Cairo loses two school officials

CAIRO, Ill. -- The superintendent of the Cairo School District and the president of the school board resigned Thursday night.

Superintendent Gary Whitledge submitted his resignation, effective June 30. Whitledge said Friday he resigned because of a change in the board's administrative philosophy.

Board member and Whitledge supporter Brenda Gooden said the superintendent didn't have the support of a majority of the school board when it came to running the school district. "They were trying to take too much authority away," she said of the majority of the board.

Whitledge said he didn't want to stay on and be a distraction to the education of children. "If the impact is going to be negative, then I am going to be out of there," he said.

Whitledge, who is finishing up his second year as superintendent, said he wasn't forced out by the board.

The school district offered him a one-year contract extension a few months ago, but Whitledge and Gooden said details of the contract were never finalized.

The board accepted Whitledge's resignation on a 4-2 vote in open session. Joe Griggs, the board president, and Gooden cast the dissenting votes. Board members Danny Brown, J.L. Posey, Carlandus Mallory and Vernon Stubblefield voted to accept Whitledge's resignation. Board member Arnold Burris was absent.

Following the vote, Griggs resigned, effective immediately. He told board members he was resigning for personal reasons.

Griggs said Friday that he wants to move back to California within the next several years to be closer to his children. But he said the changing climate on the board convinced him it was time to step down. "It is a good time to bow out," he said Friday. "I just felt like rather than be part of the problem, I would be part of the solution."

Griggs, who had served on the board for six years, had two years left on his second term. The school board will have to appoint a replacement.

Board members Mallory and Stubblefield declined to discuss the resignations. Board member Brown said Whitledge wasn't fired and wasn't asked to resign.

At the meeting, board members questioned some of the district's bills before approving them for payment. According to a report of the board meeting published on the Cairo Association of Teachers Web site, some board members said they served as "stewards" of the public's money and deserved to be informed about expenses before approving payment.

Griggs and Whitledge had worked closely together. Both men praised each other's efforts to improve a school district that had struggled financially and academically in recent years. "Gary, I feel, did an outstanding job," Griggs said.

The school district's finances have improved and the district's students have improved test scores, he said. The district's schools recently made adequate yearly progress, the first time that all the schools had reached that level since the inception of the accountability standards imposed by the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

Whitledge said he was proud of the academic improvement. "That ultimately is the test of what you are supposed to be doing out there anyway," he said.

Griggs said the superintendent helped direct physical improvements to the school buildings, such as the high school gym, and that he helped improve the public perception of the school district.

Whitledge said Griggs' resignation was the "greatest single loss" to the district. "This is a gentleman who has spent an inordinate amount of time committed to improvement of the district," Whitledge said.

Gooden said she worries about how the district will survive the loss of Whitledge's and Griggs' leadership. "We are going to lose a lot of credibility," she said.

The school board now will have to search for a new superintendent at a time when the district must negotiate new contracts with the teachers' union and other employee unions, she said.

"We need stability more than anything," Gooden said.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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