Troubles mount for Richmond Heights schools

Yesterday I began a summary of my reporting on the colossally troubled Richmond Heights School District. I thought this would be beneficial as a review for those who have been following district events since last January’s revolt by the all-black boys basketball team against their coach, Jason Popp, for his unprofessional and we must say, racist, behavior towards the team. I thought such a summary was especially important because I believe a combination of factors is assembling that is likely to  force sweeping changes upon the District.

I promised Part II of the summary today. And then I received a document purporting to be from a major player in the district that lays out problems more extensive than even I might have imagined. So rather than proceed with Part II as planned, I offer Real Deal readers this status update and assessment.

1.    As expected the Richmond Heights Board of Education voted last night not to renew the contract of Superintendent Linda T. Hardwick. Dr. Hardwick was hired on an interim basis in November 2009 and given a contract the following month that expires July 31, 2012. Under Ohio law, had the board not passed a nonrenewal, Hardwick’s contract would have been extended automatically.

2.    This was actually the second time the Board had voted not to renew Hardwick’s contract. The first vote was last summer during a period of more or less open warfare between the board, then under a Josh Kaye-led majority, and Hardwick. That vote was premature and therefore likely unlawful. But it passed by a 3-2 majority as a slap in the face to Hardwick and a signal to the teachers union, headed by Hardwick nemesis Jason Popp.

3.    This year’s nonrenewal vote likely signals the end of the Hardwick administration. She has been on paid administrative leave since November while “under investigation” for various infractions, including alleged misappropriation of district property, insubordination, and sundry other offenses. There had been some speculation that with a new board majority and fresh leadership, Hardwick might be reinstated. That is not going to happen. In fact, on the agenda for this Monday’s special meeting, the second in four days, is a resolution to spend about $7,000 to hire a search firm to find and vet the next superintendent.

4.    Also on Monday’s agenda is a resolution to fire Timothy Pingle, the high school principal. He was just hired in August and lasted all of four months before running afoul of interim superintendent Robert Moore, who had been acting superintendent for only about a month. Moore accused Pingle of unprofessional conduct in December, at which time Pingle joined Hardwick on paid administrative leave.

5.    So, at present the Richmond Heights Local Schools have an interim superintendent, an interim secondary principal, and an interim elementary school principal. In many underperforming districts, experts cite the transient student families as a major factor in poor student performance.

6.    In October the District fired clerk-typist Margaret “Peggy” Parker for alleged dishonesty, insubordination, and neglect of duty. Like several other former district employees, Parker appears to have been the latest  employee targeted by the Board as a way to force Hardwick out.

7.    There are presently at least nine, and likely more, investigations pending against the school district, including at least three filed by Hardwick. These charges have been filed with the Ohio Civil Rights Commission, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the US Department of Education Office of Civil Rights. Some of these charges have been filed by parents on behalf of their children. There is also an indication that charges have been filed with the Ohio Department of Education.

8.    The lead actors in most of the pending complaints are board member Josh Kaye and teachers union head Jason Popp. Each seems prepared to maintain a defiant stance against all comers.

9.    Earlier this month attorneys for the school board proposed  separate settlements to Hardwick and Parker. Both offers were rejected.

10. Things are likely to get worse before they get better. At a time when planning should be underway for next year, every key position is without a settled incumbent, the accreditation push is on hold, adverse decisions by various investigative are likely to begin raining down with potentially comprehensive effects, teachers are apprehensive, the district is financially strapped, and may have to compete with the city over who gets to be a revenue measure on the ballot first.

Richmond Hts. School Board takes step to end Hardwick era Part I

Richmond Hts. School Board takes step to end Hardwick era

Part I

The Richmond Heights Board of Education is expected to vote tonight not to renew the contract of superintendent Linda T. Hardwick when it expires July 31. The vote will take place in executive session at a 7PM special meeting called for this purpose.

Dr. Hardwick has been on paid administrative leave since November after a tumultuous two year in which a majority of the board seemed bent on thwarting her efforts to improve the quality of education in the small and shrinking school district.

In a city that is roughly fifty percent white, only about half of the school age population of approximately 1900 students attend the city’s public schools. Most white parents and a sizable number of black ones choose from an array of charter, parochial, other public, or private schools, or undertake to educate their children at home.

Leadership issues are key to the district’s woes, which also include a worn out physical plant, outdated textbooks, tightening financial straights, an anxious and disengaged faculty, and what has increasingly come to be seen as a hostile environment for the captive African American students and those administrators who are seen as sympathetic to the students.

Most of these problems have been a decade or more in the making. Voters rejected seven school levies in succession, a short but bitter teachers strike in 2007 resolved no key issues, and the district continued to unravel under the comings and goings of a host of new union leaders [five in five years], superintendents [four in seven years], and a school board that often seemed in need of musical chairs with training wheels.

The problems of the Richmond Schools are not isolated to the district’s single campus, which is effectively hidden away — it almost seems by design — behind a brand new municipal complex. The sparkling new city hall that shows its rear to the schools boasts a part-time mayor whose twenty year tenure is as tired as his city’s schools, though he pretends the school district’s sickness is unrelated to his city’s maladies. A lifetime company lawyer in his day job, Mayor Daniel Ursu seems wholly unsuited for the challenges of what are likely his final years in office. Colleagues describe him as secretive and conflict-averse, a fact this reporter observed first-hand in the mayor’s repeated refusals to be interviewed, even scurrying away on one occasion into the safety of City Hall and hastily locking the door behind him.

[It has been reported to us that the mayor, as he seeks to shape his legacy, is now in the midst of a fevered attempt to shred thirteen years of public records pertaining to his administration. His efforts, while apparently legal, do raise questions as to his rationale, since he reportedly has never bothered to dispose of a single record during his tenure.]

But while the mayor personifies Alice-in-Wonderland municipal leadership, it is Jason Popp,  a long time physical education teacher and current head of the teacher’s union, who brought instant notoriety upon the school district and hence the city when he was accused last January of perpetrating regular emotional abuse of the boys varsity basketball team. His alleged repeated belittling of his players’, their families, heritage, intellect, and morals — allegations which he has never denied and all but admitted — led to a revolt by the players and their parents, who presented school authorities with a choice: either replace the coach immediately or the team would boycott the remainder of their then undefeated season.  

After meeting with all parties over the next few days — players, parents, the coach, other administrators, and a few school board members — Superintendent Hardwick essentially put Popp on paid administrative leave from coaching in early February 2011. In so doing, she unknowingly put her own career as a first-time superintendent on the accelerated track leading to tonight’s expected action.

I previously reported on much of this last year in posts between May and November. As it appears that matters have gotten increasingly grave and are now coming to a head, I wanted to provide a summary that would prepare readers for what I believe is on the horizon. Part II will appear tomorrow.

Richmond Hts school board starts new year; superintendent remains in limbo

A new era should be ushered in this evening when the Richmond Heights Board of Education holds its organizational meeting at 7PM.

Longtime school board member Linda Pliodzinskas is expected to become the new board president, succeeding Josh Kaye, whose presidency was marked by numerous controversies, unusual board turnover, and general tumult. Kaye remains a member of the board as his term has two years remaining.

It is not known when or how the new Board will address the ongoing suspension of Superintendent Linda T. Hardwick, whose contract runs through June 30.

Tonight’s organizational meeting will be followed by a 2013 Tax Budget hearing, expected to begin about 8PM.

Richmond Heights Parents Press School Board for Answers

Our regular readers know that we have been reporting on the Richmond Heights school district since our curiosity took us to a school board meeting there six months ago. It soon became apparent that the rogue behavior of the basketball coach was merely the presenting problem, and that dysfunction in the district was longstanding, systemic, and deeply rooted.

The selfless, courageous and united action of the boys basketball team in demanding the immediate removal of the coach commanded the support of their parents, who then asserted themselves on behalf of their children, and eventually on behalf of all of the children in the system.

The parents won the support of the superintendent quickly enough but were regularly obstructed by a school board majority whose attitudes and actions, both public and private, began to come under the community’s persistent pressure.

The number of concerned parents gradually grew as concerns expanded from the coach’s abuse of his charges to issues of district mismanagement, instability, malfeasance, finance, and, not least, substandard delivery of educational excellence.

Two key developments occurred over the summer. Two of the more active and involved parents — Bobby Jordan and Frank Barber — had applied in April for a vacancy on the school board. The board majority selected Barber, who declined, and ultimately Jordan was awarded the seat.

The first key development was Barber’s subsequent decision to run for a full term. His victory, coupled with Jordan’s election earlier this month to serve the balance of the term to which he was appointed, very likely signals a new day at district headquarters. It is likely that those two will team with the senior board member, Linda Pliodzinskas, to form a new majority that will focus on stabilizing the district, eliminating personality-driven private agendas, and advancing educational goals.

The second key development was the formation of PARENTS 4 KIDS as an advocacy group for children and education. P4K has met several times over the summer and fall. On Monday, in advance of last night’s regularly scheduled board meeting, the group delivered a letter to the president of the school board and the interim superintendent. A copy of the letter was obtained by The Real Deal has obtained a copy of the letter, which runs to three pages of single-spaced copy.

Styled as an open letter to “Parents, School Board Members, Administration, Teachers, and Community”, its stated objective is to “raise awareness among parents and in the Richmond Heights Community as to the grave conditions which have drastically impacted our children’s education.” A request is made for a town hall meeting or community forum with the board “for the purpose of dialogue and interaction pertaining to strategies to both address and overcome every obstacle that has been a hindrance to success for our children.” P4K wants this meeting to occur by December 10 and hopes “to establish mutual purpose, mutual goals, and mutual solutions.”

The letter expresses P4K concerns in three broad categories: Diversity Tolerance, Academics, and Finance. Under Diversity Tolerance, parents express anxiety over the current investigation by the US Dept. of Education, Office of Civil Rights, which is widely expected to find the district and various parties guilty of discrimination, negligence, and retaliatory conduct. P4K also seeks an update on the Community Building Project initiated by Linda T. Hardwick before her suspension. And, the parents also want answers about the removal of at least eight individuals “who have been non-renewed, forced to leave, fired, or downsized on what appears to be the basis of race or retaliation and even gender in the past three years.”

P4K’s academic concerns include the status of credit recovery and tutoring programs, and how the accreditation process will proceed in the absence of the superintendent who initiated it. A companion concern has to do with the number of middle school students who are without textbooks in some classes, and high school students using books published almost twenty years ago.

The letter also asks “what mechanisms have been put in place to improve the status of ‘Continuous Improvement’ at the elementary school” and how the elevation of the school’s principal to interim superintendent will “impact our struggling elementary students”.

The third area of P4K concern deals with financial and policy matters. Five questions are asked, including:

“• Exactly how much has been spent in legal fees, combating complaints of discrimination, and attempting to justify poor practice of firing Superintendents, and retaliating against student, parents, and administration who speak against it?

• Is it true that RH teachers received a retroactive 2% raise, and will possibly incur an additional raise in the next year? Why is the teacher’s contract unavailable to the public? Why were teachers not asked to make concessions or retain their levels, when the district has said to parents concerning the purchase of books, computers, extra-curricular activities, elective classes, and transportation, there is no money?

• Why were Race to the Top dollars awarded, yet turned down by our school district?”

At Tuesday’s meeting, board president Josh Kaye promised to get back to the parents by Monday on a date for the community forum. He also promised to make the teachers contract available soon.

Richmond Heights Schools update: Interim Superintendent, questions about investigation

The Richmond Heights Board of Education has named elementary school principal Dr. Robert Moore as interim superintendent to replace Dr. Linda T. Hardwick, who was relieved of her duties with pay on November 3.

The school district is investigating allegations supposedly related to the misappropriation of district property.

Local station WKYC-TV 3 has a brief story on its website on last night’s special board meeting. As of 1:30PM today no other local television station had posted a report.

Nature of investigation unclear

Informed parties believe that the “district property” consists of documents that unknown parties may have turned over to the any of numerous federal and state government agencies that have been investigating alleged improprieties at the district.

In other words the investigation may actually be the attempt by the Board to discover the whistle-blower [s] who has exposed various board practices and actions to investigators. This could mean that public resources are being used to uncover protected behavior.

By a 3-2 vote, the district last week fired central office employee, Peggy Parker, an action almost certain to cost the district money, win or lose. Parker is reported to have already filed a complaint with one or more agencies, and a lawsuit is likely being considered as well.

Money for investigation

Richmond Heights taxpayers should ask the board members Josh Kaye, Aaron Burko, and Bob Fox, the three who voted to suspend the superintendent and conduct the investigation, how much they plan to spend on this investigation, who is getting paid to conduct it, and where the money is coming from.

These questions should be posed and answered even though the Board intends to refrain from making any further statements until the investigation is complete.

The next regularly scheduled board meets is Monday, November 21 at 7PM. By that time district residents will have decided whether to retain the only two incumbents, Linda Pliodzinskas and Bobby Jordan, who have tried to check many questionable board policies, and who they want to join or replace them. Bob Fox's term ends December 31 and he chose not to run for a second term.

BREAKING NEWS: Richmond Hts School Board Suspends Superintendent

The Richmond Heights School Board suspended Superintendent Linda T. Hardwick by a 3-2 vote in a special meeting held last night.

Unconfirmed reports suggest the suspension is pursuant to the investigation of an alleged theft of school district records, but some school observers are suggesting that the action relates to the board majority’s desire to terminate Dr. Hardwick’s contract before January 1, 2012 when a new school board will be installed.

Last week the Board fired clerk-typist Peggy Parker in another special meeting. The same board majority found Parker guilty of misappropriation of district property dishonesty, theft of confidential documents and emails, and insubordination. Parker, who reported to both the superintendent and the school treasurer Brenda Brcak, has filed complaints over her dismissal with the Ohio Civil Rights Commission and the US Department of Education. She has not ruled out further legal action.

None of the three board members who voted to suspend Hardwick are on next week’s ballot. Board president Josh Kaye and Aaron Burko each have two years remaining, while the third Bob Fox chose not to stand for re-election.

Board members Linda Pliodzinskas and Bobby Jordan Jr. voted against the suspension. Pliodzinskas is seeking election to a third term while Jordan, who was appointed in March, is seeking voter approval to complete his term.

Several issues are roiling the Richmond Heights community at present. Two council members on the city council have challenged the tax increase placed on the ballot by their colleagues, pointing out serious lapses in the administration’s fiscal reporting as cited by state auditors.

Meanwhile, school officials await what are likely to be harsh findings from the US Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, based on complaints filed by school administrators, parents and students. Other investigations, by the Ohio Civil Rights Commission and the State Department of Education, are also pending.

The school board majority has authorized tens of thousands of dollars in legal expenses aimed at forcing out the superintendent and defending the charges that have piled up against them since early this year.

Calls and emails placed to Mr. Kaye and to Charles Tyler, Sr., the board’s attorney and a former board member himself, had not been returned as of post time.

Hardwick’s indefinite suspension is without pay. When contacted by The Real Deal she declined comment other than to say she was not present when the vote was taken and had not been officially notified of the Board’s action.

We will have a fuller report here before Monday rolls around.

A Note and a Promise to Real Deal Readers & Commenters

Nothing means more to a reporter than to evoke a response to something he has written. It is validation that the work he does is important.

I am deeply appreciative of the responses to Tuesday’s post. I find it curious that all but one of the comments is cloaked in anonymity. I suspect that one or more of the commenters is a public official about whom I am writing.

It has been my intent to bring to light issues in Richmond Heights that have long been shrouded. I have hoped that an enlightened populace would move to action. This has begun to happen in both the public and private spheres. The outcome of these efforts is less important than the fact of civic engagement that is underway. As a friend of mine says almost daily, people need to be agents of their own deliverance.

I shall have much more to say about these matters over the next few days.

Two more points for right now: First, the Richmond Heights Board of Education did meet in emergency session on Tuesday, September 20, 2011. The board went into executive session with only the board’s new attorney, Charles Tyler. Superintendent Linda T. Hardwick waited outside with her attorney.

The board remained in executive session for a little over an hour. When they re-emerged into public session, they adjourned without action.

Second, I ask the indulgence of my readers who wish me to move on from Richmond Heights.  I wish I could quote here those lines of Rick Blaine to Ilsa in “Casablanca” about the problems of certain people not amounting to a hill of beans. But I will attempt to articulate in the next few days the why of what I am doing, and I promise to provide details to support what appeared in my last post.

BULLETIN: Richmond Hts school board apparently trying to fire superintendent amid federal investigation

The proverbial stuff is about to hit the fan in Richmond Heights tonight where the school board has called an emergency special meeting in an apparent attempt, once again, to fire superintendent Linda T. Hardwick.

Grounds for the attempted discharge — which we understand requires an affirmative vote of four of the five board members — are Dr. Hardwick’s alleged insubordination for purportedly interfering with what was probably an inappropriate and possibly unauthorized edict from board president Josh Kaye to investigate “theft” of public documents.

These documents apparently consist of a number of immature, ill-advised, and intemperate emails written mostly by none other than the board president himself. Some of these emails evidence Mr. Kaye’s penchant for malevolent micromanagement and reveal a total lack of appreciation for his role as a public official. For instance, in one email Mr. Kaye volunteers to protect a board employee from the superintendent, essentially granting the employee license to disregard the superintendent’s directives.

Most of the emails were written months ago during the in-fighting between a board majority that includes Aaron Burko and Bob Fox, and Dr. Hardwick, over her attempts to discipline former varsity boys basketball coach Jason Kopp for his mistreatment of team members. Mr. Kopp has wielded great influence with the board majority — he taught Mr. Kaye only a few years ago — and is also the head of the Richmond Heights Education Association that only recently concluded contract negotiations with the school district.

Our investigation has determined that while the board majority was posing in exasperation with the superintendent for dithering over whether Mr. Popp would return as coach in 2011-12, the Kaye-Fox-Burko team was actually working to thwart any sanction against the coach, even enlisting the district’s expensive legal team on their behalf.

The board majority appears to some observers to hold the upper hand against its superintendent — it has on several occasions this year chosen to embarrass her, citing her for insubordination and voting to non-renew her contract more than a year ahead of time. But the actions of Mr. Popp and Mr. Kaye have prompted investigations into the school district by the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Education as well as the Ohio Department of Education.

These investigations, prompted by a series of complaints filed mostly by parents but also by the superintendent herself, have been vigorously contested by the Board majority at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars, all without disclosure to the district’s taxpayers.

Preliminary findings of the federal investigation are expected to show that Mr. Kaye has presided over an environment hostile to the superintendent and the vast majority of the district’s students. The smoking gun for much of the government’s findings is the series of email exchanges cavalierly tossed about by Messrs. Kaye and Fox themselves.

Mr. Kaye’s recent discovery that investigators are in possession of his self-indicting emails is the trigger for tonight’s emergency meeting, whose motivating logic can only be panic. For the board majority to fire the superintendent under these circumstances would only add another to the list of retaliatory charges it is already facing.

The Real Deal has been tracking this story for much of the past several months in preparation for a thorough exposition of the dysfunction over which Mr. Kaye presides. We have outlined here only a portion of our findings so that the taxpayers, students, parents, teachers, and administrators of the district can have a basis for appreciating the truly bizarre nature of the board’s efforts to humiliate the superintendent it hired.

Our next report will detail how many of the efforts Dr. Hardwick has made to improve the district have been thwarted by the controlling board majority.

Edited for clarity, July 28, 2020.

Popp defender questions parents' actions in Richmond Hts. coaching controversy

@Anonymous: I can’t thank you enough for your questions. Many of them are useful in getting at what should be the heart of the matter: the quality of the education the children are receiving in the Richmond Heights Local Schools.  The answers to that critical issue implicate all of the participants: the teachers, the administration, the school board, and, of course, the students themselves.

I am going to try and provide a succinct recap of what has led the District to its current state. I came late to address this issue, and from what I have gathered since my first post on the matter, I gather that many of my readers have as well. After the recap, I will address your questions in two groups: the easy ones, and the important ones. The easy ones I will address in this post. The others I will write about tomorrow.

A. RECAP

I. In a letter dated February 7, 2011, the parents of the boys basketball team advised the superintendent of the district of serious charges against coach Jason Popp. [i][This letter is reproduced below.]

2. After a meeting with the parents, followed by an immediate investigation, school superintendent Linda Hardwick relieved Mr. Popp from coaching the team and appointed an interim coach for the balance of the season.  This action did not prejudice Mr. Popp’s rights in any way, as his supplemental coaching contract was not terminated and no final decision was made regarding his eligibility to return as coach.

3. Between February 11, when Popp was suspended as coach, and May 16, when the superintendent delivered a letter to each board member advising them of her decision not to recommend Mr. Popp as coach for next basketball season, furious activity was taking place behind the scenes involving certain school board members, the superintendent, the board’s lawyers, and the coach himself. Much of this maneuvering was initiated by allies of the coach on the board, who appear to have believed that a) Kopp did nothing wrong; b) if he erred in any way, it was minor; c) the concerns of the parents were exaggerated and not worthy of serious consideration; and d) the situation could be exploited to damage the public image of the superintendent, whom they had already decided should be fired.

4. During this period, the school board suffered the abrupt resignation of its most recent appointee, Gannon Quinn, and replaced him reluctantly with Bobby Jordan Jr. Meanwhile, the coach, who to this day has never repudiated the charges made by the parents, refused to apologize to the students or their parents, and was apparently reassured on numerous occasions that he would be reinstated. Undaunted, Mr. Popp proceeded to coach the boys spring track team pursuant to a contract he was awarded in 2010. [The Superintendent would later acknowledge that she was unaware Mr. Popp was coaching the track team; had she known, she might likely have intervened. From my vantage, I would wonder why the athletic director failed to bring this matter to her attention.]

5. Mr. Popp applied to coach both the boys and girls basketball teams for 2011-12. The Superintendent stuck to her guns in finding that Mr. Popp’s virtual admission of the allegations against him, coupled with his refusal to meet the conditions she had established [apologize, take sensitivity training], rendered him unqualified to coach as a matter of school district policy and state law.

6. Neither the board majority nor its legal team could find a way around the superintendent’s position and so ultimately, were required unanimously to accept her recommendation of a new coach.

I have multiple sources for most of the above truncated account. Some part of it is based on inferences drawn from my sources. I stand on the accuracy of my reporting.

B. EASY QUESTIONS

1.     Have I bothered to ask questions about Coach Popp’s history with students? What about as a teacher? What about his character?

No. The coach has established a moratorium on speaking with the media. He is president of the union and every teacher I have spoken with has virtually curled up into a fetal position when I have attempted to engage with them. I haven’t stopped trying, though.

2.     Why, after 16 years of teaching and coaching in this district, is the coach suddenly being accused of being insensitive, discriminatory, inappropriate and/or demeaning?

This question might be relevant if the coach denied the acts and statements of which he stands accused. His refusal to disavow the behavior, or to apologize for it, raises the more pertinent question of what in the Richmond Heights educational environment made him feel entitled to engage in behavior that in most enlightened and engaged districts, would have led to his suspension, not just from coaching but from teaching as well.

3.     Has he ever done good things for the district or the students or the athletes, including ever helping his accusers?

I would hope so, since I presume he has been paid for every one of the days he has been under contract to do just that.

4.     Could it be that the parents do not like him? What effect did the February 4, 2011 Plain Dealer have on this situation?

All the parents I have spoken with want the same thing for the boys on the team, and for all of the students in the district. They want their children to be respected, supported and educated.

They do not want their children to be called out of their name by faculty. They do not want their children to be demeaned, ridiculed, and undermined. They do not want their children to be stereotyped as ghetto, unworthy of scholarship aid, or in any way “less than”.

The parents understood the news article as being full of stereotypes. One man’s reality is another’s stereotype. I will say that none of the parents with whom I have spoken qualifies as a hothead, or a radical, or quick to “play the race card”. [I mightily dislike that phrase by the way, because I find its use more typically obfuscates rather than illuminates].

5.     Is it possible that the parents used this situation to get Mr. Popp out of coaching, and coached their children to come up with reasons to have him dismissed, because there were no real underlying reasons — because he is a good guy?

You are really stretching here. If anything, the parents should have discovered the coach’s tactics and attitudes much sooner. The players had been disturbed by the coach’s behavior for some time, and shared their concerns with adults in the system, but were discouraged from making it an issue. Various reasons were given for this urge to sweep their complaints under the rug, including repeated assertions that “Popp has powerful friends in the system. He is the union president.”

6.     Do I find it interesting that Popp has said nothing to defend himself?

No. Apart from a denial or an apology, there is not much for him to say. I think he has likely received some good advice from his lawyers to say nothing, possibly because the allegations, if established, are so far in violation of school policy and state law as to put his teaching license in jeopardy. And possibly because of the offline assurances he likely has received relative to the probability of his reinstatement.

7.     Have I bothered to ask questions about Coach Popp’s history with students? What about as a teacher? What about his character?

No. The coach has established a moratorium on speaking with the media. He is president of the union and every teacher I have spoken with has virtually curled up into a fetal position when I have attempted to engage with them. I haven’t stopped trying, though.

8.     Coaches are coaches, motivators, disciplinarians, etc.

High school coaches first and foremost should be educators. Coaches are adults.

9.     Have I listened to these same kids when they are on their own? Don’t they use the “n” and “f” words?

We could make this question easy or difficult. I don’t hang with these kids. The ones that I have observed are generally well-behaved in the adult settings where I have observed them. I would not presume to attribute the behavior of any few of them to the many, which I sense that many of Coach Popp’s defenders may do, based on their devotion to the reasoning implied by your question.

If you will provide me with any instance in which any of these boys have used inappropriate language, I would be delighted to pass the report on to their parents, and I would expect the parents to address the situation promptly. That’s how it was done in my community back in the day. That is, when the adult witness didn’t address me directly for my inappropriate behavior. And I wager that you could address them directly yourself, irrespective of your gender, age, ethnicity, and sexual orientation, provided you had the rudimentary ability to let them understand that you were coming from a position of authentic caring.

  These are the easy questions. Come back tomorrow to find my response to your other questions.

---

[i] Parents of Richmond Heights Boys Varsity Basketball

434 Douglas Boulevard

Richmond Heights, Ohio 44143

216.870.3015

February 7, 2011

Dr. Linda T. Hardwick

Superintendent, Richmond Heights School District

447 Richmond Road

Richmond Heights, Ohio 44143

Dear Dr. Hardwick:

Although the boys basketball team may appear to be thriving and well with their perfect record of 15-0, behind the scenes the team is very defeated in spirit and morale due to the behavior of Head Varsity Coach, Jason Popp. There has been ongoing discussion relating to Mr. Popp’s use of inappropriate language, as well as racial and economic harassment. These issues have been addressed in the recent past by both members of the team, and parents with school officials including Athletic Director, George Smith, and Interim Superintendent, Dr. Moore.  Below are recent examples.

• On Tuesday, January 18, 2011 the team was departing the bus for a game against Cardinal High School, and Coach Popp told the team that their opponents will expect them to “play like niggers, which you are….”
• Thursday February 3, 2011, Coach Popp told one of his players that he did not give “two fucks” about his grandmother when the young man asked to be dismissed because practice had run over time, and it was his grandmother’s birthday. (there is a parent meeting scheduled Tuesday to discuss this)
• Coach Popp mentioned to three of his players that one of the boy’s father is a “drunk, and the apartment he lives in is probably government housing”.
• He also mentioned to members of the team that four boys in particular had no reason to pursue athletic scholarships because they were from single-parent homes and would qualify for financial aid. He repeated these same statements in a meeting with Mr. Carlos Slade, uncle of a player, regarding his unwillingness to seek athletic scholarships based on his assumption that these boys qualify for financial aid.
• About three weeks ago Mr. Early, the parent of a player, had a meeting with Coach Popp and Mr. Smith regarding comments made by the coach in which he admitted to saying to the player that he would end up living “down on Superior” if he did not get his grades together.

These and other insulting and degrading comments have been said consistently to our children while at team meetings, on the bus and at practice.  Coach Popp also had an opportunity to praise our kids for their hard work.  They have been required to practice on weekends, holidays, and school closings.  Instead he used this opportunity to paint a picture of poverty and despair for the undefeated Spartans through an interview opportunity with the Cleveland Plain Dealer. There were many parents who found the previous statements made by the coach implausible, but quickly found them to be summarized in the article’s release on Friday, February 4, 2010.  The article displayed his feelings and attitude towards our children, this basketball team and our community (see attached article and highlights).  The statements in the Plain Dealer mirrored complaints made by the children, as he was quoted making comments referencing kids who come from government housing and receive free lunch. Additionally the coach was quoted speaking of kids who come from single-parent homes and a lot of families where money is not exactly falling out of their pockets. As parents we were equally disturbed to realize that the coach admits to not having confidence in his player’s abilities to play basketball at the collegiate level with the exception of one. In fact there is a remark made by the coach which references losing the area’s best kids to other schools, alluding to the fact that he does not believe our kids at Richmond Heights are among the best.

ACTION PLAN:

At this time the parents and the Varsity Boys Basketball team of Richmond Heights High School demand the instantaneous removal (before the next scheduled game) of Coach Jason Popp. It is our belief that if we are to maintain a winning team coupled with players who are not mentally handicapped by the degradation, and humiliation in which they have had to endure, an interim coach is necessary immediately, pending whatever process the district has in place in order to investigate this matter. It is the wish of the Varsity Boys Team to continue on with their season in order to help maintain the spirit of the school and the community. The school, community, and the entire basketball team are proud of the accomplishments of the varsity members despite the hardships they have faced. Nonetheless, the team and parents are in agreement, and the boys refuse to continue on with Head Coach Jason Popp. Please note that as parents we are outraged! This is about more than basketball and it is our sincere hope that as Superintendent you will be certain that the proper actions will be taken in order to do what is best for the people which have been most affected, and for those who may quite possibly be affected by Coach Popp’s disgraceful actions in the future: the children of Richmond Heights School District. The parents and varsity members embrace a more personal discussion of this matter as soon as possible.

Respectfully yours,

Parents of the Richmond Heights Varsity Basketball Team

cc: Joshua Kaye, President Richmond Heights School Board

         Dr. Robert Moore, Principal/Past Interim Superintendent

         Nathan Bishko, Interim Principal

         George Smith, Athletic Director

Bulletin: Priah is new Boys Basketball Coach

By a 4-0 vote, the Richmond Heights Board of Education accepted the recommendation of School Superintendent Linda T. Hardwick to appoint Beachwood assistant coach Jason Priah to be the new varsity boys basketball coach. Board president Josh Kaye, who had been behind-the-scenes a staunch proponent of returning disgraced Jason Popp to the position, did not attend tonight's meeting. Board vice president and Kaye ally Bob Fox presided at tonight's meeting, which drew a large crowd of parents and residents, along with seven media outlets [four local television stations, three newspapers].

The outcome was foreshadowed at last week's board meeting when, following a lengthy two-and-a-half hour executive session, the superintendent agreed to table her recommendation of Priah. It appeared at that time that the operative board majority had been stymied in its desire to reinstate Popp by the superintendent's insistence that uncontested allegations of Popp's inappropriate and racially demeaning conduct had rendered him unqualified to continue his coaching career at this time.

Still, the tension mounted as what vice president Fox promised would be a speedy executive session,   closed in on an hour's duration. Finally, the board and Hardwick emerged grim-faced from the lengthy session and proceeded to take the Priah recommendation off the table and pass it.

Still to be determined is who will coach the girls' basketball and boys' track team next year. Popp coached the track team this spring after having been removed mid-season from the basketball team. In Hardwick's words, he "slipped through the cracks" as she worked to resolve the basketball situation.

 Popp applied last month to coach both boys and girls basketball. Deniese Spencer has coached the girls team for the last five years and is likely to have the superintendent's support.

When asked by a television news reporter if Popp would coach girls basketball, the superintendent said, "Oh, no."

Taking Popp's coaching whistle resolves the district's most dramatic issue. However, it does nothing to address any of the other critical issues — among them:  endemic instability, a divided board, an embattled superintendent, a shrinking district, an estranged community — that cry out for resolution.

We will be reporting on these issues all summer long.

Silence in the Face of Outrages in Richmond Heights

It is increasingly apparent that the response to the initial outcry from members of the boys’ varsity basketball team a few months ago was the proverbial canary in the mine: a signal that there were poisonous elements in the air and that emergency remedial measures were in order.

More than the coach’s outrageous behavior and impermissible language [well, impermissible to most citizens of good conscience, if not to the majority of Richmond Heights school board members], it was the lack of an appropriate response that was a measure of the toxicity in the Richmond Heights public sphere.

It seems that while many if not most people in the sleepy suburb are still unaware of what is being done in their name, those who do have an inkling of what has been happening have either made personal adjustments [e.g., removing their children from the school system] or turned their backs to the odor emanating from the city’s school board.

We have tried over the past few weeks to restrict ourselves to more or less dispassionate reporting of the board’s public meetings, with some occasional contextual comments to explain some of the back-story.

But the back-story is now the story, or at least it should be. What is going on in Richmond Heights can no longer be confined to the sports pages of the daily paper or the fly-by coverage of local TV news seeking to capture the sound bites of human conflict.

And it certainly won’t be found in the weekly Sun Messenger, whose editorial and reportorial coverage is, to put it charitably, clueless. Earlier this month the paper called for Hardwick’s removal by the board, accusing her of being “more interested in carrying out personal vendettas … than in properly running the school district. “

Now let’s look at what the public has not been told:

1.     The board recently voted to give members of the district’s teacher’s union a two per cent raise retroactive for the school year just concluded.

2.     The superintendent claims publicly to have been improperly excluded from these negotiations.

3.     The school district has not been accredited since approximately 2000.

4.     Notwithstanding whatever public posturing has been going on, the operating board majority of Josh Kaye, Bob Fox and Aaron Burko is foursquare behind reinstating Jason Popp as basketball coach next season.

5.     The Kaye-Fox-Burko majority has consistently interfered in school matters well beyond their duties of policy-setting, interacted improperly with district employees on a regular basis, and gone so far as to inform several of them of their intent to fire the superintendent.

6.     The board president had to be backed into a verbal corner by a district parent at a public meeting before he would concede that the outrageous behavior alleged to have been committed by the basketball coach violated district policy.

7.     The board demanded in writing of a non-district employee assigned to the school to be advised of  the person’s personal relationship to the parents who are fomenting “racial” trouble.

8.     Basketball coach Jason Popp not only applied to coach the boys’ basketball team in 2011-12, he also applied to coach the 2011-12 girls’ basketball team.

9.     The board majority has failed to acknowledge the enormous impropriety of having the union president — Jason Popp — serve as party to contract negotiations while simultaneously contesting his discipline by the superintendent, discipline that they oppose.

10.  The board majority has thwarted or undermined virtually every educational initiative sought by the superintendent, fired key aides she brought in to assist her, rejected an offer by one of those aides — a Clevelander highly celebrated for his contributions — to volunteer his time and talent on behalf of the district, and stood by idly as the teachers union forced the return to the State of $100,000 in Race to the Top funds.

We could go on, and we will.

Come back tomorrow and we will let you know the real deal on what happens at tonight’s school board meeting and how the Kaye-Fox-Burko trio may try to block the superintendent’s recommendations of a new coach.

And for those of you are watched the video from the last board meeting: a major reason this trio — more than nine months before the law would require such action — resolved not to renew the superintendent’s contract , was to turn her into the lamest of lame ducks, and send an unmistakable signal of complicity to the teachers’ union with whom they are about to negotiate another raise.

Richmond Heights voters will have a chance to weigh in on all this in November.

Divided Richmond Heights school board fires another potshot at Superintendent

Hot debate precedes vote not to renew contract

Legal and ethical issues surround pair of 3-2 board decisions to dump supt., hire former board president as legal counsel

In a highly contentious and legally suspect fashion, the Richmond Heights Board of Education voted 3-2 at a 7:30AM special meeting yesterday not to renew the contract of Superintendent Linda T. Hardwick when it expires next year on July 31.

If the board does not offer Dr. Hardwick a new contract, it would continue the revolving door of district leaders that had one teacher in attendance estimate that at least nine superintendents have come and gone during her 20 years in the district, including three in the past four years alone.

Board president Josh Kaye introduced the resolution immediately after the board reconvened following the executive session it had entered as soon as the meeting starting. Only two board members — Bobby Jordan and Linda Pliodzinskas — registered surprise at Kaye’s motion, as did the superintendent, creating an inference that while the issue had not been discussed at the closed door session, the other board members — Aaron Burko and Bob Fox — had been apprised of Kaye’s intent.

Pliodzinskas, the senior member on the board, registered a number of objections to the resolution, especially pertaining to the timing of the resolution and the existence of many issues of much greater urgency.

Board president Kaye, aside from explaining the effect of the resolution, offered no rationale for its support, leaving that task to Burko. Bob Fox joined Kaye and Burko in supporting the motion, with Pliodzinskas and Jordan opposing. Video of the motion, discussion and vote here

Board member Fox then introduced a resolution that the school district add former board president Charles Tyler to its roster of attorneys. Tyler was board president last year when he resigned as a result of a job transfer out of town. 

When asked about his relationship to Tyler, Fox at first downplayed his connection to Tyler before eventually admitting that Tyler had represented Fox’s wife in litigation and was the family attorney. 

Fox defended his recommendation by saying that “the hiring of friends has gone on here forever.” Fox praised Tyler’s legal skills and suggested that Tyler could save the district money on its legal bills. After the meeting, Fox told The Real Deal that the district’s legal bill for the fiscal year ending this month could exceed $200,000.

The debate over Tyler raised questions of ethics, conflict of interest, and public perception. Pliodzinskas and Jordan opposed hiring Tyler at this time, citing ethical and professional concerns, the haste with which the issue was presented, incomplete information, and the departure from board norms in making decisions in June on organizational matters usually resolved in January. 

Jordan's motion to table the hiring of Tyler but his motion was defeated 3-2, as he and Pliodzinskas were on the losing side on all meeting long.

Several legal experts consulted by The Real Deal raised a number of legal questions about the meeting, including the Board’s possible non-compliance with Ohio’s Sunshine Law, with respect both to the adequacy of public notice for the special meeting, and appropriateness of the items presented under “new business”. 

After the meeting, Brenda Brcak, the district's chief financial officer, said that the Lake County News Herald  (an out of county publication) was the district's daily paper of record and that the Sun Messenger was its weekly paper of record. However, the Sun-Messenger did not publish an edition after the meeting was scheduled and it is unknown whether the News Herald published notice of the meeting. Brcak also said the meeting notice was published on the school district's website, but several people, including at least two city officials ,have said they looked at the site but did not see any such notice.

Of possibly greater concern was whether board member Bob Fox had a conflict in proposing and voting for the district to retain an attorney who has represented members of his immediate family.

“The hiring of friends has gone on here forever.”

— board member Bob Fox, in support of his resolution to hire former school board president Charles Tyler, his friend and former family attorney.

The board is scheduled to have yet another special meeting tomorrow night at 6pm to determine formally whether disgraced coach boys basketball coach Jason Popp will be allowed to return next season, or whether the superintendent's recommendation for his successor will be accepted.

* Three short videos on the portion of the meeting covering the discussion of Charles Tyler are being uploaded at Facebook as I post this. Each video carries "RichHts action on ChasTyler" in the title. The links will be posted as soon as they are available. 

Video Links added at 2PM: 
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFe9hzNO8cU