Minneapolis Prinicpal on Paid Administrative Leave

It appears that there was verbal altercation between a school board member who made an unannounced visit to a school and a principal who the board member called racist due to a letter written by the school's site council. (How's that for a run-on sentence?)

[Article Link, via Star Tribune]

I'd love to hear thoughts from outside my little world and the bloggers I follow.

My questions so far:

• Where is the professionalism from both sides disrupting a calm learning environment where students are making academic gains?
• Why do school board members divide up the schools and only visit them once a year? (Quote from the article, "Stewart said board members divide up the district's schools and visit all of them at least once a year.") Shouldn't they be in the buildings regularly to see what is happening? How can they make decisions if they don't know the students, staff, administrators, engineers and buildings?
  
• If two people were in the altercation, why is only one on paid administrative leave? The entire school board needs to review this situation. If two students are in a fight at school, the both get suspended.
• What action is the district taking besides putting a principal on leave to solve the situation?
  

There is a lot of background on the incident involving district-wide changes that are too deep and un-concrete at this point to elaborate on. These are my initial thoughts after taking time to calm down and begin to think about this.

You see, I'm a teacher in Minneapolis but I'm also a resident and parent who pays taxes and will have students in these schools. I'm a tad frustrated that my elected officials and tax dollars are supporting this type of activity in the schools I love. Done ranting. Thanks for listening.