Steve Ewing, center, is the new principal of Woodrow Wilson High School in East Dallas.
Things did not go as planned with the principal search at Woodrow Wilson High School.
After Kyle Richardson announced his retirement in late March, a search was launched, with more than 200 applicants for the job of helming the top comprehensive high school in Dallas ISD.
Administrators culled through the applicants and gave the selection panel, made up of a dozen or so teachers, staff, parents and even a student, their top picks. The panel chose Michael Dang, who was principal at Townview’s Judge Barefoot Sanders Law Magnet High School.
Within two weeks, however, Dang had resigned, citing personal reasons.
“To honor and respect Mr. Dang’s privacy, we are not sharing specifics regarding his resignation from Dallas ISD,” wrote Tracie Fraley, executive director of the Woodrow feeder pattern, in a letter last week to the Woodrow community. “However, I will tell you this was an agonizing decision for Mr. Dang.”
District administrators quickly reconvened the panel but didn’t return to the pool of previous applicants or the panel’s runner-up picks. Instead, they instructed the panel to start over. New applicants were solicited, the panel was given two candidates to interview, and the district announced today that they chose Steve Ewing, the current principal at Armstrong Middle School in Plano ISD.
Ewing also worked as an assistant principal at Plano’s Jasper and Plano East high schools, and his bachelor’s degree is in Spanish and public relations. A letter today from Fraley expounds on his resume and says that “we are thrilled to have Mr. Ewing joining the Woodrow Wilson family.”
It is, indeed, a family, says outgoing Woodrow PTA president Stacey Stabenow, who sat on the principal selection panel. The botched process is not a reflection on Ewing, she says, adding that “we’re going to have to be patient and welcoming, take him under our wing and bring him into this family,” she says.
The panel wasn’t given a reason why the administration discarded the original candidate list after Dang’s departure. Fraley conveyed via email that she couldn’t respond to our questions about the selection process because she leaves for a “much-needed” vacation today. The schools in her charge have seen quite a bit of principal turnover in the last couple of years, much of it in the last few months.
No doubt there was “some dismay when we found out Michael Dang wasn’t going to be our guy,” says Vince Murchison, Woodrow’s site-based decision making committee chairman. He was traveling on business during the most recent interviews but echoes Stabenow’s reaction to both the selection process and the open arms for Ewing.
“In the end, everybody thought he was really good,” Murchison says. “It’s a matter of getting past some umbrage and getting on with business.”
Stabenow says she told each candidate interviewed of the big shoes they would have to fill.
“Kyle Richardson was everywhere,” she says. “He went to JV football games an hour and a half away when it was raining. The man cared about every kid on our campus and it showed.”
And now, Stabenow says, the Woodrow community — its active alumni, parents, community businesses and “very, very dynamic feeder pattern” — is ready and willing to embrace Ewing and determined to help him navigate our neighborhood.
The school also has incredible assistant principals who will make the transition successful, she says, specifically pointing to Keith Baker, who also sat on the selection panel, and Monica Morris, whom Stabenow describes as “Richardson’s right-hand woman” and the “backbone of that school right now.”
Dallas ISD’s summer break has already begun for some campus administrators, who will return to work in late July.
