Tuesday, October 02, 2012

Cardinal Valley Elementary principal, dean resign after investigation

This from the Herald-leader:
The principal and the academic dean at Cardinal Valley Elementary School in Lexington have resigned after a Fayette County Public Schools investigation into allegations of misconduct.
Fayette Schools Spokeswoman Lisa Deffendall confirmed Monday afternoon that Cardinal Valley principal Ivonne Beegle and academic dean Suzanne Ray resigned Friday.
The school district had placed Ray and Beegle on paid administrative leave Sept. 4 as a result of the misconduct allegations.
Responding to questions Monday, Deffendall said the school district could not provide details of the investigation or the nature of the allegations involved. She said the allegations did not concern school finances, students or testing...
KSN&C has no specific information on the particulars, but informed individuals within the distinct  say that Beegle had been counseled before about harassing behaviors and an unyielding management style. She was reportedly caught on tape being verbally abusive to the faculty one day....stuff like that.
[T]he school system confirmed Monday that it will submit a report on the case to the Kentucky Education Professional Standards Board, the agency responsible for issuing and reviewing the certifications of all teachers and school administrators in the state. The report is required by law...
Both Beegle and Ray are veteran educators. Beegle had been principal at Cardinal Valley since 2007, and she had worked for the Fayette Schools since 2000, Deffendall said.

Cardinal Valley has been an impressive performer on statewide student tests for the past few years, despite having large percentages of low-income students. On the 2010 state test, for example, Cardinal Valley recorded the district's biggest gains in percentages of students scoring at proficient or distinguished levels. Its reading scores jumped 15.54 percentage points, while math scores increased by 20.09 percentage points.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2012/10/01/2356759/cardinal-valley-elementary-principal.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2012/10/01/2356759/cardinal-valley-elementary-principal.html#storylink=cpy
In the world of high-stakes assessment where the pressure is on principals to produce numbers, some may forget that, in the end, educators are in the people business and how you treat folks matters.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

When this type of thing goes on, you have to ask yourself who created the climate for this type of principal to harrass and berate her subordinates.

Thanks to the staff of Cardinal Valley for reporting Ray and Beegle. Shame on the principal and the dean...another part of Mr. Silberman's legacy.

Anonymous said...

Heck, we have been wasting our time with this disagregation of data and indivdiual education plans. All we needed to do was have principals harrass and be verbally abusive to teachers in order to get kids scores up. Gotta go get some PD on that.

Anonymous said...

I thought there were more offenses committed. However we may never know the whole truth. It is true there are still elementary principals remaining in FCPS that came under Stu and whose sins were allowed to continue. Don't let the principal cleansing stop at Cardinal Valley. Please help students succeed on their own without altering scores or misusing Title 1 monies or raising property taxes in order to perpetuate this dark happening in FCPS.Teachers should not have to wear microphones in order call out administrator when documentation and witness has already been told to the correct administrators downtown.

Anonymous said...

Bravo to teh last commenter. I never EVER go into the principal's office without a small recording device.

I saw what happened to my colleagues under Michael Ernst!

Anonymous said...

What was that line from the Wizard of Oz? "Ding dong, the witch is dead!"

"This is a day of independence for all Cardinal Valley employees and their descendents."

Richard Day said...

October 3, 2012 6:52 PM: According to my (unconfirmed) sources....you seem to know what you are talking about. Title I issues, check. Secret recordings, check. Not exactly the kind of culture that breeds success.

Jane Morai said...

Harassing employees is never a good thing. I worked for a manager who used to insult and demean his employees and I have no idea how he's still employed but it doesn't instill confidence in having a higher up to go to and when your higher ups are the ones causing the issue the only way to get out of the situation is to leave.