43
Austintown principal demoted after investigation
Penk Agreement
Document
An agreement between former Austintown Middle School Principal James Penk and the Austintown Local School district allows Penk to return from administrative leave. The agreement demotes Penk to the role of assistant principal at Austintown Fitch High School after he allegedly kept and handled a knife in his desk in violation of school policy.
By Justin Wier
AUSTINTOWN
James Penk will take a demotion in a new role as assistant principal of Austintown Fitch High School after an internal investigation into his conduct as Austintown Middle School principal.
The board of education voted to approve an agreement between Penk and the board at a special meeting Monday morning. Penk had been on administrative leave since March 16.
The investigation probed two instances of alleged misbehavior, which Superintendent Vince Colaluca said were severe enough for the district to consider Penk’s termination.
Penk purportedly had a large kitchen knife in his desk that he had found in a trash can at the middle school, and he joked around with the knife on multiple occasions when meeting with subordinates.
None of the employees felt threatened, Colaluca said, who also stressed that no students were involved. The district consulted with the Austintown Police Department, which determined that Penk’s actions were not criminal.
“It’s not abnormal for principals to put things they confiscate from students in their desk,” Colaluca said. “It is abnormal to display it to staff or co-workers.”
Penk also failed to properly address or report employee behavior that would violate board policy and/or Ohio law regarding use of sick leave and an employee complaint involving harassment or discrimination, the agreement said.
Penk will lose 10 days of paid vacation, attend management training and receive a reduction in salary as he moves from principal to assistant principal as part of the agreement.
“He’s a very good principal,” Colaluca said. “He made a mistake. We want to make sure he never does that again.”
Termination would have hurt Penk’s future prospects, Colaluca said, and this gives him the opportunity to work back to where he was.
Penk has been with the district since 1998, and his personnel file shows no misconduct prior to being placed on administrative leave this spring. He was appointed principal of AMS in 2013.
The superintendent said he presented the board with a plan for replacing Penk as Austintown Middle School’s principal, adding that the board may make major changes and possible reductions in the principal team to adjust to having fewer students.
The resolution to accept the agreement was approved on a 4-1 vote, with board member Harold Porter casting the lone no vote.
“They took one of our best administrators in the best-run school building in Austintown, and they moved him out of the head position,” Porter said. “I am not OK with that.”
Porter cited the district’s treatment of Austintown Intermediate School Principal Jeff Swavel, who received a written reprimand after a camera set up by cafeteria workers showed he took food from the school cafeteria.
Porter said he wants to see accountability and consistency across the board.
“I would have been OK with a suspension for poor judgment [for Penk],” Porter said. “But the employees took it as a joke. They didn’t go out of there calling the police.”