Navajo schools superintendent fired

By Kathy Helms
Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — The Navajo Nation Board of Education voted Monday to release Superintendent of Schools Dr. Tommy Lewis from his job, effective immediately.

Board Vice President Rebecca Benally said the board voted 5-2, with one absent, to release Lewis because of lack of performance. Eddie Biakeddy, who is second in command, was appointed acting superintendent. The board will begin advertising the job position immediately.

"I believe as we move forward for Navajo Nation education systems, as leaders we have to take a stand," Benally said. "And I believe that as the Navajo Nation Board of Education we have, because we observed stagnation in a position that should have had a vision to provide a better quality education for our children. That wasn't happening.

"We had a strategic plan that was not implemented. It is months behind. We felt that we needed to make a decision, as hard as it was, and I believe it was a positive one," she said.

Board of Education member Kathryn Arviso said she, too, believes the change was necessary. "I believe it was a positive move. We expected a lot from the superintendent, to perform and work with the board, and we felt like his progress was a little bit slow.

"So we made a decision to look for someone else to take that position that will move with us. We are supposed to be a state agency, a statelike education department, and the progress was a little bit slow. The other thing too, is we were supposed to have accomplished several objectives for Title X, the education code, and that was also very slow. The strategic plan was another issue," Arviso said.

Moving forward
Though still reeling from the board's action, Biakeddy said Tuesday that the majority of program managers reacted positively to the change.

"The departure of the former superintendent was very sudden. I think it was generally anticipated, but we didn't realize it would be that sudden, so nobody was prepared. We're still catching the debris that's falling.'

"The immediate thing is we are now in the process of the budget review. Right now, that's our priority to get through the review process of the tribe," he said.

"We do have a strategic plan that was developed but still needs to be implemented." After the budget review, Biakeddy said, "we will continue moving forward the plan," which was developed in December-January.

The Board of Education and Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr. met with Lewis earlier this year, according to Benally. "We were pretty clear about what our expectation was. We brought in the president and we met with him (Lewis), and at that point we told him where we were concerned and that each of us was coming to the board with qualifications and with some experience and that we'd be willing to help him.

"But perhaps he didn't take it seriously, and continued to be out of the office a majority of the time. That wasn't part of the requirement of the job. He made that a priority for himself."

Their assistance was never requested, she said, "and the same behavior of being out of the office excessively was continued." Lewis had served as superintendent for a little over a year. "We felt that was plenty of time for him to have implemented and made changes, and that did not happen," she said.

Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr., who has made education a priority in his political platform, was informed of the board's decision. Presidential spokesman George Hardeen said Tuesday that Shirley would not have any comment on Dr. Lewis's departure because his leaving is a personnel issue and because the action is at the discretion of the Navajo Nation Board of Education.

Lewis was an at-will employee, meaning that he was subject to termination at any time. He was released of his duties as of 10:30 a.m. Monday and was out of the education building by 1 p.m., Benally said.

Strategic plan
The strategic plan outlined by the board included timelines for moving forward with restructuring the Department of Dine Education as well as moving forward a "Tri-State," she said, which entailed a memorandum of agreement or a memorandum of understanding between Utah, New Mexico and Arizona to begin collaboration on the requirements used to assess Navajo students.

The strategic plan also included moving toward becoming a statewide agency so that Navajo can be recognized nationally and federally, meaning that funds would be more readily available and that data could be shared.

Another issue was the budget process. "As a person of leadership you are very well aware of what your budget is and whether you need to write grants. That wasn't being done. So those were some of the things in the strategic plan that were major, that needed to be done right away, and it just wasn't happening," Benally said.