The Board voted 5-3 against reinstating Hammond High School Principal Carmon Moore after his post became a point of contention for residents and alumni who backed the popular former teacher/coach/administrator.
Meanwhile, principal vacancies at a number of local schools, including West Side Middle School, have not been filled but could be by the next Board meeting scheduled for Tuesday, July 20.
School officials continue to conduct interviews with a number of administrative applicants. The Board has stated publicly that they hope to have all principal and assistant principal posts filled this month so the new administrators have an opportunity to transition with their predecessors, if possible, prior to the start of the new school year.
The Board's personnel committee will meet today, Wednesday, July 14 at 9:30 a.m. at the Central Office in Amite. There is a chance the open administrative positions will be discussed at that time.
Hammond High School will apparently be one of the schools naming a new principal for the 2010-11 school year after the Tangipahoa Parish School Board voted 5-3 against returning Moore to the post.
Last Tuesday, Board members Rose Dominguez, Tank Genco, Al Link, Danny Ridgel, and Ann Smith voted against rescinding Moore's planned sabbatical for the upcoming school year.
Board member Sonya Traylor proposed the move in what attorneys referred to as a "compound motion" which would both invalidate Moore's request for leave and reinstate him to his post as HHS principal for the new term.
Traylor, was joined by Sandra Bailey Simmons and Eric Dangerfield, who voted to return Moore to the school where he has spent 27 years of his career.
Traylor, who accused select board members and administration officials of manipulating the situation, said the Moore controversy was emblematic of a bigger problem. "The motion I am making tonight is much greater than Carmon Moore. It is not even a motion about whether Carmon Moore is a good or bad principal. In fact, it is not even a personnel issue. It is a procedure issue that came about because pertinent information was purposely withheld from certain board members. On the other hand, the information that was provided was purposely given under false pretenses, and an adequate amount of notice was purposely not given in order to read, study, and question the addendum before being voted."
"As board members, it is our responsibility and duty to be fully informed and then to question until fully satisfied so that we may make the best decisions in our powers. There would be no 'checks and balances' if we just blindly trust and support the recommendations of the superintendent, especially in a position of this magnitude as one of the seven high school principals in the parish," Traylor continued, adding, "Because proper procedure was not followed, that right was stolen from me as well as other board members. Therefore because of this, the unanimous 'yes' vote for the Personnel Committee Addendum of June 1, 2010 was manipulated to get the outcome desired by some."
In a debate that lasted more than one hour, board members, School Superintendent Mark Kolwe, attorneys, members of the public, and even the ousted principal were allowed time to speak on the matter that shed very little new light on the situation that began more than a month ago.
According to statements made primarily by school system officials during the course of three public meetings since Moore's sabbatical was approved by the Board June 1, the decision to move the four-year tenured principal was made in late May prior to the close of school. Moore said Tuesday night that he was told by school officials that he would be transferred to the district's PM High School for the new school year and would not be returning as principal at Hammond High.
Moore said afterwards that he believed the transfer to be a "done deal" and that decided he did not want to serve as principal at any other school. As a result, Moore said he submitted an application for sabbatical leave for the 2010-11 school year and announced plans to retire one year from now.
However, unknown to Moore, the Board had not acted on a transfer. Instead, the first public action on the Moore personnel file was taken one week later when the Board received and approved the principal's request for a two-semester leave of absence from his post. The Board voted unanimously to accept that request.
In the days immediately following the Board vote, questions surfaced about Moore's decision to leave Hammond High. The weekend following the vote, Moore submitted a letter to the editor of a local newspaper, which indicated he was not willingly leaving his post.
The following week, a group of concerned Hammond citizens and former HHS students began meeting to discuss what, if anything, could be done to return Moore to his principal's job.
On June 15, Traylor and Simmons asked the Board to allow them to change their votes from supporting Moore's request for a sabbatical to opposing the ouster of the popular principal. On the advice of acting Board attorney Julie Johnson, the measure was tabled until Tuesday's meeting.
In the interim, Moore secured outside counsel and support has been growing by the day to resolve the matter.
Tuesday night, Louisiana School Board Association attorney Robert Hammonds told the board that they could not take action on the Moore issue unless Moore requested his sabbatical be rescinded. Hammonds said that the district was in receipt of written communication from Moore's attorney indicating that Moore would make such a request, if he could be returned to his current position.
Over the course of the next half hour, President Ann Smith allowed seven speakers to address the Moore issue, including the principal himself. Retired educator Monroe Perry, local NAACP President Pat Morris, and HHS students Austin Miller, Victoria Henshaw, and Crystal Gonzales all interceded on Moore's behalf, asking that he be reinstated, garnering applause and even a standing ovation from the more than 100 gathered at Tuesday's board meeting.
Moore's attorney Glen Galbraith appealed to the Board's sense of "fairness" in allowing the principal to be returned to his job. Galbraith said publicly that the school system's own records indicated Moore was a good principal and quoted his one and only evaluation in that position as having received "the highest marks possible" and "no action plan was needed" for Moore in terms of recommendations for improvement.
When his turn at the podium came, Moore asked that he be given a rationale for his removal. He said that throughout this issue, he has asked for such a reason for his ouster but has been given none.
Kolwe said that his administration had determined, after much deliberation, that Moore was not the right candidate for the HHS job and that in his estimation, Moore was a "better fit for the PM School."
Kolwe offered to go into the issue at length, should the board decide to rescind the sabbatical, but he insisted that his recommendation would remain that Moore should be transferred to the parish's night school.
Link, himself a former Hammond High principal, said that in the last fifty years "every principal", with the exception of him, had been transferred from the school. Calling it a "very difficult job," Link said that principals basically have to give up their own lives for their schools.
"It's a very difficult decision for me. We're dealing with a man's life and livelihood," Link said, adding that, despite his own personal support for Moore, he had received complaints about the principal in recent years.
"I've got to do something I really hate tonight," Link said, indicating that he would vote to uphold the Superintendent's recommendation.
After the vote, the crowd hushed for a moment and then picking up and leaving the board room, huddled in the Central Office lobby for some time, visiting with Moore and talking about what happens next. Simmons and Traylor both came out to meet the crowd, which erupted into cheers as they came out into the lobby area.
Two uniform police officers and one high-ranking law enforcement official in plain clothes stood sentry at the meeting and waited outside with the crowd until most had dispersed.
Moore said after the meeting that he will meet with attorneys on Wednesday to determine his next move. He said that while his heart remains at Hammond High, his immediate goal is to ensure a smooth transition for the next principal.
Moore said that no matter what happens, the students he will leave behind in just a few weeks are his first priority.
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