Here’s a Help Wanted ad you might be seeing soon in the newspaper or on the internet:
IMMEDIATE OPENING for leader of small-town Mississippi public school district. Great opportunity to work with a visionary school board — which dumped the last superintendent two weeks after the district got its first-ever B rating from the state.
And then you might stumble across this Employment Wanted ad:
EXPERIENCED EDUCATOR, dismissed from superintendent’s job without notice, is ready to get back in the game, whether at a district or through consulting. Want to know how to take a 95% Black district from a D rating to a B in four years? I led a team that did it in Mississippi and am eager to share my experience.
OK, you won’t see those particular ads anywhere, because I wrote them. But they accurately describe what went on this week in the McComb School District, where a majority of the school board lost its collective mind and fired Dr. Cederick Ellis, superintendent for the last 10 years.
It is certainly true that any school board has the right to remove a superintendent at any time. But to make this move as McComb’s state scores were moving up only makes sense if some members of the school board have an intense personal dislike for Ellis. Which I suspect is the case.
Look at how it was handled. Ellis was out of town, speaking at an education convention, when the board voted to dismiss him. By one report, he did not find out about the decision until he got an email the next day.
An email? If accurate, that is a cold, mean way to do business, and the school board should be ashamed.
As manager of this newspaper, I have had to fire people. It is not fun, but I always made it a point to look them in the eye and tell them what I was doing and why.
The school board’s unwillingness to face an uncomfortable situation with someone who was in charge for 10 years is appalling.
As I write this on Friday, it’s been almost 72 hours — three days — since the school board voted to remove Ellis. Yet there has not been one official word from the school district to confirm this decision. You think anybody who works for McComb or has kids in school there is wondering what’s going on?
Trustee Lynn Martin was willing to say on Friday that the board voted 3-2 Tuesday to dismiss the superintendent. Others, to be uncharitable, are hiding behind the shield of “this is a personnel matter that we aren’t supposed to talk about.”
As for why he got removed, we can only speculate. I keep hearing that his wife, who works at Summit Elementary, recently got into a confrontation with a student there. If that happened, how does it affect her husband’s job status?
Another curious element: I believe all three trustees who voted to dismiss Ellis are Black, as is Ellis. And I know that some Black critics of the school district never have liked him.
I can envision a situation where these critics tried to befriend Ellis. Then they went to his office and asked him to do some things, and he declined. Maybe he rubbed them the wrong way by saying that since he was the superintendent, he would decide.
I don’t know whether anything like that ever happened, but it sure would explain this week.
Do not worry too much about Ellis. He will land on his feet. How many Black-supermajority school districts in Mississippi have a B rating? He can have a new job in a few weeks if he wants it.
The thing McComb has going for it is that its test-score gains have been gradual over the past few years. There is no giant upswing that might suggest a one-time home run. Instead, it’s been patient, steady improvement — exactly what you would want from any school district.
At some point, if the attorneys will allow them to speak publicly, the school board ought to explain how changing the captain in the middle of rising scores is a good idea.
Other than the questionable wisdom of the decision, another concern is how the change will affect the district employees.
Maybe they are all miserable and hate their jobs, but I don’t think so. Can you imagine how gratifying it must be to finally be above average after all these years?
Again, going from my experience: A business or a school usually does best with stable leadership and a clear mission. But this board has chosen to toss all that aside without explaining why.
It’s a risk. Will teachers stay? Will the next superintendent be an improvement? Who, for that matter, will be the next superintendent?
Perhaps it will be someone who’s already on staff. But in conversations this week, one name kept coming up: Quordiniah Lockley, the mayor of McComb. He has an education background, though to what degree I am not sure.
So I asked him if he was interested. “Nobody has asked,” he replied in a text message.
Not quite a denial. Just more mystery over a job change nobody wants to talk about.
