We welcome Keith McGee as the next superintendent of the Watson Chapel School District.
McGee, who got his undergrad degree from UAPB and went on to get a master’s from UA-Little Rock and a doctoral degree from Arkansas Tech, has spent much of his educational career in Pulaski County-area school districts. But two years ago, things got a bit more interesting for him when he was tapped by the state Education Department to lead the Helena-West Helena district, which was and still is under state control. (Recall that’s how the Pine Bluff School District ended up with Superintendent Jennifer Barbaree.)
Perhaps his experience doing battle for a troubled school district as it fends off dissolution provided some allure for the Watson Chapel board. At the start of the last school year, Watson Chapel fell into utter chaos with students and classes and transcripts and requirements in such a mess that the state put the district on probation for two years. Another violation during the probation could land the district in its own takeover.
In short, he will have his hands full, and we wish him well. Even without the recent train wreck, the district has had a litany of other issues that it has been dealing with. But there was the millage approval and the start of a new high school, so not all the arrows are pointing down.
It is a shame, however, that the Watson Chapel School Board chose the cavalier path that it did to name McGee.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Out of one side of its collective mouth, the school board was saying that it needed a bit more time in which to name a superintendent. On the other side, it had apparently told McGee that he was the choice to lead the district.
That is not the way this procedure is supposed to work. Boards go into executive session to consider personnel matters, such as which superintendent candidate to hire. Once they reach a consensus, they reconvene in open session to vote. Then and only then is it a done deal.
But for Watson Chapel, they winked and nodded to the extent that, before any public vote was taken, McGee had quit his job in Helena-West Helena and later was introduced to staff as the next superintendent – again, before any vote was taken by the board.
Watson Chapel Board President Goldie Whitaker said after a July 2 work session the board had not come to a consensus, but McGee turned in a letter of resignation to the Helena-West Helena board dated July 3.
The end result was the same, you might say, so what is the big deal? The deal is the trust or lack thereof in the board to conduct itself in a transparent way. Too often, governing boards play cat and mouse with the state Freedom of Information Act, which still passes as a fairly robust method of requiring the public’s business to take place in public. To defeat the spirit of the law, especially in such an unnecessary way, leads the public to wonder if the Watson Chapel board is actually paying much attention to the law at all.
The board hired McGee to make a better school district. Perhaps he will also make them a better board.