Superintendent is on shaky ground
Personnel issues have plagued Rose Tree Media. A petition is calling for the school chief's removal.
When he was hired as superintendent of Rose Tree Media School District in 2011, James Wigo was called the “best of the best” by the consultant who brought him to the school board’s attention.
Now, after several personnel moves have shaken the 3,800-student district - including the firing of a beloved elementary principal and the hiring of a middle school principal who subsequently was arrested and pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography - the 64-year-old superintendent is the one on slippery ground. There were calls for his departure and bodyguards at a recent school board meeting.
A petition to remove him and human resources director Anne Callahan has received more than 600 signatures. It states that the two “bully teachers and staff, and they disrespect this community of families.”
Wigo, who just signed a new five-year contract with the prestigious Delaware County district, said parents were acting on emotions, not facts.
“I have every intention of surviving it,” he said of the move to oust him, citing the district’s many accolades and low taxes under his tenure.
Personnel issues can be a minefield for superintendents, said Joe O’Brien, executive director of the Chester County Intermediate Unit, who headed the search that brought Wigo to the district. “Sometimes superintendents survive it quite nicely and go on. Sometimes they don’t.”
One who crumpled was Cheltenham Township School District superintendent Natalie Thomas, who was fired after parents complained about her removing a well-liked high school principal.
Whether Wigo can move forward is uncertain. The hostilities began in January when he fired Indian Lane principal Bill Bennett over some angry outbursts and inappropriate comments to staff over the past 15 years. After months of public hearings filled with impassioned pleas to keep the principal, Bennett accepted a $300,000 payoff to leave.
Now some parents are hoping Wigo follows him out the door.
Although school board president John Hanna said that he still supports the superintendent, some district officials are saying privately that Wigo’s credibility has been damaged.
“We’re asking a lot more questions now than we did before so we are able to answer folks when they call us, e-mail us, and text us,” said Sue Nolan, school board director.
“There was never much reason for us to question [the administration] unless things would come up. . . . Something came up.”
Wigo said that the details of Bennett’s behavior “haven’t been put in the proper context,” and that parents “have to take an objective look . . . at why this had to happen.”
As for Troy Czukoski, the Springton Lake Middle School principal who was arrested 14 weeks after he was hired in 2012, Wigo said he had been vetted by about 40 people and got glowing reviews from his former district.
“No one can see what’s in someone’s heart,” Wigo said.
Critics say Bennett’s firing was just the latest slipup for a superintendent who had spent almost his entire career in the nearby Upper Darby School District.
Bennett maintains he got on the school chief’s bad side when he complained about being told which teacher to hire, even before he had conducted interviews. And five Indian Lane staffers might also have run afoul of Wigo by testifying on Bennett’s behalf at his hearings.
Afterward, the five were given new assignments or had their offices relocated.
Nolan and an assistant superintendent intervened, and the reassignments were undone. Wigo maintains the changes were made to accommodate a new teacher lunchroom.
Also speaking up is a former sixth-grade teacher, Matt Johnson, who said that Wigo threatened to report him to state education officials after Johnson filed a grievance - which he won - and that Wigo then reassigned him to a job he didn’t want. Wigo denied the threat.
Some parents believe Wigo’s background in Upper Darby - and four years teaching at a correctional school in Delaware - clashes with the ethos of the affluent Rose Tree-Media district.
“These are tough schools, tough kids,” Jim Coyne said. “Taking a strong - some might say bullying - approach might have been appropriate in those schools. That’s not the case in Rose Tree Media.”
Mary Anne Hanna, a lawyer who helped spearhead the new petition, agreed.
“He is not right for the district,” she said. Wigo’s attitude is “it’s my way or the highway.”
In addition to the petition, parents have vowed to vote out school board members running in November: Nolan, Hanna, William O’Donnell, and Elizabeth Schneider.
Now, as the parents plan a July 23 send-off party for Bennett, Nolan said the school board is focused on filling three administrative vacancies, including Bennett’s old job at Indian Lane, before school starts.
Nolan feels an urgency to wrap things up soon, she said, because “from what I read on Facebook, I’m not going to be elected.”
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@kathyboccella