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September 26, 2008

Students protest principal's removal

By LINDSAY VanHULLE

Mid-Day Update

The principal at Traverse City College Preparatory Academy will stay on as the school's leader while a new administrator is found, the result of strong support from parents and students. Updated story »

TRAVERSE CITY -- It was their principal, Walt Hoover said, who turned a group of teenagers at a local charter school into a close-knit family within the first weeks.

And Cameron Owens was the reason they came together again Thursday -- this time, to boycott classes in protest of his removal as the school's leader.

The news that Owens, principal at the year-old Traverse City College Preparatory Academy in East Bay Township, will be reassigned within the school's management company stunned many students and parents, who cited him as the reason they enrolled.

Owens' last day is today.

"If he leaves, we leave," said Hoover, 16, as students threw a football and talked in clusters outside the building. "He is TC Prep."

Owens was notified Tuesday of the decision by The Leona Group LLC, a for-profit educational company that runs charter schools in several states.

The school's advisory board was notified Wednesday, and the news quickly began to circulate. Students stayed away from classes Thursday, and planned to continue their boycott today.

The company wants the school to strengthen its college-prep curriculum, as well as boost enrollment, said Raymond Gant, regional vice president for the Leona Group in Michigan.

He would not say specifically whether the company felt Owens was ineffective at reaching those goals.

"We're trying to move a little quicker toward becoming the college preparatory academy that we promote," Gant said. "To get there, it's going to require some change."

Owens said the decision largely involved numbers, both student counts and dollar figures.

The 9-12 high school nearly doubled its enrollment this fall, from 55 students in 2007 to 92 as of Wednesday. But Owens said the population still needs to grow.

"The real essence of the situation is fiscal," he said. "Every person in leadership understands the expectations of the job. If you come up short, there is potentially risk of not being there anymore."

But students and parents said they aren't sure those are the only reasons.

A clip from a spring talent show surfaced on the Internet video site YouTube, in which a male teacher dressed in female clothing danced suggestively while Owens sat in a chair. Click here to view the video.

Gant said it had "no bearing" on the decision.

Parents are upset because they haven't received many details about why Owens was removed, said Tanya Montgomery, whose daughter is a junior.

"It stands against everything the school stands for -- honesty, integrity, respect, maturity," she said. "I don't see any of that in the way they handled this."

Students and parents both said there is talk that some might leave along with their principal.

"He's telling us how we all need to be leaders," sophomore Nick Johnston, 15, said. "We want him back."

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