DeKalb Superintendent Terminated
Decatur Metro | April 16, 2010From the AJC’s Megan Matteucci…
The DeKalb County school board voted unanimously today to terminate superintendent Crawford Lewis.
“We invoked the termination for convenience,” board chairman Tom Bowen said. “The board and the superintendent mutually agreed this is what is best for the system to move forward.”
Lewis agreed to walk away with four months of severance pay – about $85,000, as outlined in his contract. The agreement allows Lewis, a DeKalb schools employee for 33 years, to retire, Bowen said.
The embattled Super was in the midst of an investigation into “wrong-doings” surrounding DeKalb school construction projects.
Kids, don’t try this at home. Or at school for that matter.
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Remember a few months ago when everyone was up in arms because the school board renegotiated Dr. L’s contract to give him a raise? Well, that new contract also included a clause that allowed them to terminate him without paying him as much money as the previous superintendent. So, that extra cash was well spent.
The media hasn’t paid a whole lot of attention to the DeKalb School Board because, although one of the state’s largest, it is majority black and just not of interest to them. But I think there’s been a lot of funny stuff going on. School board member’s relatives on the payroll, for example, and doing not much of anything. Then there’s the refusal of the school system to cooperate with charter schools, despite obvious dissatisfaction with local neighborhood schools.
The school system is top-heavy and too fixated on politics. I wonder if this is one of those cases where breaking up a large school system into several smaller school systems would ultimately be better for students?
Cronyism seems to be an Achilles heel in school systems even when they do other things right. Maybe stricter rules about selection and promotion as open, competitive processes as well as nepotism restrictions would help protect all concerned, similar to what you see in most state and federal government selection and promotion policies. Even when an individual clearly merits a position, their credibility and respect can be adversely affected if there is the perception that their selection or promotion was due to who they were chummy with or related to.
Philandria Guillory is the daughter of former DeKalb School Board member Frances Edwards. She is on the payroll in communications, and you may see her on DeKalb school TV every now and again. She has no broadcasting experience and no experience as a journalist when she got the job, and many people in the office complained privately that she did little or no work. Her salary is probably $80,000 or more.
Not an instance of someone competent in the job.
I don’t understand why she isn’t let go, unless they fear she would raise a stink about discrimination.
The DeKalb school system is huge, bureaucratic, and unwieldy. The only way it can be broken up, unfortunately, is through an amendment to the state constitution.
There are exceptionally good schools within the system with great administrators and an ample supply of superb teachers, but they always seem to maintain their standards in spite of the county. Locally, Druid Hills High School and most of its feeder schools offer solid academics and a diverse student population. A high percentage of the county offers neither.
For those of you within the City of Decatur, consider yourselves blessed.
I can’t believe it! An unqualified person in a position of authority in Dekalb county! My oh my. Lands sakes! What is this world comin’ to? Just glad we don’t have enough folks on one side to tip over!