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Wes Bridges, the Florida school district lawyer who had been offered a job as general counsel for Portland Public Schools, has withdrawn his name from consideration, a PPS spokeswoman tells WW.
The decision came five days after a Florida newspaper revealed that Bridges pleaded no contest in 2009 to violating Florida's public records law. Parent activists also found newspaper reports that Bridges supported as "not unreasonable" a school district policy that required people to show ID before attending school-board meetings.
Bridges told interim Superintendent Bob McKean of his decision Monday night, says Courtney Westling, the spokeswoman.
Bridges' decision, which came after he informed his Florida school district of his intention to resign from the Polk County School District, likely saved him further embarrassment.
Portland Public Schools is in the midst of cleaning up how it responds to public records requests, owing to an October order from Multnomah County District Attorney Rod Underhill that chided PPS for its unresponsiveness to records requests.
McKean also has vowed to clean up and streamline PPS' central office administration at a time when community trust in the district is at a low point.
The conditional offer of employment to Bridges didn't inspire confidence in many parents, or least one school board member.
PPS, Westling says, was just about to embark on a background check of Bridges when he told the interim superintendent he was walking away. "Things were beginning to pop up that were concerning," she says.
Westling added that PPS would look at ways to improve its hiring process so it catches potential red flags sooner.
In 2012, PPS offered a Florida woman a top job overseeing charter schools and alternative schools after failing to realize she'd been reassigned from her job due to an internal investigation that was widely reported in The Miami Herald and other news outlets. That investigation focused on the overuse of involuntary psychiatric evaluations, The Oregonian reported.
PPS withdrew the offer the day after The Oregonian reported on the candidate's connection to the investigation.