UPDATED: The Albert Randolph Solution (that didn’t happen)

(Editor’s Note: This didn’t work out in the way that I proposed. But hey, it was a possible solution. We’ll have a new article recapping and analyzing what happened within the hour.)

There was a big crowd of supporters for Albert Randolph, the recently demoted Halifax County High School principal, at tonight’s Halifax County School Board meeting. Here’s my best bet at how this situation will be conveniently “worked out”.

Albert Randolph had accumulated way more vacation days than the “payout number” allowed when somebody retires from the school system. According to Halifax County School System policy, up to 60 vacation days can be cashed out. With Randolph planning to retire next year, he had to either take those extra days or lose the money associated with them. Needless to say, the school system, school board and Merle Herndon thought that taking that many vacation days would adversely affect the high school. There’s an easy way for both the school board and Albert Randolph can work something out for this, and I’m betting this is going to happen.

I’m predicting that Albert Randolph will be allowed to retire before the new school year starts and he’ll get a special exemption to the 60-day payout policy because “he was so essential to the high school’s operation that he was unable to take the vacation time on a normal basis”. It will be made clear that this was a one-time exemption that was needed due to special circumstances and will never be granted again. The school board will then amend the accrued vacation day policy so that employees immediately forfeit any vacation days carried over the limit each year.

Everybody semi-wins with this scenario. Let’s see if it happens.

(Editor’s Note: It didn’t. More things happened behind the scenes to make this even more interesting. We’ll have a new SouthsideCentral article up this morning.)