{"id":2964,"date":"2008-08-24T00:11:00","date_gmt":"2008-08-24T00:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2008\/08\/the-principal-behind-the-pact-gets-a-new-job.html"},"modified":"2008-08-24T00:11:00","modified_gmt":"2008-08-24T00:11:00","slug":"the-principal-behind-the-pact-gets-a-new-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/08\/the-principal-behind-the-pact-gets-a-new-job.html","title":{"rendered":"The principal behind “the pact” gets a new job"},"content":{"rendered":"

Remember the astonishing (and later debunked) story of The Pact<\/a>? The teenage girls of Gloucester, Massachusetts who pledged together to get pregnant and have babies? <\/p>\n

The high school principal who first spoke to the media about that has a new job<\/a> — with the Catholic Church: <\/p>\n

<\/a>Four days after retiring as a public school administrator, former Gloucester High School principal Joseph Sullivan was hired as the new principal of St. Joseph’s School, a Catholic kindergarten through eighth-grade school in Wakefield.<\/p>\n

Sullivan, who lives in Wakefield, was contacted about a job in his home parish last weekend after his abrupt resignation from Gloucester High School went into effect last Friday, the Rev. Ron Barker, pastor of St. Joseph’s Parish, said yesterday.<\/p>\n

“He has wonderful qualities, qualifications and knowledge and we would be foolish not to use his experience,” Barker said. “We are excited because he knows the parents and the kids here.”<\/p>\n

Sullivan was hired Tuesday on an interim basis “at the moment,” Barker said. He said no plans exist at the school to identify a permanent principal. The previous principal of St. Joseph’s School, Maria Morris, resigned at the end of the last school year.<\/p>\n

Barker declined to say how much Sullivan is earning in his new job.<\/p>\n

Calls to Sullivan at St. Joseph’s were not returned.<\/p>\n

Sullivan resigned from Gloucester High School after comments he made to the media about a group of girls actively looking to have children at the high school drew scrutiny.<\/p>\n

He expressed concerns about proposals to provide contraceptives to students at the high school health clinic without parental notification.<\/p>\n

The Roman Catholic Church is opposed to the use of birth control.<\/p>\n

In his resignation letter to Superintendent Christopher Farmer, Sullivan said he was retiring from “public school administration” because of a lack of support from Farmer and Mayor Carolyn Kirk in the wake of the media frenzy over the spike in teen pregnancy at Gloucester High School.<\/p>\n

He said Farmer had excluded him from deliberations about new school policies on teen pregnancy and Kirk slandered him at a news conference.<\/p>\n

Sullivan, who was principal at Gloucester High School for 10 years before stepping down, said in a letter accompanying his resignation that he had been eligible for retirement with full pension more than two years ago.<\/p>\n

State law prohibits public employees who retire from taking another public job that would, when combined with their pension, allow them to make more than they would have made by not retiring.<\/p>\n

The laws do not have any affect on employment by private schools.<\/p>\n

St. Joseph’s, funded by the Boston Archdiocese, has an annual enrollment of around 210 students served by 14 lay teachers.<\/p>\n

Barker, who said he has known Sullivan for several years, said he was not concerned that the controversy surrounding Sullivan in Gloucester as a result of the spike in pregnancies would have any negative impact on St. Joseph’s<\/p>\n

“We are not concerned; we just want to share in his gifts and talents,” Barker said. The pregnancy discussion “has nothing to do with Wakefield.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Remember the astonishing (and later debunked) story of The Pact? The teenage girls of Gloucester, Massachusetts who pledged together to get pregnant and have babies? The high school principal who first spoke to the media about that has a new job — with the Catholic Church: Four days after retiring as a public school administrator,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ripped-from-the-headlines"],"yoast_head":"\nThe principal behind "the pact" gets a new job - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/08\/the-principal-behind-the-pact-gets-a-new-job.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The principal behind "the pact" gets a new job - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Remember the astonishing (and later debunked) story of The Pact? 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Prior to that, Deacon Greg worked for 26 years as a writer and producer for CBS News, where he contributed to \"The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,\" \"60 Minutes II,\" \"48 Hours,\" (Emmy Award, Writers Guild of America Award) and \"Sunday Morning.\" He was co-writer for the acclaimed documentary \"9\/11,\" hosted by Robert DeNiro. (Emmy Award, Christopher Award, Peabody Award, Writers Guild of America Award.) His radio essays were featured in the bestselling book \"Deadlines and Datelines\" by Dan Rather. He's also a two-time winner of the Catholic Press Association Award. Other places you may find him: AMERICA, U.S. CATHOLIC, CATHOLIC DIGEST, REALITY (Redemptorist Communications) and THE BROOKLYN TABLET. He also contributes homiletic reflections to the parish resource CONNECT!, published by Liturgical Publications. In November 2009, he began serving a three-year term as a consultant to the Communications Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Deacon Greg grew up in Maryland (Go Terps!) but he and his wife today live in the beautiful borough of Queens, New York. You can contact Deacon Greg at dcngreg@gmail.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/gkandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2964\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}