Cry Baby!

(Eugene White needs someone to change his diaper.)

IPS chief threatens to quit as board rejects plan

IPS chief says he would quit before altering his plan to reassign administrative jobs

Indianapolis Public Schools Superintendent Eugene White threatened to leave his job after the School Board rejected his plan Tuesday to reassign more than two dozen administrators.

"You are not going to badger me into changing what I know we have to do," he said. "I have given you all the information you need."

White said if the board insists on changing his plan, he wants to enter negotiations to end his contract.

"If you are prepared to pay me what you owe me, you won't have this recommendation," he said. "I have no changes to make."

Board members who voted no said they believed revisions were needed. The vote was 4-3 against White's plan.

"I haven't been convinced that some of these moves are in the best interests of students," board member Michael Brown said.

Board member Diane Arnold said she was concerned about some of the pay raises in the plan.

"Some of the increases I thought were unrealistic based on the diminishing resources we have," she said.

An angry White responded that the plan was saving the district $560,000 while accomplishing other goals.

"We saved more than half a million dollars, and that's not being fiscally responsible?" he said.

Board President Elizabeth Gore, who voted yes, said the board will meet privately to discuss the plan next week and expressed hope that it will be revived.

White declined to comment after the meeting.

The moves were to come at the end of the school year and would have meant new principals for eight schools. Among the moves was a promotion and $13,000 raise for White's son, Reginald White, the behavior dean at Tech High School. He was to move up to assistant principal, raising his pay to $92,000 from $78,606.

Eugene White said earlier in the week that he played no role in the decision to promote his son, who was hired two years into his six-year superintendency. Administrators told him they recommended the move because Reginald White was among the district's best administrators at his level, Eugene White said.

Much of his raise would have resulted from switching from a 10-month contract to 12 months of work.

School Board members raised questions last week about the principal shuffle, asking whether all of those reassigned to principal jobs had performed well enough to merit the opportunity to lead a new school. White said in his view they had and that, in some cases, the changes were forced by school improvement rules meant to turn around failing schools. Even though some of the schools are low performers, White said all had shown improvement with their current principals.

"You need to go back through and re-evaluate these changes," board member Samantha Adair-White said. "I think we are placing people that need a job rather than placing for the best interest of our children."

The changes were supposed to be the first steps in a plan to address the district's need to cut $15 million from its budget for the upcoming school year.

The reassignments of three principals -- at Arlington, Northwest and Howe high schools -- were a response to rules in the No Child Left Behind federal education law and the district's desire to seek federal grants for those schools.

Because the schools have reached six years of subpar test performance, the district is required to take corrective action. White said he chose to "reconstitute" the schools by removing the principal and at least half the teachers. Schools that follow this path can apply for federal grants for aid to help with the process.

White said all three of those principals are being assigned to new schools to comply with those federal rules, not because he is displeased by their work.