More scandal

By World's Editorial Writers - 11/6/2009


For the second time this year a local public high school has been rocked by a scandal that started with its athletic program.

Both high schools — Jenks and, most recently, Booker T. Washington — have glorious athletic and academic traditions. That deepens the community's disappointment in both cases.

The Washington scandal, involving recruiting and eligibility issues, first erupted last week and resulted in sanctions against head football coach Antwain Jimmerson, Principal Micheal Johnson and two other athletic staff members. It also resulted in forfeits of 23 games in football and softball.

The scandal ramped up considerably on Wednesday, when it was revealed that 37 academically ineligible students had been allowed to participate in several sports, including football, volleyball, and cross country. As a result, the school is forfeiting more games and the school's leadership is being shaken up.

Most prominently, Johnson has taken a vacation and will be voluntarily reassigned to a new post in the district when he returns to work.

That might sound like a light punishment to some. Why not fire Johnson and make an example of him?

State law makes firing a principal midyear very difficult, time-consuming and expensive, and it's not entirely clear that firing is called for in this case.

If the district's internal report of his actions is true, he certainly deserves punishment, and we have faith he will get it. Losing the top job at the state's best high school is part of that punishment.

If he ends up in a job with lower responsibilities — which seems inevitable — it would be reasonable to expect his pay to go down when his contract is renewed next year. On the other hand, the district could reasonably decide the Washington scandal justifies not renewing his contract, a far simpler task than firing him now. Johnson's future with the district doesn't have to be decided immediately. It should be balanced with many factors beyond this incident. It would be wrong to conclude from what has happened so far that the principal isn't being punished.

As they move ahead, Tulsa school officials should take some lessons from the recent Jenks scandal.

First, they need to continue to be fully open about the problems they have found. Jenks did a good job of thoroughly investigating its problems and publicly releasing the findings. Tulsa schools have followed suit thus far and must continue to do so.

Second, the district needs to be fully open about the results of the scandal as they play out. Jenks fell down on this account when it played a game of hide-the-coach, refusing for much too long to say what had happened to suspended football coach Allan Trimble. Eventually, the district learned the obvious: It had to tell the public how it was using a public employee.

Tulsa school administrators appeared headed down that same path Wednesday, when they spoke coyly about Johnson's future in the district. It could be the district simply doesn't know what it will do with Johnson. When it does — and we certainly hope that's a matter of sooner, not later — we expect a full explanation of Johnson's new duties and how this scandal is impacting his career.

Officials with experience in school discipline should know that punishment has two effects: the effect on the person who is punished and second on those who see the punishment and are deterred as a result.

Tulsa school officials need to be candid about the results of the Washington scandal, first because it's fundamentally good public policy and second because it's good for the district.


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Tulsa World Reader Comments
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Democrat, Tulsa County (11/7/2009 6:38:09 AM)
The coaches and administrators who either knew or should have known about the violations of the rules at both schools should lose their positions of responsibility. All of them should be returned to the classroom at classroom teacher or teacher's aid pay. If they lack the skills necessary to teach an academic subject as well as the other teachers in their subject discipline, then the districts should not renew their contracts for next year. They should never be returned to their old positions of authority.

Mr. Brown, Kanagawa, Japan (11/7/2009 6:18:01 AM)
Fire them. They led those children astray, and they should pay for it with their jobs. (and people wonder why America's schools are churning out a bunch idiots).

Mr. Brown, Kanagawa, Japan (11/7/2009 6:18:40 AM)
ooops---misplaced period---

dustyoutlaw, Tulsa (11/6/2009 10:00:29 AM)
They all need to be terminated when they are found to be breaking the rules. This is not the pro's, this is not even college where a wide receiver loses a whole year of eligibility for a very small lie. This is formative adult training grounds and to teach these kids that it's OK to cheat and you will be "reassigned" teaches them something that is not going to happen to them in their work and life after school. Most people will be fired for this kind of life's transgressions. I don't care if it's a coach or a principal or a office aide. They should be terminated.

thereader, Tulsa (11/8/2009 9:53:19 AM)
As a Junior at Booker T., I agree with this article in the way that Mr. Johnson (and possibly the coaches) have been give very light "sentences". The issue here is that we (the students) trusted our superiors to act according to the rules/regulations because we were not aware of the content of those rules. I feel that because Mr. Johnson and the coaches betrayed that trust they should not be given responsibilities like the ones they had. Why would any other student at any other school trust these people to act in their best interests when they didn't before? So what if it’s hard to fire a "principal midyear [because it's] very difficult, time-consuming and expensive"? And then on top of that it took the TPS administration approximately 2 weeks to come out to Booker T. and explain the issue that was going on at our school. None of the school faculty or counselors held a forum to personally explain what was going on. No, we had to wait for some people (and no disrespect is meant here) that we had never seen before to tell us what was going on at our school. Until that point most of us had no idea why our scores were being deemed invalid or why certain superiors were "disappearing". I don't think the former principal or the coaches or any of the people involved are bad people but they made some choices that weren’t quite on the level….

okpaul, Tulsa County (11/6/2009 8:53:51 AM)
Johnson needs to be terminated and his teaching/administration certificate revoked. Ditto for Trimble at Jenks.



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