Agreement, in principal

Superintendent backs off administrative shuffle

Thanks, Superintendent Hewitt. Sort of.

Really, the thanks goes to the kinds of parents school leaders should love having, the ones who care deeply not just about their own child’s educational experience, but also how well teachers, administrators, schools and the district as a whole are performing.

Our reference is to Fayetteville Superintendent Paul Hewitt’s decision, sent out to faculty and staff Monday evening, to overturn his plan to shuffle most of the assistant principals at elementary and middle schools in what he saw as an effective management tool to better train them to potentially become future principals.

We’d love to take some credit for Hewitt’s change, having offered our opposition to the plan in an editorial written Monday. Hewitt’s announcement, however, came late Monday night, after Tuesday’s editorial page was put to bed but before our readers received it. So we’ll have to give credit where it’s due — to those riled-up parents who are passionate about their community schools and who recognized a faulty plan when they saw it.

We’ll give Hewitt some credit, too, as it’s difficult to change one’s mind once you’ve dug in your heels — and until Monday, it appeared Hewitt’s were dug in deep. It takes a strong leader to admit you’re wrong.

Oh, wait. Hewitt didn’t. In fact, he made sure to reassert certainty that his plan was the right choice, but his hands were tied only by dusting off a district policy he had, until Monday, not followed. That policy doesn’t allow teachers to be transferred involuntarily unless certain criteria are met. In many ways, Hewitt’s assistant principal shuffle failed to adhere to district policy.

OK, we suppose it’s “let him have his cake and eat it, too” time. It was all about a discovered policy. It had nothing to do with the parent uproar or the waves the heavy-handed move sent through district employees. Or a desire to avoid dropping such a contentious subject in the lap of the school board that hired him. None of that mattered, right? It did, and it does. But the bottom line is the assistant principals won’t face random reassignment. Maybe the new superintendent will, like that old, uncovered policy, demonstrate respect for the individual that Hewitt’s wholesale revamp lacked.