Monday night in closed session, the Vance Charter School board voted 9-4 to reinstate its principal, Sean Connolly.
The closed session lasted 30 minutes, followed by the announcement that Connolly was reinstated as principal with stipulations until July 17th.
Connolly was suspended in late April, and the news story from that date is linked here.
The stipulations were not named. The chairman of the board of directors at Vance Charter School, Billy Davidson, told WIZS News, “And the reason being, I think that’s a private kind of thing. It’s what we think he needs to (do), what changes need to be made and what he needs to accomplish.”
The approaching end of the school year is one reason Connolly was reinstated before the charges against him were resolved by the court system. Those court proceedings are presently continued until June 12th. “That’s the reason we had to do something because we needed him desperately to be back to help Dr. Read close out this year and make plans for next year. We only had one administrator, and when you’ve got the number of students we have with one administrator, it is difficult. We were starting to get into some serious trouble,” Davidson said.
As to the reinstatement lasting until July 17th, pending any court decision, Davidson said, “That’s a regular July meeting, and that’s one of the reasons we picked that date. And, we’ll discuss the stipulations and the progress and go from there.”
Monday’s 9-4 vote was done by closed vote, but Davidson said all the votes were read out loud so everybody would know what the vote was. No one knows who voted how, but everyone knows what the number was.