The Springfield Association of Classroom Teachers is in an uproar over the "Principal for a Day" program at Walker Elementary. According to school officials, Jamie O'Bell, the sixth grader who was elected principal for a day, was looking through the school's budget and "found all kinds of mistakes." "I don't who's doing the math around here," Jamie alleged, "It must be like a second grader or something. You know, it's like they can't even add or something." As O'Bell corrected the mathematical errors, she also began to find opportunities for efficiencies that saved the school many thousands of dollars, and made it clear that about a third of the workforce was unnecessary. So she dismissed them. "I felt like Donald Trump," O'Bell said. "I just told them, 'You're fired!'" Now, the SACT is suing O'Bell for breach of contract and wrongful dismissal. The twelve-year-old's attorneys declined to comment except to note that the school system would of course defend its administrators' decisions, including those made by principals-for-a-day.
"Sixth grader fires teachers," Springfield Times-Herald, March 25, 2004, http://www.mrsmegabyte.com/mbabie.html