Photo: Board Member Lisa Totten outside a June Board Meeting in 2013. (City-Times photo)

By Donnelly Clare

The Stevens Point School District on Tuesday announced it would hold a special meeting on Wednesday to consider whether a vote to non-renew Superintendent Attila Weninger’s contract was legal.

The Board will convene into closed session to discuss Weninger’s resignation, which he tendered Monday night effective next August, and non-renewal of his employment contract, which also expires next summer.

The meeting will begin at 6:30 PM on Wednesday at Bliss Educational Center, 1900 Polk Street.

City-Times staff has been able to confirm legal representation will be present, though it’s not clear who that will be or whom the lawyer will be representing. District lawyer Shana Lewis of Davis & Kuelthau will not be present.

Seven of the School Board Members on Monday participated in a vote to non-renew Weninger’s employment contract, which expires in August 2015. Members Chris Scott and Renae Sheibley left the room and did not participate.

Scott told City-Times staff on Tuesday she wasn’t comfortable with the direction the closed session meeting had taken, but declined to say more.

School Board Members have been cautious and slow to answer questions in the media about their vote to non-renew Weninger’s contract. Board President Angel Faxon said in a written statement she would “limit her comments” as she had just been elected to her position.

“The situation is being checked by legal counsel, and I will contact the press/public with more information as it becomes available,” Faxon said. 

The move to non-renew Weninger’s contract was spearheaded by Board Member Lisa Totten, a longtime and frequent opponent of the superintendent’s policies. Totten is married to a teacher within the public school district and has been accused multiple times by other Board Members of not being objective when it comes to the district’s relationship with the area teacher’s union.

Several phone calls and email messages left by City-Times staff for Weninger and Totten have not been returned.