LHS Students Up in Arms Over Avellino
March 15, 2010
LHS Students want their executive princpal back!
LIVES has learned that the students at LHS are not happy with the District’s decision to do away with the executive principal position under the new academies plan. According to the Facebook page that students organized they are preparing to have several members of their group address the Board of Education and Superintendent Johns this evening at the scheduled Board Meeting. This group, as of the posting of this article, had over 700 members.
Grenardo “Greg” Avellino has a very unique and rare personality. His faculty and staff respect him and consider him a team leader while students, obviously, adore him for his warm nature and sincere desire to find the best in each of them. Any one with secondary teaching experience will tell you that having this skill set is a special combination that any district would want to keep their hands on, not let go due to internal politics.
We support the students of LHS and applaud them for making their voice be heard in protest of the dismissal of Mr. Avellino. We are quite sure that the public reason given for his dismissal and the actual reason are two very different things. On March 5th Mr. Avellino participated, along with the District Administrative Team, in the presentation of the proposed academies plan. Mr. Avellino was obviously on board with the plan and took an active role in the presentation, often responding to audience questions and thoroughly engaged in the program. Making reference to what “we” will be doing and what “we” hope to achieve.
Mr. Avellino was invested in the plan or was he only need to help sell the plan to the public and then be told that he would not be part of the implementation? We have been told that Mr. Avellino, being the kind of man he is, went to the District with questions and concerns on behalf of his teachers and his students. It is not impossible to think that from that meeting with the Administrative Team and Dr. Johns he was asked to go back to his school with answers that he wasn’t comfortable giving them and from that his future was suddenly in question.
The District never expected the reaction from the students to be so strong. In a show of solidarity LHS students wore black arm bands to show their disapproval of the Avellino situation. We are anxious to have the students join us at the BoE Meeting this evening. We are looking forward to sharing the public microphone with the students of LHS.
