Despite an appeal, Marvell Hudson still is out as East Tallahatchie School District superintendent, and the school board has released its first official statement since twice voting to fire him.
At a meeting on Wednesday, July 12, the district’s Board of Trustees voted 3-2 to reaffirm a previous decision, by the same vote count, to terminate the contract of the first-year superintendent.
In a telephone interview the next day, Hudson, 53, confirmed his receipt July 13 of a five-page letter to that effect.
“They doubled down on the termination,” he said.
Hudson declined to share a copy of the letter with The Sun-Sentinel without first consulting his attorney, Carlos Moore of Grenada.
Weeks earlier, Hudson had filed an appeal of the board’s June 8 action to scrap his two-year contract just three weeks before the first year was to end.
The board held a June 29 hearing on Hudson’s appeal. Accompanied by Moore, Hudson made a roughly one-hour presentation to the five-member board, which said it would render a decision within 10 working days.
Thursday, July 13, was the 10th business day since that hearing.
Marvell Hudson (Photo by Clay McFerrin)
Hudson declined to share a copy of last week’s letter with The Sun-Sentinel without first consulting his attorney, Carlos Moore of Grenada, but he did read over the phone what he said were passages from the letter.
“It says, ‘Good cause exists for Mr. Hudson’s dismissal,’” he began. “‘The board heard from Mr. Hudson, listened carefully to all the information that he provided and voted to terminate Mr. Hudson’s contract.’”
Hudson said Education District 9 trustee Darrell Neal made the motion, seconded by District 8’s Raymond Radcliff and supported by District 10’s Bryant Watson. Audra Brown of District 6 and Santrail Hunt-Kuykendall of District 7 both voted against termination, as they had in last month’s initial vote.
Hudson labeled the board’s stipulated reasons for letting him go as “subjective,” calling them questions of a “he say, she say” nature. He said the list of accusations, observations and/or criticisms was set down both in his initial termination letter and again in last week’s document.
Hudson did not make his termination letter public either, saying it contains the names and privileged information of some other school district employees.
The termination stings.
“I guess what’s really disheartening to me is you make a move like this as a local school board without any quantitative data. In other words, you don’t have any test scores,” he noted. “You really have no real justification for a termination.”
Most of the grievances the board cited, Hudson said, called into question his leadership and/or decision-making, but he added that was not good enough.
“Superintendents make decisions all day,” he said. “As long as they’re not criminal decisions, as long as they’re not egregious decisions, that all falls within the guidelines of his executive decision-making process.”
Hudson said his firing, which was very unpopular among respondents to a recent Sun-Sentinel poll, is “going to set the district back tremendously.”
“I really thought that the district was making great strides,” he noted. “To come in as a novice superintendent to deal with the incredible challenges that we had to deal with and trying to gain the support of the community, built trust with the community, I felt like we were moving in the right direction.”
Hudson said he does not know whether he will be paid for the second year of his contractual agreement, which would be about $90,000.
He said there was no mention of it in last week’s letter.
“I’ll get with my legal team to see if we need to pursue that,” Hudson noted.
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While the school board has not commented publicly on the circumstances surrounding the Hudson decision, the board did release an official statement via an email sent Tuesday afternoon, July 18, by Watson, who is board president.
In preliminary remarks, Watson wrote, “Please see below for the board’s official statement regarding the termination of Mr. Hudson.”
The full text of the official statement is as follows:
“The East Tallahatchie School Board announces that Mr. Marvell Hudson will not be serving as superintendent and that it will begin the process of seeking a new superintendent. We thank Mr. Hudson for his service this past year. We appreciate Mr. George Gilreath serving in an interim superintendent capacity during this time period and we look forward to the beginning of the 2023-24 school year.”
George Gilreath (Photo by Clay McFerrin)
The work of Gilreath, of Brandon, reportedly began in the district in late June.
According to his profile on the social media network LinkedIn, Gilreath holds professional degrees in elementary education, teaching and educational leadership.
Gilreath reportedly is a stopgap hire and will assist the district in the search for a permanent superintendent, but details of his hiring have not been made public.
Hudson was the third ETSD superintendent in as many years, and now the district looks to go 4-for-4.
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Hudson, a Charleston native and 1988 graduate of Charleston High School, said he harbors no ill will for the school system.
“I only hope the best for the East Tallahatchie School District,” he said. “I think we’ve got a great school district. We’ve got some challenges, and as a community we’re going to have to address those challenges.”
As for his future, Hudson was noncommittal.
“I’ve got a master’s degree in Christian studies, I’ve got several college degrees in administration. The table is open wide. I can either go into ministry or education,” he said. “Right now, I’m just shopping for thought.”
