By James Libresco, Theogony

Reprinted with permission

Part one of two

Due to the sensitive nature of this article, several sources agreed to speak to Theogony on the condition of anonymity. Altered names of anonymous sources appear with an asterisk upon first use and are always italicized.

As Alexandria City High School prepares for the opening of its new Minnie Howard campus, engagement efforts are at an all-time high. Behind the scenes, interviews with multiple teachers and administrators reveal that the process is shakier than it appears.

Walking through the A-100 hallway of ACHS, Walter Caddel* was not expecting the course of his career to change anytime soon. Thirty minutes later, that assumption would be put into question. Beyond the doors of his administrator meeting, Caddel would find out that his position — along with those of 15 other deans and assistant principals — would be “restructured” next school year.

In other words, they would all be required to reapply for their jobs.

After working in education for decades, and especially now in his position as an administrator, Caddel has become used to change. Instituting new practices and policies each year is common for schools, and ACHS is no exception. In the last three years, the school has dealt with numerous modifications, from a revamped bell schedule to the implementation of a sophisticated weapons detection system.

Considering such frequent adjustments, it may be easy to dismiss the restructuring of mid-level administrators as just another modification to how the school is run. But, for some, this change is more impactful than normal.

“I hope I don’t cry,” Caddel, in the first moments of an interview shortly after the decision was announced, said. “We come here, we show up every day, we give it our best, we care about the kids, we care about the school and we care about our colleagues … It feels awful.”

ACHS currently has 16 mid-level administrators who are responsible for everyday operations: 10 assistant principals and six deans. Next year, there will be 10 deans, six “academic principals” — one per academy — and one “lead administrator of school improvement” for the King Street and Minnie Howard campuses; there will also be one dean at the Chance For Change campus.

While all positions are on the same pay scale, deans will be employed for 215 days per year, compared to 245 days for academic principals and the school improve-ment administrator.

Additionally, all positions require administrative certification, which was not previously mandatory for deans. According to a source close to the situation, the district human resources department first communicated there would be a year-long grace period to attain these credentials, but days before the jobs were posted, the period was changed to 90 days.

While deans will mainly focus on providing behavioral support to students, academic principals will coordinate and support interdisciplinary programs within one of the six learning academies being established next year. They will also be responsible for overseeing a content area – for example, math or English – and evaluating teachers in that area.

According to Executive Principal Alexander Duncan, who oversees all ACHS campuses, he and the “superintendent’s leadership team” – which consists of district chiefs, executive directors and Superintendent Melanie Kay-Wyatt, Ed.D. – collaboratively made the decision. Duncan also said the purpose of the restructuring is “to meet the needs of the upcoming launch of the academies.”

But some staff members say that the effect of this change may stray from its intended purpose.

“It’s just absolutely crazy that they’re doing this,” elective teacher Keera Johnston* said. “It’s degrading if you think about it. These people applied for their positions, they’re doing the job and then the leadership says, ‘Oh wait, never mind.’”

“I think the administrators had no idea this was coming,” English teacher Sarah Kiyak said. Kiyak, who has taught at ACHS for the last 19 years, is leaving the district at the end of the school year. She said that the restructuring was a major factor affecting her decision.

“My heart breaks for the administrators,” she said. “Their jobs and their livelihoods are at stake, and that’s really unfortunate. I think it’s incredibly unfair.”

A social studies teacher, Marie Matthews*, said she was expecting the change to occur.

“It was always going to be one academic principal over each academy,” Matthews said. “If you sort of read between the lines there, you understood that we were going from 10 to six assistant principals … Maybe they haven’t been telling the admin team that, and maybe that’s why it felt out of the blue.”

English teacher Alex Anton* questioned the timing of the change.

“It seems like a reckless move,” Anton said. “We’re facing a year that already has a lot of uncertainty, so I’m not sure why we would add to that uncertainty by ripping things up now.”

One assistant principal, Robert Bowes, said he welcomes the decision.

“I think it’s a good thing,” Bowes said. “Sometimes you have to change the way you do things. You can get caught in cycles of continuity. If there isn’t growth, then why are you staying on that same pattern?”

Bowes, who works at the Minnie Howard campus, has been an educator for 41 years; the last eight have been at ACHS.

“This is about innovating ourselves to get out there and think about things in a new way,” he said. “Are we helping the students? With this new model, I believe we are.”

Another mid-level administrator, Caleb Lee*, said he isn’t fully convinced.

“One thing I try not to do is speak from emotions, because sometimes emotions can drive different actions,” Lee said. “But I think this doesn’t bring stability, and I think that when you want to change a culture you have to have a plan.”

Critics are concerned that the decision could remove administrators with institutional knowledge, which they say is crucial for successfully operating the school during a significant transition.

Six of the seven ACHS upper administrators began their positions since the beginning of last school year, and all of them were hired in 2021 or later. On the other hand, six of the 10 assistant principals began their current positions since 2021. The other four have been at ACHS as long as 13 years.**

“The upper management of this school has been something of a revolving door over the last 15 years,” teacher Jordan Payton* said. “On the contrary, there are assistant principals who have been here for a pretty extensive period of time, who know the building, who know the kids, who are effective at leading their teams”

Payton, like Kiyak, is leaving ACPS at the end of this school year, partially attributing his decision to the restructuring.

“This plan to make them reapply for their jobs is going to erase all that institutional memory,” Payton said.

“For the district to willingly slice away at the middle management that holds all of this institutional knowledge feels like a shot in our own feet,” International Academy teacher Corrina Reamer said.

Reamer, who has worked in other schools that were restructured, said she wishes the district had taken a milder course of action.

“Wiping the slate clean is like using a very blunt tool when we could do a better job with a scalpel,” she said. “I was disappointed to see such an un-nuanced approach to restructuring here when we just replaced almost the entire upper leadership team.”

Some believe this approach was used to remove administrators who were not meeting standards without dismissing them individually.

“Firing a school employee is very hard,” Payton said. “This is cleaner. It’s a policy. No one can claim discrimination or that there was no cause because it’s a universal policy.”

But Duncan says that was not the case.

“The decision was based on [adapting to] the academy structure,” he said. “The data has shown us that we as a school have got to find a different way to do what we do so that we can meet [the needs of] more young people … I worry about the 16 percent of students who are not graduating. That’s serious to me.”

In addition to its low graduation rates, ACHS has recently struggled to meet state averages for standardized test scores. Last school year, the majority of students taking the Virginia Standards of Learning exams for math, science or history did not pass. Only on the reading and writing SOL exams did students pass at a rate above state averages.

The school is currently “credited under conditions” by the Virginia Department of Education and is at the risk of losing accreditation entirely, although it is unclear when this would occur. If accreditation were lost, the state would take hold of ACHS and could subject it to extreme measures, including possible termination and re-hiring of all teachers.

According to Carmen Sanders, district Executive Director of Instructional Support, the restructuring may help reverse these worrying trends.

“When I think about school improvement … I think about the role of the current assistant principals,” Sanders said. “They have so much on their plate. They’re trying to both manage development and improvement in professional and teacher practices, and support students in multiple areas.”

With the restructuring, assistant/academic principals will focus solely on instructional support for teachers, and deans will revolve around student needs.

“I think the separation of the two jobs will help with maintaining focus and intentionality on the work to improve,” Sanders said.

Duncan said he believes the restructuring will help more students graduate, what he calls the “purpose” of the school.

“When we as an institution keep that purpose at the forefront, will we have to make hard decisions sometimes?” he said. “Yes, we will. If that means we can advance student achievement, are there certain hard conversations we should stay away from because of how we feel certain individuals are going to struggle with those decisions? I can’t say that I believe that.”

**The analysis of administrator starting dates does not include deans, as their position was created in 2023, or athletic staff.

The writer, a junior at ACHS, is an editor of Theogony. This article first appeared in the student newspaper on April 26.