Principal wins legal battle with Phila. schools
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER An arbitrator has ruled that Superintendent Arlene Ackerman removed and improperly demoted the principal of South Philadelphia High School last year and ordered the district to reinstate her as a principal with back pay.
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
An arbitrator has ruled that Superintendent Arlene Ackerman removed and improperly demoted the principal of South Philadelphia High School last year and ordered the district to reinstate her as a principal with back pay.
Alice Heller, who was removed in June, must be appointed a principal somewhere in the district, the arbitrator found. She will not return to South Philadelphia.
The head of the district's administrators union, which represented Heller, said the ruling, issued Tuesday, would help boost principals' morale.
"We are thrilled she was vindicated, but we knew all along that what was done to her was done improperly," said Michael Lerner, president of Teamsters Local 502, Commonwealth Association of School Administrators.
He said the arbitrator agreed with the union that the district failed to follow procedures outlined in the administrators' contract.
Heller was one of six principals removed shortly after Ackerman announced that the district was raising the performance bar for principals and teachers.
"Principals are feeling terribly overburdened and under-supported at this point in time," Lerner said.
The arbitrator's ruling only applies to Heller.
"I'm very excited that the process worked, and I'm very grateful to the union for their part in this," Heller said yesterday.
Heller, who began her career with the district as a teacher in 1979, has been an assistant vice principal of Bethune School in North Philadelphia since July.
Heller said her dispute with the district began before three South Philadelphia teachers alleged in June that she pressured them to pass students. She declined further comment.
Ackerman said yesterday that the district would follow the ruling.
"We'll do what the arbitrator tells us," Ackerman said. "If he tells us to make her principal, we'll make her principal."
But Ackerman said that the district still believes that Heller, who became principal of South Philadelphia in November 2006, was not "a good match" for that school.