Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 4, 1990 TAG: 9004040489
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: MARGARET CAMLIN NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
The board was deliberating personnel matters in an executive session well past midnight as Williams waited with his attorney, David Williamson, and several teachers and community members.
Board members would not confirm that Williams was one of several administrators whose jobs were to be acted upon. Williams filed suit Tuesday over his dismissal.
"How can a man with the utmost integrity . . . be told he's not needed any more?" asked Bonnie Shealor, Williams' sister-in-law.
Shealor said she had talked with numerous teachers, principals and secretaries and "all have nothing but good things to say about him and what he's doing in the schools."
Many were afraid to speak out in fear of retaliation, she said.
Susan Wamsley, an Auburn High School teacher, said Williams has always stressed people over programs, a characteristic she said she appreciated. She said he has fostered an environment of free and open communication with teachers.
Fran Weiss, a guidance counselor at Shawsville High School for 12 years, went before the board to describe what she believed was retaliation against her for having publicly opposed a measure the school superintendent favored.
Weiss said that after she spoke out against the proposed 2.0 grade-point policy last year, Superintendent Harold Dodge told her in mid-March that she was being reassigned as a classroom teacher, a job she had not held in nearly 25 years.
Board members James Hassall and Kimberly Helms said fear of retaliation should not exist.
"I'm very upset and disillusioned to find out - untrue or not - that there is the perception that when a professional within the system makes a comment or has a differing opinion, that there will be retribution," Helms said.
Hassall said principals and an office administrator told him recently that they were told by Dodge not to contact board members.
"It's incomprehensible that our employees are told not to exercise their rights as citizens," Hassall said.
Rumors had circulated for days among teachers about Williams' termination, according to Susan Guard, president of the Montgomery County Education Association.
"T.O. is not a member; I wish he was," Guard said Monday. "We would rally behind him; we value him very much. He's the one person in central office who, when we talk, he listens."
Hassall said his phone has rung constantly over the past four or five days. Teachers and administrators - mostly principals - were "greatly concerned," he said.
"One teacher said if she even showed up tonight [Tuesday], she would be put on a `hit' list."
Guard said teachers are afraid for their jobs. She could not imagine why they would be skittish about showing up for a meeting, she said, but she could understanding a fear of speaking out.
"I'm afraid to say too much because I value my job," Guard said. "It's wrong that I should have that fear - but I do."
Williams' job wasn't the only controversial one Tuesday night.
Hassall said parents who phoned him were upset by reports of who had been chosen to be principal at Blacksburg Middle School.
"They were uniformly aware that Wanda Price was not selected as principal," Hassall said. Price is the school's assistant principal, and most of the school's teachers wanted her to be principal, he said. They communicated this to Dodge when he visited the school, he said.
Also Tuesday, the board:
Voted unanimously to spend $30,000 on a mobile unit for Shawsville Elementary School to help relieve overcrowding.
Voted 6-3 to no longer have a representative on the Challenger School's governing board, because Montgomery County is not participating. Board member Richard Zody made the motion, arguing that it "may give the appearance that we're condoning or not condoning a particular position."
Board member Donald Lacy used as an example Hassall's vote to not allow parents to pay tuition for their children to attend the Challenger School.
"I don't appreciate reading things in the paper that appear to be actions of the School Board," he said.
Hassall, Helms and Virginia Kennedy voted against the motion, wanting to keep a representative on the board.
"We're totally disenfranchising ourselves" from having an influence on planning, Hassall said.
by CNB