"North Charleston High Fights Reflect Discipline Struggle" headlines a Courrege article in Thursday's Post and Courier.
WHAT IT SHOULD HAVE SAID:
"Goodloe-Johnson's Recommendation for Interim Principal Brings Old Problems Back to North Charleston High."
Fights make headlines; failure to hire permanent administrators is boring. Yet Superintendent McGinley, with the consent of the school board, allowed a school that had achieved a disciplinary turnaround to start in August with an interim principal and two vacancies for assistant principals. One interim principal led to another; finally in mid-October the school had a real principal, and a real discipline problem. Is it any wonder?
According to McGinley, a search began "almost immediately" after Colwell's resignation (official on June 30th but announced publicly on June 13th). So much for the so-called smooth transition between Goodloe-Johnson and McGinley last summer and G-J's long goodbyes. McGinley did not officially take the reins until July 1. Colwell's resignation was announced publicly on June 13th, coinciding with G-J's goodbyes and the lame-duck period when McGinley was vacationing.
Since G-J recommended on June 13th (according to the P & C) that an interim be appointed, no search began before McGinley's official start on July 1. Was a search begun? According to the Superintendent, the applicants she interviewed were "inexperienced." Perhaps they were local personnel who knew about the vacancy.
We will never know who those applicants were, but we can see that McGinley's penchant for out-of-state hires continued. She AND the board gambled that this previously-failing high school that had begun a turn-around could succeed just as well with a temporary principal while a nationwide search ensued.
It would be an interesting study to see how the number of interim appointments has risen during the tenures of G-J and her protege McGinley. Memory suggests that the number has risen dramatically, but at what cost?
Does every administrative post require a nationwide search? Is it possible that Colwell's tenure as principal went so well because he had been at the school for almost two decades when he became principal?
While everyone interested in improving schools wishes the new principal, Eric Vernold, success, one has to wonder how a high school in rural New York compares to North Charleston. Adirondack High has under 500 students, mostly white. Boonville, New York, judging from its location, must be socked in with several feet of snow for a good portion of a long winter. It is not part of any major metropolitan area. There are places less like North Charleston, but not many in the contiguous United States.
Vernold is quoted on his second day on the job as saying, "Neighborhood problems a decade ago stayed in neighborhoods, but today they spill into schools." Where do these ideas come from? What could he know about North Charleston High "a decade ago"? Can we believe that neighborhood problems in North Charleson did not affect the high school then? The problem is that Vernold is generalizing from national data, all he can do at this point.
Unless Vernold has undisclosed knowledge of the Lowcountry, he's going to be on a steep learning curve for the rest of his first year. Let's hope that the community backs him and that North Charleston High can continue on its previous trajectory.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
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14 comments:
If I'm not mistaken the reason they lost Colwell to begin with was that HE was an interim appointment who they failed to make permanent. So he started looking elsewhere and found a school district in NC, near his wife's home, that clearly appreciated his talents...or at least more than CCSD indicated by passing him over for permanent status. He wasn't the first, or the last, homegrown talent that has been snubbed.
Be careful what you wish for...now principal successes and failures are totally on Superintendent McGinley. She can't blame those bothersome constituent boards for delays and bad choices anymore.
FYI: Mr. Colwell was the permanent principal, not the interim. He was hired as the permanent.
Ewww...the front page of my paper this morning has a picture of Mrs. Toya Hampton-Green and "what's to come" in the High Profile section in tomorrow's paper. It states she's a "quiet advocate of public education who is making her voice heard on the school board."
Does anyone on this blog get their phone calls or e-mails returned from her?
Shhh...whisper..Oh, I get it now. She doesn't return phone calls because she's a "quiet advocate." Shhhh...
I have already told my paper carrier to not even leave me one tomorrow. I don't want to throw up before breakfast. The only thing Toya is an advocate for is herself!
David Colwell was an excellant principal and unless they get the " district spy" out of that school nothing will change
It would be nice if the P&C allowed on-line comments to their editorials and puff pieces like this one on Toya Green. I think they need to know first hand what people think of their opinions or when they decide to profile some joker like this. It wouldn't hurt for Joe Riley to learn just how much contempt the public holds for some of his appointees like this one.
All principal and school administrative positions now are being filled without any community input. I'll assume that school level interviews have also been nixed. I'd question how this makes it more difficult to introduce a new principal when the school has never met any of the candidates.
With the Superintendent and the County Board having closed end control over all appointments, wouldn't this effectively make virtually all administrative positions "interim" or at the pleasure of the Superintendent?
I think Dr. McGinley said that 40 out of 79 principals county-wide have been in their positions for a year or less. I assume that a large number of these were interim appointments, too. So what is the "life span" of a school principal in Charleston County and what is the relationship with a principal's length of service in a particular school and that school's overall rating and level of public support?
The Superintendent said CCSD policies should be data driven, so what's the data say?
David Colwell was driven to make North Charleston High School successful. He cleaned up an indescribable mess, recruited and retained bright young teachers, dramatically increased test scores, and made the school one of the safest in CCSD. However, th district lied to him about changing the start time of the school (which he considered crucial to its next level of successes), began demanding absurd amounts of paperwork, required that he spend more time spying on his teachers (and less time in the hallways), and rarely appreciated him for his efforts. Now, and only now, are they beginning to realize just how hard his job really was. No wonder another district stole him. Perhaps they actually convinced hin that he really was wanted.Lessons learned, McGinley...
Anonymous 3:09 PM: Someone found out that you can make comments on the P&C Profile article. Try this:
Better judgment would tell me to ignore this misleading and insulting piece of calculated PR for a person who has no genuine interest in public service. Because Ms. Green does hold public office, I think it is important that some additional facts be included. As a voter, taxpayer, product of public education and a retired teacher I find any attempt to describe Ms. Green's "quiet" nature as a virtue to be a gross mischaracterization and totally out of touch with reality. She is reported by her constituents to be unreachable and totally removed from the issues of public education locally.
If she doesn't want to be "ugly" then she should rethink how she condescends to respond to her constituents, if she responds at all. She should let someone who is truly motivated to represent her district take her seat. Ms. Green is the WORST person to represent the needs of our downtown public schools on the county school board. Her dilettante-like approach to issues of race is totally out of place in Charleston. She has a very superficial understanding of the community she was elected to serve and knows far less about downtown schools. Her "silence", avoidance of what she says is "ugly" and total lack of passion toward District 20 schools, are all serious liabilities, not strong points. This article was a total waste of paper and newsprint. Ms. Green and the manner in which she chooses to conduct herself as an elected official is exactly what is wrong with our school board.
I'm sure that many others who have a similar opinion of Ms. Green have simply chosen to trash this section of the paper this morning without bothering to read it. Perhaps being honest would be called "ugly" by some, but to many public school parents on the peninsula, nothing could be uglier than the way Ms. Green has treated them since she was elected last November.
tO THE 3:45 POSTER.... The appointments are being made by community input. Just people like you and I don't count. It is the input of the Zucker's, CEN, the Mayor and the NAACP The same folks that are DIRECTLY responsible for the situation we are in now.
I'm curious. How do the Zucker's fit into this mess?
if you were one of his teachers then you would know he was not the best for NCHS. He was in fact allowed to operate under the corrupt CCSD policy that allowed him to make his own rules
Since you mention making up rules as you go, Ms. Moore, the highly favored principal of two schools at once, Sanders-Clyde and Fraser, is said to be unavailable at either school. She's only at Fraser when the state Dept. of Ed. ERT inspectors are on campus...she always seems to be there whenever they show up...but gone as soon as they leave Fraser. Parents at Sanders-Clyde are complaining, too. Ms. Moore is hold up in her office or no where to be found. With so many NCLB transfers to Sanders-Clyde and the addition of 8th grade and the small school yard filled with trailers, test scores are dropping and students are transferring out. Parents at both Sanders-Clyde and Fraser are feeling short changed.
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