notice earlier.

The timing here is the real story. These weren’t shock cuts announced transparently to the entire district at once, like what Tulsa Public Schools did in February when superintendent Ebony Johnson notified 50 employees districtwide with a carefully worded letter explaining the reasoning, acknowledging the difficulty, and directing staff to employee assistance resources. Edmond’s approach was messier and more secretive. Multiple administrators interviewed said they’d noticed raised voices coming from executive sessions as far back as November, but nobody knew what was happening until April and May when individual letters arrived—with no mention of due process rights or even a specific end date for employment.

So why did the board approve new contracts before the reorganization was announced? Delich’s explanation was vague:“Continually delaying that piece can be impactful, so that’s kind of where we landed in terms of approving and moving forward on that.”In other words, we had to keep the machinery running, and organizational changes can’t wait. Doug Mann, an attorney representing several affected administrators, took a dimmer view:“It is absolutely inexplicable why the superintendent had the board enter into lawfully enforceable employment contracts with these administrators for 2026-27 when he knew that he planned to eliminate many of their jobs for some or all of 2026-27.”

School board President Jamie Underwood, when asked what she’d tell taxpayers about footing the bill for settlements, declined to answer directly, saying only that“Change is sometimes necessary to move the district forward.”Vice President Cynthia Benson didn’t respond at all. Notably, Delich hasn’t received his own annual contract extension this year—a routine approval that the board grants every January. Asked whether he’d expect severance if he left before his contract expires in June 2028, he dodged the question, saying it“all depends on the context of the separation.”

At least 10 district officials have been notified their positions are or will soon be eliminated, though five of those were offered newly created roles in Delich’s reorganized administration. Others are still waiting, told they’ll be cut in the fall after their current responsibilities are handed off. The district hasn’t disclosed the full cost of this reshuffling, and it has refused to release email communications between Delich and the board about the matter, even after a public records request. What we know is that Oklahoma law gives administrators the lowest level of due process protections of any school employee category, meaning the district likely had the legal authority to do what it did—but authority and wisdom aren’t the same thing.

Jernigan summed up what’s bothering people:“I do not feel it was handled appropriately.”She added,“People are scared now. They’re asking,‘Does my contract not mean anything?’That’s what makes me sad for this community.”