Three strikes, principals are out!

And, so are the school councils!

The latest three audits of Persistently Low-Achieving Schools in Jefferson County have been pried out by open records requests from the Courier-Journal (why did they have to go to all that trouble?).

In all three of the schools, the Courier says the audit team determined:

“Iroquois principal Joey Riddle, Southern principal Jerry Keepers and Waggener principal Candace Conway should be removed because they ‘do not have the capacity or capability to continue their roles and responsibilities’ at the schools.”

It must be kept in mind that these unsatisfactory principals were hired for these positions by the teachers in those schools under the School Based Decision Making Council (SBDM) process. The teachers, not the superintendent, ultimately control this hiring process. In all three of these cases, and in many of the other 17 Persistently Low-Achieving Schools in the state, the teachers made bad decisions.

In fact, the Courier article points out that the audit teams in all six of the 2010-11 year group of Jefferson County Persistently Low-Achieving Schools also recommended removing SBDM authority, as well. In most cases, the SBDMs were so bad that the audits said they should be completely disbanded.

So much for teachers running the show, at least in schools that don’t perform. Given their own choice, they tend to hire a boss who won’t push performance.