(Radio Iowa) – There’s been a very public quarrel among Sioux City School District leaders who haven’t said why their superintendent was on leave at the start of the school year. In late August, the Sioux City School Board granted recently hired superintendent Juan Cordova a leave of absence and he missed the first few days of the school year. Yesterday (Monday), the school board convened to have a private meeting about a personnel matter — but board member Lance Ehmcke said if the discussion was to be about the superintendent, it needed to be done in public.

“The community has a whole bunch of rumors out there. Some of them are really slanderous to an individual’s character,” he said. “I believe that we’re going to be talking about our superintendent.” A vote to shift the board meeting to a closed session narrowly failed. Board member Dan Greenwell and Emcke kept debating while the board was taking a vote to adjourn. “We need to talk about this now and get it off the table for the public,” Emcke said and Greenwell interjected: “The gentleman requested a closed session. Did you not hear that?” Emcke continued: “I’m thinking of the good of the community right now.” Greenwell replied: “You don’t know the facts behind these stories.” Emcke concluded by saying: “Well, we’re about to find out, aren’t we?”

Cordova has worked at schools in Missouri, North Carolina, and Florida and got a temporary state license for school administrators when he started in Sioux City earlier this year. The Iowa Department of Education issued Cordova an initial Iowa Administrator’s license on the day school started in Sioux City.