Questions surround Clovis Unified's Supt. retirement

Cash made the announcement Friday afternoon, before he was supposed to attend a meeting to discuss his performance review.

Starting at noon Tuesday, district board members will meet to begin the process of choosing an interim superintendent.

Neither Dr. Cash, or district officials have given any specific reason as to why he retired, but many people believe it has to do with problems the district has faced over the past year.

Dr. David Cash has been Clovis Unified's superintendent since July of 2009.

Friday afternoon, two days after his annual performance review, Cash announced he was leaving.

His decision came just before he was expected to address the board about his review. Cash never showed up.

Listed on the agenda for that meeting, a closed session discussion regarding "public employee discipline, dismissal, release or suspension."

Kelly Avants said, "District wide, the news that he had chosen to retire was a surprise to a number of people but we have great respect for the personal choice that went into that."

During his two year tenure, Cash has dealt with some highly publicized incidents, including the butt-drag case, involving a Buchanan High School wrestler accused of sexually assaulting a teammate. The wrestler was ultimately expelled, even though he was cleared of criminal charges. Buchanan wrestling Coach Terrell Blanch was fired.

Attorney, Chuck Magill represented the accused wrestler. He says Cash's retirement was likely caused by the impending backlash from the case.

Chuck Magill said, "They're gonna have lawsuits from the family of the hills, I suspect by the way they handled it. They're gonna have lawsuits from Terrell blanch as well because of his firing."

Some parents also suspect Cash's retirement, revolves around an incident that happened just two weeks ago.

38 Buchanan High School students were caught drinking in a chartered bus after prom. Some students were suspended. Rayleen Grout's son was one of them.

Rayleen Grout said, "I know that people were unhappy and felt like it wasn't handled like the way it's been handled in the past and that it was handled far too severely."

Attempts to contact Dr. Cash have been unsuccessful. He did tell the Fresno Bee that a major reason for his retirement is the fact that three of his close friends have died in the past eight months and he wants to spend more time with family. Cash had two years left on his contract.