CUSD

CHS GETS NEW PRINICIPAL

Brett O'Connor has been appointed principal Claremont High School, the Daily Bulletin reported yesterday. O'Connor comes to Claremont from an Upland junior high school, where he was principal. The Bulletin article mentioned that O'Connor is Claremont resident, and his wife Ann teaches at Sycamore Elementary School.


FACULTY JOURNALISM ADVISOR DEFENDED

O'Connor may have to deal with some student and faculty dissatisfaction over the removal of Becca Feeney as faculty advisor to the Wolfpack, the CHS student newspaper. Will Bigham in the Bulletin today had an article that said current and former staff members came to Feeney's defense at a Claremont Board of Education meeting on Monday night.

The article quoted one staff member:

"A horribly misguided administrative decision has been made to remove her," said Ellie Wolf, one of five current and former staff members who attended Monday night's Board of Education meeting to protest the July 25 decision.

"Since it is obvious that this decision was not made with the best interests of CHS students in mind, I can only speculate as to whose interests are being served, and the clearest speculation is very unflattering for the Claremont academic administration," Wolf added.

Bigham's article said that there was some speculation that Feeney's removal from the student paper might have been in response to a disagreement between former CHS principal Carrie Allen and Feeney.

The article observed that in 2005 the Wolfpack won an award from the Los Angeles Times for its series of articles breaking the story of the school district's secretly allowing author Jeremy Iverson to attend CHS as a student in order to write a book about student life.

Bigham also mentioned a more recent incident in which the student paper ran articles about the increased in substitute teachers for Advanced Placement classes at CHS.