Without a renewed contract, Conroy accepts another job

Jay Conroy, the popular principal of Corvallis High School, will not be back next year. The school district decided not to renew his contract, and Conroy has taken a job at a Eugene Catholic school rather than accept reassignment to another post in Corvallis.

The decision was made in March but was not widely known until late November, when Conroy wrote a letter to his staff that was then circulated to parents of CHS students on the Internet. While stating he disagreed with the district's decision, Conroy asked his supporters not to make waves over his demotion.

"I will not be part of, nor do I encourage others to engage the superintendent or board in a debate about their decision," he wrote in the letter.

For the most part, Conroy's supporters have honored that request, but the issue has recently bubbled to the surface as colleagues and CHS parents looked for explanations that neither the principal nor district officials were eager to give.

On Wednesday, Conroy told his staff he had accepted a new job as assistant principal of Marist High School in Eugene, beginning Aug. 1. In the meantime, Corvallis School District officials are considering a half-dozen candidates to replace Conroy at the helm of CHS next year.

Making the decision

At a March meeting of the Corvallis School Board, Superintendent Dawn Tarzian recommended that Conroy's three-year contract not be renewed and that he be reassigned to another position for the remainder of the agreement after completing the current school year as principal of Corvallis High.

The School Board considered the matter in executive session, where it had a chance to review Conroy's confidential personnel file, then voted unanimously to accept the superintendent's recommendation, Tarzian and board Chairwoman Kari Rieck told the Gazette-Times last week.

"It was the board that made the decision," Rieck said. "It's seven board members supporting a decision."

Both school officials said state law prevents them from discussing the precise reasons for removing Conroy, but Tarzian said the principal had not violated any laws or ethical guidelines.

"This is not a termination," she said. "I can reassure the community (that there was) no malfeasance or illegal behavior."

Tarzian emphasized that Conroy's ouster was not a sudden decision and "was not a surprise" to him.

She also said the district followed normal procedure by allowing Conroy to decide when and how to announce his departure, although she acknowledged that the lack of official information from the central office was frustrating to some parents.

"I know that this decision and this transition will impact a lot of people," Tarzian said. "I cannot answer all the questions they would really like answered."

Parents raise concerns

Some of those frustrations came to a head at a meeting in December at the school, when district representative Jeanne Holmes asked parents what they wanted to see in a new principal. According to Bonnie Helpenstell, president of the high school's parent-teacher association, a number of people in attendance responded by expressing their support for Conroy.

Holmes "acknowledged that Jay was a wonderful principal on-site," Helpenstell recalled, but added that there were other aspects of the job that might be less visible. In response to further questions, Helpenstell said, Holmes told parents she couldn't discuss the reasons for Conroy's demotion.

The issue popped up again in January after the district asked parents to participate in a "visioning process" for Corvallis schools. CHS parent Karen Skjei responded with her own e-mail to the school listserv asking whether anyone else wanted to know more about the Conroy situation.

"It just rubbed me the wrong way because there had been no discussion of this," Skjei said last week.

Skjei figures she got about two dozen responses from parents who supported the principal and were frustrated by the dearth of detail on the reasons for his removal.

"It's really hard to just sort of dance around all this stuff without anybody talking about it," Skjei said. "We're taxpayers, and it seems like they ought to be able to tell us a little something."

Strong ties to CHS

Conroy started with the district in 1987, when he gave up his law practice to become a social studies teacher at Crescent Valley High School. In 1991 he was reassigned to Corvallis High, where he taught for six years before becoming assistant principal at Philomath Middle School.

In 2002 he returned to the Corvallis School District as principal of CHS. Conroy led the school through the sometimes wrenching transition from the old building to the $46 million new facility, which opened in the fall of 2005.

Conroy also has a personal connection with CHS: All four of his children attended the school.

In an interview in his office Friday, Conroy said the district was within its rights to remove him as principal. He said he didn't fight the decision because he didn't think he could win and because the fight would hurt students.

But he also defended his work at Corvallis High, citing the school's strong performance on state tests and college admissions exams, the revival of technical education and arts programs on campus and the growth of computer science, culinary arts, child development, health occupations and business management programs.

"I've done nothing unethical or illegal, and I'm very proud of the performance of my school over the five years I've been here," Conroy said.

At the same time, he acknowledged that his outspoken personality hasn't always endeared him to district administrators.

"I find myself very passionate, very direct and very much of an advocate," he said, "and that may cause problems in terms of somebody's perception of my performance."

Marked as a maverick

Conroy has long had a reputation as a maverick, and his career has occasionally been marked by controversy.

In 1997, he was a spokesman for teachers who opposed implementation of the certificate of initial mastery, a key part of a state education reform law, before the School Board.

In June of 2005, just before the old Corvallis High School came down, Conroy angered some parents and school district officials by permitting students to spray-paint several hallways as a senior prank.

That November, Conroy and the district were named as defendants in a $1 million lawsuit filed by former student Jacob Schneider. Conroy had suspended Schneider in 2003 after Schneider and another student were accused of counterfeiting $20 bills at CHS and spending them in the school store. The suit was dismissed Dec. 27.

And last June, Conroy took flak in the letters column of the newspaper for a controversial commencement speech delivered by math teacher Rob Cornell.

But he has also inspired ferocious loyalty from many parents, teachers and others associated with CHS, some of whom have contacted the district and the Gazette-Times to express outrage over the principal's ouster.

"It is VERY important to note that there is a majority of CHS parents who have become disenfranchised with the school superintendent and board because of the seemingly 'under-the-table firing' of Principal Jay Conroy," parent Heidi Neuffer wrote in an e-mail to the School Board. "When CHS is doing so well and has come so far since being under his direction, it is amazing that the school board and superintendent seem to be threatened by CHS's excellent reputation so as to warrant this radical decision."

Former School Board member Bill Ten Pas, who chaired the body in 2002 when Conroy was hired to lead CHS, has also come to the principal's defense.

"We have a very capable administrator that has moved Corvallis High School forward now being let go for reasons that are not clear to the public and probably never will be," Ten Pas said in an interview last week. "I think it's not only unwarranted but I think it's unfortunate for the community."

A clash of styles

A number of observers have suggested that Conroy's removal was a result of conflicting leadership styles.

The CHS principal, these people told the Gazette-Times, tended to make major decisions without consulting the district administration. Conroy was simply too independent, they said, to suit Tarzian or her predecessor, Jim Ford.

Was it a personality clash? Neither Conroy nor Tarzian was willing to characterize it that way.

But Conroy made it clear that he wasn't interested in staying in the Corvallis district, despite his strong feelings for Corvallis High.

"My personality is, if you don't like me, that's fine - I'll move," he said.

Conroy made it equally clear that he wasn't interested in seeing the district traumatized by protests over his ouster.

"I can fight about a lot of things around education," he said. "I'm just not ready to fight about me."

Bennett Hall is the business editor for the Gazette-Times. He can be reached at 758-9529 or bennett.hall@lee.net.