Gloucester Principal Wisely Calls It Quits

There are a lot of jobs we’d never want, and high school principal is near the top of that list. You spend your days trying to please overbearing parents, putting out small fires, and disciplining your hormone-fueled charges.

It’s a hard enough job when you haven’t been the center of an international media firestorm. So it’s not surprising that Gloucester principal Joseph Sullivan submitted his resignation yesterday.

Sullivan cites the lack of support from Gloucester’s mayor and the school’s superintendent as the reason for his abrupt departure.

Sullivan said Mayor Carolyn Kirk had “publicly slandered my reputation, my integrity, and my intelligence[.]”

Without the support of the mayor and superintendent, Sullivan said, “the already difficult and challenging job of being the high school principal becomes next to impossible.”

Sullivan has had his problems with town officials, but he really would have been in a world of hurt once he had to interact with students. The Time magazine story in which he was quoted saying the teenagers made a pact to get pregnant together was posted on June 18, one week after the school year was scheduled to end. Since then, his assertion has widely been dismissed as false.

Mayor Kirk’s “foggy in his memory” line would have been thrown in his face every time he issued detention to a troublemaker, so Sullivan really had no choice but to leave.

Photo from Gloucester High School website