Parents divided after Durham School of Arts cuts ties with principal

Principal David Hawks told parents that the Durham Public Schools board decided not to renew his contract, so his last day at the magnet school is June 30.

"This was not my choice of how we would end our time together. I have loved this job serving as principal of Durham School the Arts for the last 14 years," Hawks said in an email to the school's PTSA board.

Parents who support Hawks credit him for making DSA a solid academic school, while others weren’t in favor of his leadership style and say not renewing his contract was justified.

"Mr. Hawks has kind of been the face of DSA for all these years," said Claire Jacobs, the parent of both a 2016 graduate and a rising junior at the school. "What more could we ask for in an administrator? Personally, I don’t think there’s any kind of evidence to not renew his contract."

But Fatimah Salleh, whose two sons used to attend the school, said DSA has a "long history of racist leadership and policies."

"It should have happened sooner," Salleh said. "For some, this was a very successful school. Racism is successful for a lot of folks. And on the flip side, it is extremely harmful [and] damaging in ways we’re still trying to figure out."

"Students were not getting work while they were there. [They] essentially spent the whole day staring at a wall," she said.

Hawks didn't respond to WRAL's requests for comment Wednesday.

Superintendent Pascal Mubenga said the district would "conduct a thorough search" for DSA's next principal, "with robust participation from DSA staff and families."

"I'm grateful to Principal Hawks for his years of leadership at Durham School of the Arts. He has worked with DSA's teachers, staff and administrators to unlock the limitless artistic potential of students, and he has fostered strong partnerships with Durham's arts community," Mubenga said in a statement.

A school board meeting is scheduled for 5 p.m. Thursday, and Jacobs said she and other parents hope to persuade the board to change its stance and allow Hawks to remain at the school.

Durham School of the Arts, which enrolled about 1,800 students during this year, has been a high-performing school for years, showing academic growth since at least 2014, according to the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction’s School Report Cards.

The latest report card, for the 2019-20 school year, shows the 6th-12th grade school has a higher graduation rate than the district or state and enrolls a high share of graduates in college than the district or state.

The U.S. News & World Report ranked the school as North Carolina’s best high school in 2013. That ranking is 30 this year.

The school enrolls a smaller share of economically disadvantaged students (30.4%), compared to the state as a whole (43.4%), however, and also disciplines those students at higher-than-average rates, along with many students of color.

During the 2019-20 school year, according to the report card, the school handed down 481 in-school suspensions per 1,000 students, while reporting relatively few short-term suspensions and no long-term suspensions or expulsions.

In-school suspensions are when a student is removed from the classroom during the school day and remains under school supervision.

Durham Public Schools issued 189 in-school suspensions per 1,000 students, and at the state level, the rate was 119 per 1,000 students.

Broken down by student subgroup, Durham School of the Arts handed down 1,054 in-school suspensions for students with disabilities per 1,000 students with disabilities. That rate was 837 for economically disadvantaged students, 771 for Black students and 702 for Hispanic students. White students had the lowest rate – nearly two-and-a-half times less than the next lowest subgroup – at 124 in-school suspensions for white students per 1,000 white students.