Ex-Principal at Oak Grove Fired Over Sol Testing

By Lindsay Kastner; Contact Lindsay Kastner at (804) 649-6058\ or lkastner@timesdispatch.com

The city School Board has fired the former Oak Grove Elementary School principal after a scandal involving the first investigation by the state Department of Education into Virginia Standards of Learning testing materials.

A hand-delivered letter notified Tommye Finley of the school district’s intent to terminate her.

“Your conduct has threatened the welfare of the school division,” reads the letter, obtained by The Times-Dispatch.

Finley was fired at a closed door meeting on Tuesday, according to sources, including one present at the meeting.

Harold Fitrer, an assistant superintendent, said he could not comment on personnel matters. School Superintendent Deborah Jewell- Sherman could not be reached yesterday.

This year, special investigators appointed by the state determined that the SOL tests were incorrectly administered at the school. As a result, Oak Grove will not receive state accreditation, and students there will not receive score reports for the spring 2005 testing administration.

Among the findings was that Finley instructed faculty and test proctors at the school to use a special accommodation for all students, allowing them to circle answers in test booklets instead of filling in answer sheets. When staff transferred the answers to the documents, hundreds of answers did not match those that the students selected, and the majority of the changes favored the students.

After the investigation, Finley, two teachers, the school’s assistant principal and guidance counselor received letters alerting them that the school administration was recommending their termination, a source said. All were placed on administrative leave with pay.

Reached at home yesterday, Finley declined to discuss her employment status but said the recent months have been “a nightmare.”

“I have tried to do the best that I could do as an administrator,” she said.

This summer, Finley was reassigned as assistant principal at Carver Elementary, a move school officials have insisted was not related to the Oak Grove scandal. She was placed on administrative leave long before the start of the current school year – June 29, according to the letter, which was delivered Aug. 17, the day after the state’s findings were released.

Most of the others who were recommended for termination have since resigned.