Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Principal Tic-Tac-Toe in CCSD

Why has Dan Conner been principal of three schools since 2009, the latest being his appointment to Northwoods Middle?

8 comments:

View from Mid-Field said...

Conner's appointment by the Superintendent to Northwoods may be related to another matter. The board acted in a separate motion to overturn a previous appeal hearing decision involving the band director at Garrett. This was to reinstate the highly popular and successful band director who had been reprimanded by Conner when he was Garrett's interim principal. A dispute between the interim principal and the band director began over a traditional and informal band competition that took place between Garrett and North Charleston after a game last year.

The band director was ultimately terminated by the superintendent last year. He appealed to the county school board. He lost the appeal hearing in a split vote only to have the full board reverse its decision last Monday. This was directly related to support for him from the community which had become more vocal over the summer. In spite of the board's reinstatement, McGinley was furious. She is now taking steps to move him from Garrett to St. Johns where there is no significant band program.

Garrett is still without a band director. None of these decisions were made by the principals involved, since technically Garrett and Northwoods had no permanent principals before last Monday night. The band director would have been just another part of the existing faculty the new principal would have a chance to review over the coming year.

The whole story shows just how petty education administrators can be. McGinley is all about breaking the back of those with little or no power, in this case a band booster club and a band director that has a successful program. This is an example of the superintendent micro-managing the schools and asserting her power at all costs, even at the cost of community participation.

Unless the community pushes back, the band director has been sent into internal exile, McGinley has created a new position probably at the expense of another teaching position at St. Johns and Garrett still has no permanent band director. Bottom line: McGinley is breaking up Garrett, one piece at a time.

McGinley not only has no ear for the communities she pretends to be listening to, she's just plain mean.

Anonymous said...

Question for "Mid-Field: So what does any of this have to do with him being appointed to three different schools in three years, lest we forget an ever so brief tenure back in Iowa?

FB said...

Good question, Anonymous. Why not ask the superintendent, Nancy McGinley? With the exception of the year in Iowa, she has been the one who keeps moving him around so frequently. While you are at it, ask the super why she couldn't provide board members with current evaluations for each of the principals she moved this year? The total number of principal vacancies she created this year exceeds 20% of the total number of school level leaders for the entire district. That isn't good.

Anonymous said...

The lady will go to any length to prove that her decisions are ALWAYS right. She is vindictive. Most of the board members are puppets.

Evaluations of principals?? Are you kidding me? Look who is doing the evaluations? The innovation zone is ridiculous. Most of the schools are failing. The associate runs a failing district and the supt thinks he is wonderful. We are scared stiff of him. Teachers are fleeing as fast as we can.

Anonymous said...

Any principal hire is entitled to one bad fit for a school. That always happens. Sometimes it just doesn't work out. But four schools in four years? Kinda sounds like a charter school downtown that has had four principals in four years.

Downtown said...

I believe it was more accurately 3 principals in 5 years for the charter school.

Anonymous said...

To Downtown: You may be partially right. Isn't this the beginning of their 5th year? They looking for another new principal. Wouldn't this be their 4th in 5 years?

Anonymous said...

Yes, CCSMS is in fact trying to secure yet another principal. Now there's a healthy work environment for an administrator!