20 Years of Impact: The Long Fall of a Poway Superintendent 

Former Poway Unified Superintendent John Collins was once the picture of an ideal public educator. 

After rising through the district’s ranks, the school board chose Collins to lead the North County public school district in 2010. He was homegrown with full support from both the governing board and teachers union. He had high-achieving students and a large compensation package. Collins seemed to have it all. 

But it didn’t last long. 

Voice of San Diego helped uncover a costly capital appreciation bond deal the district made in 2011. Poway had borrowed $105 million from investors to fund the final stages of its decade-long effort to renovate its aging schools. But here was the kicker: The district would have to pay back roughly 10 times what it borrowed. 

In honor of Voice of San Diego’s 20th anniversary, we’re looking back at the stories we broke that had a tremendous impact on San Diego. Read more here.

Poway took out a controversial loan known as a capital appreciation bond, which it would not have to start paying back for the first 20 years of the loan. The only problem is that interest piles up during that time. Taxpayers, it turned out, didn’t like having pay back nearly $1 billion on a $105 million loan.  

The deal caught the attention of state legislators who changed state law to make sure similar deals would never happen again. Even the California Attorney General said part of the deal was illegal. 

Collins began facing intense scrutiny after Voice’s first story, with many residents calling for his termination. But things only got worse. 

In 2015, Voice of San Diego revealed that Collins made undisclosed edits to a consultant’s scathing report about the district’s technology department. He softened lots of biting criticisms in the report.  

As former reporter Ashly McGlone wrote:  

“Words like ‘arrogance’ were replaced with ‘overconfidence.’ ‘Dysfunction’ became ‘issues.’ ‘Extreme and even chaotic’ decision-making became just ‘problematic’ and ‘reckless and wasteful decision-making’ became ‘uncontrolled and inefficient,’ while other descriptors like ‘short-sighted’ and longer passages were scrubbed entirely.”  

By the end of 2015, Collins began making plans to leave the district, but because he had 18 months left on his contract, he wanted the district to pay him to leave. That’s when the school board decided to study his compensation, allegedly uncovering multiple instances of Collins misappropriating public money. 

This included unauthorized vacation cash-outs, longevity overpayments, “me-too” contract language, restraining orders sought on the district dime without board approval, credit card misuse and other issues. 

Collins was fired from the district in 2016, the state credential commission revoked Collins’ credentials for “misconduct,” and he faced four felony charges and up to seven years in prison. McGlone catalogued the full story of his long fall from grace in August 2017.  

He struck a plea deal in 2018 where he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge. He was sentenced to five years of probation and ordered to pay $185,000 to Poway Unified.