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Home > Blogs > Middletown School News and Issues > Archives > 2008 > April > 12 > Entry
Assistant principal position returns to Rosa Parks
Rosa Parks Elementary School will once again have an assistant principal in the 2008-09 school year.
The board is expected to approve Monday night to hire Sean Lewis as the assistant principal at Rosa Parks, according to the meeting’s personnel agenda.
Rosa Parks hasn’t had an assistant principal this school year until recently. Principal Kee Edwards was the assistant principal last year. He became the principal when Jeff Banks moved to Highview this year.
The assistant principal position at Rosa Parks was RIFed in last year’s budget cuts, said Communications Specialist Debbie Alberico. It has been empty for most of this year.
Retired Principal Mike Farmer, who was the principal at Highview, has been helping out at Rosa Parks for the last couple weeks and will be there through the end of the school year, said Alberico. Lewis will start next school year.
This is the district’s second assistant principal hire in just a couple weeks.
Derrick Richardson will join the Middletown High School staff Monday as an assistant principal.
When voters approved the $4 million renewal levy in November, the district announced that it would bring back three assistant principal positions that had been eliminated as a result of the levy failures in May and August. This is from a November Middletown Journal story:
One assistant principal will be at Middletown High School, said Price. The other two positions may be split among multiple schools to maximize the positions and administrators are still looking at which buildings have the most need for the positions.
Richardson is the MHS assistant principal the district planned to hire. According to Human Resources Director Lisa Lowery, it took this long to choose him to fill the position.
Sean Lewis actually comes from the same school as Richardson, Cincinnati’s Shroder High School, according to the Ohio Department of Education’s educator profile database. Lewis is a teacher there and wants to finish out the school year.
The administration’s decision to reinstate the assistant principal at Rosa Parks isn’t really surprising. Speaking strictly in terms of the demographic make-up of the student population, it’s the district’s most challenging elementary school.
Located in the heart of the city’s 2nd ward, more than 92 percent of Rosa Parks students are considered economically disadvantaged. The next highest percentage is at Amanda Elementary, where 80 percent of the kids are economically disadvantaged.
Schools with high numbers of low income students often deal with issues ranging from low parental involvement to children who are less-prepared for kindergarten than their peers to hunger and illness. Statistically, economically disadvantaged kids are disciplined more often, miss school more often and do not perform as well academically compared to other students.
What do you think of this move? Are there any Rosa Parks teachers or parents out there who want to weigh in?
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment | Categories: Middletown City Schools
Comments
By VietVet
April 14, 2008 11:36 AM | Link to this
If the position has been empty for “most of this year” they have proven that it is not needed. Why fill it and waste more of the taxpayer’s money. Typical program of loading up on the large salary admin. jobs that are duplicated throughout this system. This type of situation angers the taxpayer, Price. STOP WASTING MONEY!!!By mtownmamaSR
April 20, 2008 7:52 PM | Link to this
Perhaps the “position being empty” for most of the year has proven that the position IS needed.