SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - A new principal was named at West High School in Salt Lake City after the previous principal was fired for driving two intoxicated students home, district officials said.
The Salt Lake City School District announced that current Clayton Middle School Principal Jared Wright would be promoted into the position, The Salt Lake Tribune reported. Wright previously taught at West High and graduated from the school in 1998.
“Congratulations to Dr. Wright,” Superintendent Lexi Cunningham said in a Twitter post before a parent email was sent.
More than 2,800 students attend the Salt Lake City school, and their parents are still upset over how the district handled former principal Ford White, Wright said.
“I think the stage is set for West to move forward and start healing,” Wright said. “It’s something that I have to model, which means vulnerability and knowing what I don’t know.”
White was fired in January after investigators said he broke policy and drove two female students home after they were found intoxicated on school property in November instead of calling police, district officials said.
White has said he was never directly asked to talk about what happened, but told the Tribune after he was fired that he was trying to manage three other concerns that morning, including a school shooting threat.
“I was just trying to keep kids out of jail and out of the system,” White previously said.
White was fired one day after Cunningham resigned, effective at the end of the academic year, officials said. Cunningham was forced out after other school board members voted to fire her because she refused to fire White, school board member Michael Nemelka said.
Cunningham said in her resignation letter that she had “mixed feelings” about leaving Utah.
Interim Principal Stacey Briggs has been leading the school. She is expected to return to her former position as the director of Focus Schools, which helps under-served students in the district.
Wright is happy to be back at the place that made him want to become a teacher and shaped so much of his life, he said.
“It’s a place where I’ve been aiming for since I got into education,” he said.
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