Principal Signs Contract, Then Looks at Map

I’ve lost track of how many assistants Superintendent Wardynski has hired this year and how many headhunting contracts have been approved in order to find the very best people in Fairfax, VA and Aurora, CO.

I just want to thank Crystal Bonvillian of the Huntsville Times for “Watchdog Report: Huntsville board to rescind contract with Virginia principal caught up in land scam.” It’s just the facts, ma’am, as it should be, but there is so much left unsaid brilliantly.

Let’s fill in the blanks, in case you missed it.

Bonvillian gives Dan Meier a chance to explain why he won’t be coming to Huntsville after all:

Meier, principal of Robinson Secondary School in Fairfax, told The Times Wednesday that his children were his motivation.

“With three sons at West Point next fall and with my daughter entering her senior year at Robinson, I just didn’t want to be so far away from them,” Meier said. “The folks in Huntsville were understanding.”

Meier’s decision came after he’d already signed his contract with Huntsville City Schools. He signed on with the district April 3.

The story was published on Wednesday, April 11, 2012, so I am assuming, since he signed his contract on the 3rd, a Tuesday, and it was approved on the 5th, a Thursday, and rescinded on the 12th, that it was some day between April 3 and April 11 that Meier changed his mind.

What happened?

Did he suddenly remember he had children?

Or did he wait until he had signed the contract before looking at a map and realizing it would be tough to make the daily commute between Fairfax, VA and Huntsville, AL?

Gimme a break.

Please, wouldn’t it be nice, just once to hear someone who’d been caught with his pants down, so to speak, say:

I did something stupid. I hurt a lot of people. I got away with it, but here’s the lesson, boys and girls: even if you don’t land in jail, when you do bad things and cause people harm, someone, somewhere, some time, is going to call you to account.

Here’s a few more speculations:

Bonvillian reports:

Meier said Wednesday that he was dismissed from the lawsuit in 2009 and that the Fairfax County school district investigated and found no wrongdoing on his part.

and

Meier’s lawyer, Alan Shachter, said Wednesday the case against Meier was dropped because he filed for bankruptcy earlier that year.

Meier’s May 2009 filing listed just over $1.8 million in assets and more than $102 million in debts to creditors. His liabilities included two mortgages on his family’s home and mortgages for two investment properties in North Carolina.

Does it matter that the school district couldn’t find any rules on its books that Meier violated? Is that surprising since there is nothing to indicate otherwise than that although he targeted other educators, he did it outside of school?

Does anyone else find “$1.8 million in assets” a lot of assets for a school principal to acquire?

What does “more than $102 million in debts to creditors” mean? It suggests to me a lot of people who likely never had “$1.8 million in assets” have lost their shirts, have lost their life savings.

No wonder Meier wants to hightail it out of Virginia.

And are we to believe that someone involved in that big of a mess was functioning effectively as a principal while trying to keep his butt out of jail?

You know what else is interesting to me? He will have “three sons at West Point next fall.”

This, friends, is one well-connected dude. No wonder he stayed out of jail — little too white and right [wing] to be at risk, I expect.