A Brief History of C’ville Superintendents

Published by Waldo Jaquith on April 22, 2005 in Education and Politics. 8 Comments

Because I have terrible time management skills and, currently, writer’s block on my class-assigned paper topic, I want to lay out the history of Charlotteville superintendents for the past few years, since I found a little back reading to help get a sense of how we got where we are today.

  • 10/19/2001: Bill Symons, superintendent since 1996, announces his intention to retire in June of 2002.
  • 05/01/2002: The school board announces that they have three finalists to replace Symons, whose retirement is 60 days away. Those are Jean Murray, Albemarle’s assistant superintendent for instruction; James Bughsley, deputy superintendent for Charlotte-Mecklenburg County Schools in North Carolina; and Kriner Cash, superintendent for Martha’s Vineyards Public Schools. Two of the three candidates are black, which is noteworthy because there is pressure on the board to appoint a black superintendent. A decision is due in five days.
  • 05/25/2002: Cash, the board’s stated #1 pick, declines the offer.
  • 05/29/2002: Pughsley, the board’s stated #2 pick, accepts the job of superintendent in Charlotte, NC. Murray, the board’s last choice, withdraws her application. Now there are no candidates.
  • 06/14/2002: Murray leaves her job to become superintendent of the Stafford County school system.
  • 06/27/2002: City Council refuses reappointment for all three school board members whose terms are ending, appointing Peggy Van Yahres, Michael Heard, and Bill Igbani. This clean sweep was said to be a result of the board’s bungling of the superintendent hiring process.
  • 08/19/2002: Ron Hutchenson, who had been named as a stand-in until the board could name a superintendent, is hired on a two-year basis, giving the board some breathing room to hire a new superintendent.
  • 05/27/2004: Dr. Scottie Griffin is named superintendent.

I have now read and written the word “superintendent” so many times that it’s lost all meaning to me.

Racism, the School Board, and Griffin

Published by Waldo Jaquith on April 22, 2005 in Education and Politics. 24 Comments

In today’s Progress, James Fernald provides an update on last night’s school board meeting, at which Superintendent Scottie Griffin resigned from her position.

After reading the piece, I’m inclined to agree with others who have said that things are going to get worse before they get better. There is great potential for this to get uglier than it has so far. The first red flag is that the 5-2 vote to accept Griffin’s resignation was almost, but not require, along racial lines — the two dissenting votes were cast by Muriel Wiggins and Bill Igbani, two of the three blackschool board members. Accurately or not, this provides the public impression that votes were cast for reasons of race. Igbani said, after the meeting, that he intends to leave the school board before too long — again, a red flag.

After the announcement came, Rev. R.A. Johnson — a strident supporter of Griffin and a harsh critic of those who have questioned Griffin’s qualifications and methods — declared: “Don’t think you can hire somebody black and that’s going to satisfy us.” This calls attention to the bind that the school board is in: if the next superintendent is black, there will be accusations of tokenism; if s/he is white, there will be further accusations of racism.

In the meantime, Dr. Griffin remains the superintendent until June 30, and it’s sure to be an uncomfortable two months.

In this week’s Hook, Courteney Stuart has further revelations about Griffin’s background, including that she’s held seven positions in the past decade, and left four of them midway through the school year, which is quite uncommon. It turns out that the school board knew nothing about her resume or her two legal cases, because they — rather appallingly — counted on the recruiting firm to take care of that. According to the board’s attorney, they may consider taking legal action against the search firm.

All of that may be beside the point, though — if her resignation is perceived to have been forced because of her race, the facts are unlikely to persuade those who see nothing more than institutional racism.

It’s not surprising that Igbani plans on leaving the school board. What’s surprising is that they’re not all planning on quitting.

Tingley Denies Toscano Push-Poll Allegation

Published by Waldo Jaquith on April 22, 2005 in Politics. 1 Comment

In a press release yesterday, House of Delegates candidate Kim Tingley denied fellow-candidate David Toscano’s allegations that Tingley has been running a push-poll. The press release reads as follows:

Tingley Takes High Road Responding to Toscano Allegations

April 20, 2005–Clement “Kim” Tingley’s campaign today denied the use of negative campaigning in response to allegations from the David Toscano campaign.

As is standard practice in political campaigns, the Tingley for Delegate campaign has hired a professional opinion survey firm to conduct a scientific survey of concerns affecting voters in this district.

The survey, which was designed as a scientific measure of voter concerns, covered a broad range of issues relevant for this election. It also included a small number of positive and negative questions about both candidates. In the poll more negative questions were asked about Mr. Tingley than Mr. Toscano.

Mr. Tingley denounced push polls and negative campaigning as unethical. When asked to comment, Mr. Tingley responded “I do not believe Democrats should attack other Democrats in primaries, since this only hurts the party in the general election.”

A former public servant with 15 years in county and city government, Kim Tingley has spent the past 20 years building affordable housing with his own business. He serves on the board of Virginia Forever, where he has worked towards clean water funding and land conservation.

Tingley’s depiction of the poll seems to match the portrayal by cvillenews.com user Jack, who received one of the calls.

Scottie Griffin Resigns

Published by Waldo Jaquith on April 21, 2005 in Education and Politics. 20 Comments

cvilleyankee writes: “The School Board accepted the resignation of Dr. Scottie Griffin effective June 30. Dr. Bobby Thompson & Ms. Gertrude Ivory will act as superintendent during the transition period. A separation agreement was also accepted by the Board.”

Nothin’ against cvilleyankee, but can I get some confirmation on this?

Update: “Upset” writes that s/he was there, saying that at around 8:40pm, the school board announced that Scottie Griffin has decided to “pursue other interests.” I recommend bowling.

Update: The increasingly-on-the-ball Daily Progress has a story on their site, even though the meeting just got out, like, an hour ago. New facts include that the board accepted her resignation by a 5-2 vote, board chair Dede Smith cried after the meeting was through (“It’s been one of the hardest nights I’ve ever had”), and Griffin won’t actually give up the gig until June 30.

Bowerman Stepping Down from BoS

Published by Waldo Jaquith on April 21, 2005 in Politics. Closed

Albemarle Supervisor David Bowerman announced at last night’s meeting that he’s not running for reelection to his Rio District seat. The 61-year-old has served since 1989. Tom Jakubowski has already announced his candidacy, and Bowerman says that at least a couple of other people are interested in running. WINA has the story.

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