Sunflower County has gone through two recent public hearings about principals contesting their firings. The district won the first one, involving former Ruleville Central High School Principal Cassandra Winters, on a technicality. Now it’s lost the second one, heard last week regarding longtime former Rosser Elementary Principal Angela Winters, also on a technicality. The board agreed to give Winters another administrative job somewhere in the district.
Technicalities aside, what is the real substance of the matter? In both cases, Superintendent Miskia Davis recommended not renewing contracts of the leaders of F-rated schools. That should be the end of the discussion.
Everyone knows there’s no security at the top. If a football team loses, the head coach gets fired. If a business fails to make a profit, the top executive, not a regular worker, is axed.
And if a principal’s school is failing, he or she also should read the writing on the wall. They certainly shouldn’t contest the decision to the school board.
It doesn’t mean they are a bad person or don’t deserve another job ever again. Angela Winters, particularly, is a beloved figure in Moorhead after 22 years at Rosser. But sometimes it simply doesn’t work out for a particular person in a particular place, and in the best of circumstances it’s always going to be difficult to get students to score well on state exams in the Delta because of the region’s persistent poverty and other social problems.
The school board should have stood firm behind the superintendent’s decision to make a change at Rosser. If Davis had decided to keep the principal of a school rated an F, it would be saying to the parents and children that we are willing to accept failing schools.
But because the board buckled after the hearing, now the taxpayers are stuck paying Winters at least a principal’s salary for a year for whatever made-up position the district can come up with.
And other principals are surely watching these decisions, so it erodes the superintendent’s authority because principals know the school board won’t necessarily back the superintendent’s decision not to renew their contracts.
