Fox Fires Stanley For Fake Resume Education Chief’s School Of Hard Knocks Continues

State Schools Superintendent Anne Fox has fired the new head of her architectural design division after disclosures that his resume contained exaggerations and inaccuracies.

Bill Stanley admitted that claims of school construction experience, a college degree and graduate school teaching experience on his resume all were false.

Also this week, a top Education Department finance official announced she will resign Feb. 24. Fox had fired her boss, who was the state’s top expert on the complex school-funding formula, a month ago.

Evelyn Kiler said she is leaving the department because “there just aren’t enough people knowledgeable with expertise in school finance to do the job we’re expected to do.”

Despite the turmoil, Fox said Wednesday that her department is on track.

“I was elected by the public to carry out some major renovations,” Fox said. “You’re going to have some bumps when you make substantial changes. Nobody expected it to be easy.”

Stanley, 56, was dismissed from his $40,000-a-year job as head of Fox’s new architectural design division “because of the entire problem of the resume,” department spokesman Pat Reilly said Wednesday morning. “He was fired last night after we finally confirmed some more errors on his resume.”

Stanley admitted that some of the impressive claims about his background were exaggerated or inaccurate, but he blamed them on his wife, the military or ousted Deputy State Schools Superintendent Terry Haws, who was his high school classmate.

Stanley’s dismissal came 10 days after Fox had to fire Haws, her former campaign manager, just ahead of disclosures that Haws had been accused of soliciting sex from a minor in exchange for drugs while teaching at a community college in Alaska.

Haws, who earlier this year pleaded guilty to a traffic infraction stemming from an arrest on a drunken driving charge, ultimately pleaded no contest to contributing to the delinquency of a minor in the Alaska case.

Fox had originally said she was satisfied with Stanley’s explanations about the problems with his resume, but Reilly said the superintendent, who has been in office just over five weeks, decided to severe her ties with Stanley late Tuesday.

Stanley was to oversee her $745,000 plan to develop a dozen generic designs for school construction that would be available free to districts seeking ways of reducing expansion costs.

But while he was described as “president and owner of a construction company specializing in school construction for 25 years,” Stanley conceded that he had never built a school and had only sold schools furniture and other items.

Stanley also admits he has no college degree or graduate school teaching experience even though his resume claims both.

Fox said her transition team conducted background checks on her appointees. “I thought some of those things were taken care of,” said Fox, who said she also interviewed Stanley.

She said the job was not intended for a licensed architect but for someone who could oversee building construction.

Also on Wednesday, Fox announced three bills for the Legislature to consider, including background checks for employees to determine any prior convictions or problems.

Both classified and non-classified employees would undergo the checks, including teachers, bus drivers and cooks.

Another bill would expel students for a year if they bring a concealed firearm to school. And the third would require a student expelled in one school district to undergo a hearing before being accepted in another district.