The Ellis County Press: Board seeks replacement for unfit superintendent

Board seeks replacement for unfit superintendent
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Editor on 12/19/2008 14:44:00


Ex-Waxahachie official leads intervention team
_The Ellis County Press_
LANCASTER- The Lancaster Independent School District school board will be
meeting on two different occasions Thursday, Dec.18, at 3:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. to
discuss who will be replacing former superintendent Dr. Larry Lewis.
The school board agreed to fire Lewis on Nov. 18 in a 4-2 vote after an
investigative report from an outside investigator found Lewis to be unfit for
his position.
According to sources inside the school district, Bobby Parker, former
superintendent for Waxahachie ISD from 1998-2005, and assistant superintendent
Eugene Young of LISD are being discussed as replacements.
They both serve on the school intervention team for Lancaster High School, which
has been ranked Academically Unacceptable by the Texas Education Agency two
years in a row.
The second year of the intervention focuses on the reconstitution which is the
improvement process of low-performing areas and creating a framework the campus
will use as a guide for implementing activities.
Ted Kerr, with the department of program monitoring and interventions at the TEA
office in Austin said "The school board proposes the candidates and we review
and approve who is appointed. The school district is the one who pays their
salary."
Young was implicated in investigative attorney Harold Jones' report issued by
the district for taking and approving illegal loans.
Meanwhile, Parker's tenure at WISD was contentious and controversial. Under his
guidance, the following occurred and was reported only by _The Ellis County
Press_: