District 5 Names Temporary Replacement for Ill Superintendent: Dowling Completes
By Bill Robinson, The State, Columbia, S.C.
May 26–Lexington-Richland 5 trustees, meeting in an emergency session this morning, approved three administrative appointments and named an acting superintendent.
Lee Bollman, District 5′s chief academic officer, will serve as acting superintendent while TEC Dowling is on medical leave.
Dowling went on medical leave earlier this week and underwent surgery today to remove a tumor near his brain. A District 5 spokesman said Dowling’s family reported that doctors are initially encouraged that he will make a full recovery and will know more after getting results from routine post-operative tests.
Dowling’s contract as interim superintendent of the Irmo-Chapin school system will expire June 30. Scott Andersen, currently superintendent of the Longmeadow, Mass. public school system, succeeds him July 1.
Trustees asked Bollman to fill in as acting superintendent for legal reasons. He served in a similar capacity briefly last summer after five of the seven trustees voted to fire Dennis McMahon.
Appointments recommended by Andersen that trustees approved at their 7 a.m. meeting included:
— Harriett B. Wilson will move from principal at Leaphart Elementary School to Chapin Elementary School. Katherina Lyden resigned from the Chapin Elementary post several weeks ago.
— Melissa Cole, an assistant principal at River Springs Elementary School, will take over as principal July 1. She replaces Lynn Robertson, who earlier this spring announced her retirement.
— Angela Bain will be District 5′s new personnel director, replacing the retiring Mattie Dillon. Bain currently holds the same post in Lexington 2, the Cayce-West Columbia school system.
Andersen flew into Columbia earlier this week to interview the candidates for those job openings as well as for the principal vacancy at Dutch Fork High School.
District 5 board chairwoman Paula Hite said this morning that Andersen made no recommendation for a replacement for Ron Cowden, who also announced his retirement earlier this year.
Cowden, who was at the meeting, asked what he should tell his faculty.
Hite said a new search for the Dutch Fork position will begin immediately.
That leaves District 5 trustees and their administrative leadership team in the position of heading into the summer break with two principal vacancies: Dutch Fork High and Leaphart Elementary.
District 5 leaders thought they had found a principal for Dutch Fork High in March when trustees OK’d Dowling’s recommendation to hire Dee Christopher from Lugoff-Elgin High School in Kershaw County. The day after that announcement, Christopher withdrew and took a high school principal’s job in Dowling’s former district in York County.
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Copyright (c) 2006, The State, Columbia, S.C.
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