Impasse at Ellsworth High

This vacation week marks an intermission but certainly not an end to a deadlock over the future of the popular veteran assistant principal of Ellsworth High School. As long as it continues, the prospect is for more protest marches, more disruption of the educational process, and more outrage by students, some of their parents, teachers and other Ellsworth citizens. The unfolding drama has some elements of a Greek tragedy, with all parties trying to do the right thing and no end in sight.

The Ellsworth School Committee inadvertently touched off a public dispute by voting 5-0 in an open meeting not to renew the contract of Michael Wright, who has been an administrator at the school for 17 years and served under a half-dozen principals. As the chief disciplinary official, he has often stood between the principal and the students. He seems to have impressed the students that he has been consistently on their side. The committee acted after Mr. Wright had been given only a few days’ notice. The members gave only generalized reasons for the decision, such as Mr. Wright’s alleged failure as a “team player.”

For two days, hundreds of the students boycotted classes and marched on the superintendent’s office and City Hall demanding to know why the non-renewal occurred and vowing to keep on demonstrating until the committee reversed itself. No disciplinary action was taken on the first day, but about 150 students were given a one-day suspension for skipping classes the next day.

Many Ellsworth teachers support the students’ protest. Even some who don’t take sides point out that they have been teaching the students since kindergarten about the value of nonviolent protest in a free society and the examples of people like Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King.

Future demonstrations will not take place during school hours, says their leader, Joe McErlain, president of the senior class. He has been planning to send e-mail messages to members of the school committee, urging them to acknowledge that they made a bad decision and reverse their vote. The 18-year-old organizer, respected by teachers as well as students, often sits with the school board as an ex-officio member. He evidently prefers persuasion to legal action.

Mr. Wright’s contract says: “Administrators and the board jointly agree that the superintendent of schools will evaluate administrators in writing on an annual basis.” Mr. Wright says his last written evaluation was in the year 1995-96.

Mr. Wright and his lawyer are considering whether to request another public hearing. He says he requested the first public hearing rather than accept a school board offer to conduct an executive hearing at which he would quietly resign.

How can the conflict be resolved? Mr. Wright could give up the fight, but he seems determined not to do so. The board could reverse itself, but members seem adamant. The students could get tired of the struggle, but they show no sign of it.

One possibility could be a new hearing. The board could speak frankly and tell specifically what they have against Mr. Wright, and he could try to answer the charges. Laying out the details would require Mr. Wright’s consent. Whether such a hearing would be public would probably be up to the board. Until something like that happens, it is hard to blame the students for continuing their protest, so soon after Martin Luther King’s birthday.