The Watson Chapel School District has suffered a string of unfortunate and sometimes tragic events. With the retirement of its current superintendent, perhaps the district will turn the page to a brighter future.
In general, the district has been hard pressed on a variety of fronts. Enrollment has dropped, revenue has fallen and in the race with other districts to upgrade their curb appeal and offerings — we’re thinking Sheridan and White Hall districts in particular — Watson Chapel has trailed much of the field.
The district seemed to have turned the corner, so to speak, with the addition of Andrew Curry in 2021, but he was forced out on a split vote of the school board a year later.
Then came Tom Wilson, who took over as superintendent on an interim basis shortly after Curry left. The interim designation was dropped a short time later and Wilson became the head of the district.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Wilson’s top accomplishment was to get a millage passed — that happened but barely — with the proceeds to be used to build a new high school, a move that will allow the junior high students to move into the old high school and the ancient junior high building to be torn down. The millage piece was considered crucial to Watson Chapel’s future.
But while Wilson appears to be well liked, his record for the past school year has been spotty at best. The 2023-24 school year was underway, but a few weeks into it, it became apparent that much of the academic element — the most important element that a school district provides — was a train wreck.
Student records, graduation requirements, transcripts, students repeating courses, class schedules — it was all in shambles. It was as if no one was in charge and no one had been held responsible for getting the school year ready to go. No heads rolled, but that only served to put the glare of accountability more squarely on Wilson.
In response, the state came very close to taking over the district. By unanimous vote, the state Board of Education in October 2023 — just a little over a month after school started — put the district on probation through the 2024-25 school year. Such a failure is unheard of, even for a district that is losing students and hurting for cash.
(And it will be a long time before anyone forgets the tragic schoolhouse shooting in 2021 that left a 15-year-old dead. The district will forever be coming to grips with that.)
Wilson, who will be 75 next month, turned in his notice earlier this month effective the end of June. Even that move seemed poorly timed. Districts usually lock up the services of the superintendent earlier in the year, if not have the person on a multi-year contract.
For a district that has been hurt by inefficient operations and in need of a seasoned someone who has a firm hand on the tiller, Watson Chapel will now have to scurry around, hunting for someone to come in and offer immediate stability. That work should have been done much earlier in the spring, and informing the district less than 30 days before his departure was a disservice to the board and district.
We don’t doubt the board will gather itself and rise to the occasion. It has done so in the past, and there is no reason to believe the board will wither now. But its path has been difficult, sometimes unnecessarily so. Maybe, that part is behind it.