Thread: AZ: Celebrated principal fired from charter

Celebrated principal fired from charter
by Pat Kossan - Dec. 17, 2008 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

A nationally recognized charter-school principal who raised academic achievement at a small Phoenix high school and crusaded to help her immigrant students pay for college has lost her job.

Yvonne Watterson was fired last week as principal at Gateway Early College High School on the campus of Gateway Community College.

Susie Pulido, a college spokeswoman, said she could not comment on the decision by Gateway Community College President Eugene Giovannini.
"The success of our high school is certainly our priority and we'll continue business as usual," she said.

Teacher Lisa Smith was named acting principal.

The Maricopa County Community College District Governing Board, which must approve all hiring and firing, will take up Watterson's dismissal in January.

Watterson took over Gateway Early College High School in 2003, revamping the 200-student charter high school. Twenty percent more of the school's students passed the 2008 AIMS reading and math exam than passed in 2006. Watterson brought the early-college program to the school.

"I'm shocked," Watterson said. "Students need a source of stability in their lives, and for many of my students, that source of constancy was the little school I created."

Jose Leyba, a retired administrator for both the Maricopa County Community College District and the Maricopa Community Colleges Foundation, said Watterson had high expectations for students.

Leyba, who sits on the Gateway Early College High School Advisory Council, said the district's administration needs to stop and investigate the termination.

"It's very hard to find quality, great instructional leaders as principals," he said. "The students on the campus are the ones who are going to suffer."

In November 2006, Arizona voters passed a ballot measure denying in-state tuition to students who could not prove they were in the country legally. Suddenly, Watterson's school faced a bill of $86,000 to pay out-of-state tuition for college courses for 38 advanced high-school students who couldn't prove their citizenship.

Watterson pleaded for help, and people and corporations began donating money.

In January, she shared Phoenix's Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Living the Dream Award with Rufus Glasper, chancellor of the Maricopa County Community College District.

In March, the New York Times ran a story about her crusade under the headline: "Principal Sees Injustice, and Picks a Fight With It."

Watterson suspects her activism could be to blame.

"Since I wasn't given a reason and because no one from the college administration ever helped me proactively with the plight of undocumented minors, it did cross my mind that it did have some bearing," she said. "But I'm still at a loss."

www.azcentral.com

Principal got just what she deserved
Dec. 23, 2008 12:00 AM

Well, well, well, so Yvonne Watterson, former principal at Gateway Early College High School, doesn't know why she was fired ("Celebrated principal fired from charter," Valley & State, Dec. 17).

Tell her to wake up and smell the roses. There are a lot of American kids who would love to get free tuition to go to college. And she is helping the illegals?

We have two grandkids who would love to get free tuition. They wonder why, as Americans, that they can't get it while the illegals have it handed to them. Really makes sense, doesn't it? Discrimination - you bet. Kudos to Gateway. - Richard and Virginia Lettie,Surprise

www.azcentral.com

"Watterson pleaded for help, and people and corporations began donating money. "

And who pleads for help for needy American students who want to go to college?

Americans are fed up with teachers and principles injecting their own personal politics into the minds of our children.

People in authority positions dealing with taxpayer's children should not engage in overt or even covert political efforts of any kind around or in front of other people's children.

W

The NYT article:

Principal Sees Injustice, and Picks a Fight With It


Yvonne Watterson, the principal of GateWay Early College High School, found herself enforcing a new immigration law.

By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN

Published: March 12, 2008

PHOENIX — One morning last August, Yvonne Watterson, the principal of GateWay Early College High School here, sat in her office, grimly scrolling through the database of its 240 students.

At the behest of a new state law she detested, she looked for which ones listed a Social Security number and which did not. Without a number, it was virtually certain that a child was in America illegally.

Ms. Watterson wound up with 38 names, many of them of boys and girls she had personally recruited to the school. Under the statute popularly known as Proposition 300, illegal immigrants could not receive in-state tuition at public colleges and universities in Arizona. Nor could school administrators like Ms. Watterson use state money to pay it.

GateWay’s students, while still in high school, are able to take courses at a community college in the same building, with in-state tuition paid by the high school. Ms. Watterson knew her students could not afford to pay the out-of-state rate, generally $280 a credit. And without the college classes, there would be less reason to stay in school.

So she made the list and sent letters home and began to call in the affected students one by one to tell them that their tuition was no longer subsidized. A girl named Karla crumpled to her knees in the principal’s office, and said, “But I’m a good person.â€

describing the plight of her undocumented students and talking about her own experience as an immigrant after she came to America in the mid-1980s.

You are here LEGALLY....they are not....BIG DIFFERENCE

You are a Principal.....look up the word ILLEGAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How many AMERICAN kids would have loved to have someone pay their tuiton? Instead this woman trolled her database to find the illegal aliens to let them know she had free money for them!

I do feel bad for these kids, but they are NOT our responsibility! They need to make their demands to their birth countries. We should not have to subsidize them at the expense of AMERICAN kids! We are NOT responsible for every human being in the world.

GateWay’s students, while still in high school, are able to take courses at a community college in the same building, with in-state tuition paid by the high school. Ms. Watterson knew her students could not afford to pay the out-of-state rate, generally $280 a credit

I paid for my kids college courses they took while in high school and we are not rich. No one offered to pay them for us and they were expensive. It cost more than $280.00 too!

Sent: Saturday, December 27, 2008 9:35 PM
Subject: Yvonne Watterson and the corrupt educational system in Arizona

Mr. Kossan,

"Celebrated principal fired from charter", give us a break. The only celebrated teacher aspect is the “puffing herselfâ€

Thanks Jack2008 for your input which I find very interesting.

Welcome to ALIPAC .