Life has plenty of disappointments mixed in with its many blessings.
In the Fayetteville School District over the last three months, disappointment has had an office in the McClinton Administration Center on Bulldog Avenue. The office, under the most desirable circumstances, is reflective of hope for the future of 10,000 young people. And not just hope, but of the day-to-day work necessary to ensure it.
What’s the point?
The school board’s response to Superintendent Matthew Wendt’s infractions was ultimately correct, but it should not have taken so long to reach a conclusion.
It's usually identified as the superintendent's office.
It's now-former occupant, Matthew Wendt, reinvigorated a sense of hope within the district after a certain malaise set in during the years before his arrival. By most accounts, attitudes within the district had been bolstered by the leadership Wendt and his team provided since he stepped into the role in 2016.
Now, just a little more than two years in, Wendt has been fired. And most deservedly so.
"We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope."
-- Martin Luther King Jr.
Matthew Wendt's short tenure will now be remembered for the bitter pill it became. He left the school board no choice but to end the school district's association with him. In what seemed an interminable process, it was clear that regardless of his professional contributions, personal choices within the context of his professional life could not be endured.
Last Thursday evening, it appears the school board quickly grasped the hope they could find in this circumstance, and his name is John L Colbert. He is now Fayetteville's superintendent, bringing to bear 39 years of experience within the very district he now leads on behalf of the community. Colbert has earned the respect this board showed him first by naming him acting superintendent then by giving him the job without the modifier. After three months of Wendt-created instability, it was an important step to steady the ship.
One might guess that Colbert, who turns 64 in August, is unlikely to be a long-term superintendent such as Fayetteville has been known for prior to these last few years. But he's a welcome selection, fully capable of helping the district's employees overcome the disappointment of the Wendt debacle and of restoring confidence in the school district's mission.
"If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment."
-- Henry David Thoreau
Now, to how all this played out. The Fayetteville School Board reached the right conclusion, but its handling of the sexual harassment complaint against Wendt certainly created some anxiety among the district's employees and the great community.
It took too long, creating uncertainty about what was happening behind the scenes and questions about whether the school board took the claims seriously enough. It didn't help that from the time an attorney communicated the allegations to the school district's legal counsel, school board President Justin Eichmann allowed Wendt to stay on the job more than three weeks. Wendt finally agreed to take a leave of absence days after the full school board learned of the allegations. By the time the school board got around to firing Wendt, the pages on the calendar had flipped three times.
It's astonishing if the school board understood Wendt's behaviors to merit anything but termination. Yes, allegations do not equal guilt. An investigation must be carried out. And it was. The district's examination of the claims concluded April 13. And the clock kept ticking.
Throughout, the school board stressed a need to treat their superintendent just as they would any other employee. Except he's not. Superintendents are not hired like any other employee. They're not supervised or evaluated like any other employee. So why should a misbehaving superintendent get the benefit of being treated like any other employee?
The district constructed out of whole cloth a grievance process mirroring that prescribed in the state's Teacher Fair Dismissal Act, creating a right for Wendt to trigger a public hearing. Wendt isn't protected by the Teacher Fair Dismissal Act. But the school board did empower him to drag this matter out even more.
Wendt's accuser detailed awful behaviors, the kind that more than once has been described as giving him a Jekyll and Hyde appearance. Those details left people slack-jawed because they described manipulation, control, anger, jealousy, brutality, threats, abuse of power. The woman's attorney described providing the school board with recordings and records of text messages. If only a tiny fraction of the allegations were true, they were enough to merit Wendt's immediate dismissal. Just a sexual relationship with a subordinate was enough, much less the abusive behaviors outlined. No public hearing. No weeks of inaction. Just a strong communication that such behaviors are not tolerated within the Fayetteville School District.
The school board is made up of our neighbors who are willing to take up the sometimes difficult task of running local schools. It is without question its members were doing what they believed to be best for the district. But they sure appeared to also be operating in ways far more mindful of their fears of potential litigation than about making the right decision in a timely way.
The right decision was clear weeks ago.
Hopefully, the school board learned that contracts with the district's chief executive cannot just be focused on getting a superintendent hired, but also on ensuring a superintendent's bad behaviors can be met with more than just a make-shift process that drags out for months.
What other school district has lingered for so long on findings of such egregious behaviors?
The Fayetteville School Board appeared to be walking on eggshells when the eggs were hard-boiled.
What can we learn from all this? On the one hand, the outcome must certainly be respected. On the other, the Fayetteville School District's "due process" also makes it easier to understand why victims of abusive treatment and sexual harassment by someone in power don't find it easy to come forward.
Commentary on 06/24/2018