Morning Read: Lake Placid’s vanishing principal
It’s been a tough year for Lake Placid’s school district, with the Superintendent caught up in a scandal and a growing call for change on the local school board.
Now Chris Morris at the Adirondack Daily Enterprise has broken the story that the Middle-High School principal, Katherine Mulderig, has abruptly departed before the end of the year.
District Superintendent Randy Richards said in an email Friday that Mulderig “is on Personal Leave” and didn’t say anything else. But a district employee says Mulderig told him/her that she has accepted a settlement offer from the district and won’t return at all.
The employee spoke to the Enterprise on condition of anonymity out of fear of getting fired.
“She had all these boxes packed (in her office), so I asked her what she was doing,” the employee said. “That’s when we got into the conversation that she was leaving. She had had enough.”
Mulderig was entangled in a scandal, in which she accused Richards of describing some female employees of the district as “bitchy” and said they needed a “bitchier” supervisor. He later apologized.
In February, parents submitted a petition to the Lake Placid school board calling for Richards to be dismissed. The petition included roughly 600 names.
In a public letter quoted in the Plattsburgh Press-Republican, Richards said, “I have every confidence that we will have a successful end of the school year.”
Tags: adirondacks, education
The scandal wasn’t just the language; it was that she was being moved from one job to the other solely because she was a woman. The language was only part, and not the most important part, of the issue.
This is a tempest in a teapot, whipped up by the publisher of the ADK Enterprise. The principal was offered a different school by the Superintendent. It was a school which he believed had problems she could solve. When pressed for why she could help there, he told her in a boss-employee conference that the work environment there was “bitchy”. He never – contrary to the publisher’s unretracted editorial – called the employees “bitches”. No one except the publisher has said that.
Apparently the principal was not up to the transfer – she refused it and filed a claim of “discrimination” based on something – not very much, really. She filed an EEOC complaint, which is required before suit can be filed. The EEOC found “probable cause” and issued her a “right to sue” letter. She hasn’t sued but may have parlayed the letter into a golden parachute.
The ADK Enterprise publisher – also publisher of the Lake Placid News – has flogged this into a witch hunt to fire the superintendent. It’s a feminist fantasy played out in the newspaper: boss tries to move you to a more difficult position (which still needs to be done by someone) and you instead go after HIS job. The Lake Placid school is outside the Enterprise’s circulation but the publisher has stuck its issues on the front page as though it were local. She shamelessly and falsely represented the facts (“bitch” wasn’t said).
I have worked in a “bitchy” environment myself. It was all male. Part of my responsibility as supervisor was to fix it. I think I did improve it. I did not regard the use of “bitchy” to be sexist – it was an apt description well supported in common use. I hope nobody gave this principal a settlement because it wasn’t due.
Mr. Williams is either misinformed or clairvoyant. Was he present at the conversation between Richards and Mulderig? Does he know anything about Richards and his failed leadership? Granted that Katherine was no longer effective in her position for a variety of reasons, but that does excuse the incompetency and gender bias of the Superintendent. Your opinion of “bitchy” is interesting (to be kind) and I wonder if you would use it today in your workplace. The answer to that question might incriminate him.
Mr Schiller: I searched carefully the newspaper reports as to whether the word “bitch” was used. I did not find it. I emailed the reporter, who apparently had access to transcripts. He acknowledged it was not in the reporting nor in the other materials, only in the publisher’s editorial.
It’s a fact: the superintendent did not refer to the teachers as “bitches” and no one other than the publisher of the ADK Enterprise has said so. If you believe he did, then perhaps you got the notion from her editorial.
I can’t say it was good form for the superintendent to use the term “bitch” to describe a work environment, but it was in the course of a discussion of why the principal could help at the new position. That sort of a discussion needs to be frank and is usually kept between the parties. It’s a shame the employee has whipped into a “gender” issue. A good principal is very important and I guess she was comfortable where she was already.