Breaking News: Stanley Miller resigns as NAACP executive director

Stanley Miller has resigned as executive director of the Cleveland chapter of the NAACP to become head of Marcus Garvey Academy. His last day as leader of what remains known as Cleveland’s largest traditional civil rights organization will be Friday, July 29.

Miller moves from one hot seat to another as he takes the helm at Garvey. The community school [known as charter schools everywhere but Ohio] is sponsored by Ashe Cultural Center, which for the last several years has been fighting efforts by the Ohio Department of Education to revoke its sponsor status. It will be Miller’s task to help resist these efforts while maintaining Garvey’s “excellent” state ranking, viewed by the school’s critics as possibly an illegitimate attainment.

Miller is also the pastor of Shaffer United Methodist Church on Cleveland’s south side.

The Cleveland NAACP is one of only four branches nationwide to employ a fulltime director. No process is yet in place to choose his successor, who will have to be approved by the national office.

Another special meeting for Richmond Heights BOE; bring the cannoli

I feel like Michael Corleone in The Godfather. 

Just when I thought I had written about Richmond Heights schools for the last time this month, "they pull me back in".

The board has decided to meet in special session tomorrow, Wednesday, June 29 at 7PM "for matters of personnel and negotiations." 

They will of course go into special session.

This will be the Board's third special meeting in the past nine days. Do they know there are fewer than 900 students under their wing?

I would guess this meeting will be to ratify a tentative [?!] agreement with the teachers' union, formally known as The Richmond Heights Education Association. However, they have yet to publicize their earlier tentative agreement, reached earlier this month, to grant the union a two percent raise retroactive to sometime in 2010. 

SB5, the union-busting legislation recently passed by the legislature, takes effect July 1, creating a distinctly anti-friendly negotiating environment for public employees of all kinds, including teachers, police, and fire personnel. 

Consider this report from the WKYC/TV3 website last week:

CLEVELAND -- Ohio teachers, other school workers and their unions are reaching more contract deals with school boards at a faster pace than usual under pressure from districts' budget problems and the state's new law limiting collective bargaining for public workers.

The Ohio School Boards Association found school boards and employees' unions so far this year have reached three times as many deals as last year. Unions are trying to lock in contracts by July 1, before the new law restricts negotiations.

The Plain Dealer in Cleveland reports many of the deals don't include the typical raises for workers. About four-fifths of them freeze workers' base pay for at least a year, and more than one-third don't include the usual raises based on how much experience or education an employee has.

The Associated Press

http://www.wkyc.com/news/article/194493/3/Ohio-school-workers-agree-on-more-contracts-faster

 

It will be interesting to see whether the trend in other districts will be followed in Richmond Heights.

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

@Anonymous:

I have taken a more thorough look at the questions you fired off in your comments to my second post of June 22.

It seems to me that I answered most of them yesterday and that the remaining issue implied by your comments is this: what must be done to ensure that the Richmond Heights Local Schools accomplish with integrity and excellence its stated vision and mission?

The following is taken from the District's website:

Vision:  Every Day Every Child will be so engaged in learning that s/he always learns what is personally valued, expected by the school, and valued by parents and the community. 

Mission: To provide a safe environment, a challenging curriculum and permission for all students to dream. To deliver a highly individualized education developing motivated, self-reliant, and productive citizens. To foster learning by designing engaging, challenging, and satisfying work.

Even a cursory review of these statements calls into question whether the Board’s behavior in the Popp episode comports with the District’s stated beliefs that:

• “the keys to improved academic performance are the professional practices of teachers and leaders, not the economic, racial, ethnic, or linguistic characteristics of our children. …
•  “to improve the performance of students in our schools, we must continuously improve … leadership.
• “… the quality of the relationship between the student and teacher as well as the school and community is essential to the quality of learning for every student.”

As your early comments suggest, Jason Popp was a teacher before he was a coach. Coaching is teaching in another form. Coaches are paid to coach. The playing field, the locker room, the bus rides: these are extensions of the classroom. Winning and losing are incidental to the learning experience.
Let’s strip away the hysteria surrounding Coach Popp’s crude and intemperate remarks and examine the complaints of students and parents in their essence.
When we do so, can there be any doubt that the parents’ February 7th letter was a stinging outcry against the quality of the relationship between student and teacher/coach and its negative consequences for the quality of learning for team members? Or that the letter was a rebuke of the teacher/coach’s unprofessional practices and a demand for improved leadership?
The letter reflects the steps taken by parents before issuing their demand for Popp’s removal: discussions with the coach, the athletic director and others had been unavailing.
And until the parents stood up to the Board on June 13 and cross-examined its President into a corner [see Video, segment beginning at 3:48], there was never — not once in four months — an indication that the Board earnestly considered its employee/coach’s behavior to be unacceptable and in violation of school district policy.
So how can this be a learning experience for the community that results in a committed reaffirmation of the district’s Vision and Mission?
Leadership starts at the top. Let the Board begin by becoming more open, more transparent, more engaged with the community it is sworn and obliged to serve. Here are several suggestions in that regard:

1.     Publish notice of its meetings in more timely fashion. Announce the agenda online.

2.     Resort to executive session only as mandated by law.

3.     Publish minutes of meetings in more timely fashion. Put them online.

4.     Invite the community to become part of the education process. Expand and elevate the community comment portion of board meetings. Put it at the beginning of the meeting, not the end.

5.     Report to the community. What is the status of teacher negotiations?

6.     End the public bickering and nitpicking of the Superintendent. You hired her. Work with her. Give her the freedom to do her job and evaluate her performance on the basis of her job description and agreed performance measures.

7.     Stop the hideously self-defeating micro management. Be policy-makers, not pseudo mini-superintendents.

The Superintendent and the teachers are the chief professionals when it comes to delivering quality education to students. They need to find ways to improve their working relationship. The Board should foster this outcome.
Parents need to be watchdogs, paying attention first and foremost to their children’s efforts, but also to the content of the curriculum and the professionalism by which it is imparted.
Richmond Heights is a small enough district with enough resources that if properly focused and utilized, could be a model as well as a magnet for public education. This community should be near perfect in more than just basketball.

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

Richmond Heights School Board Tables Action but the Decision Has Been Made

 The fat lady hasn’t sung yet but you can hear her warming up just off-stage.

Officially, the Richmond Heights Board of Education tabled until June 22 the recommendation of School Superintendent Linda T. Hardwick to appoint Beachwood High assistant coach Jason Priah to coach the Spartans varsity boys basketball team for the 2011-12 season.

Unofficially, putting the decision off for a week was a clear signal to savvy board watchers that the struggle to save Popp’s basketball job is over and he is out. 

This result was not immediately apparent when board president Josh Kaye came out of what was surely a contentious executive session lasting about two hours and announced that the board would not be deciding on the boys’ coach at the meeting. His statement came just before 10:30PM, three and a half hours after the meeting had started.

Kaye attributed the board’s decision “not to decide” to the introduction at executive session of “new information” that had been brought to the Board’s attention and said the matter required further “research”.  He indicated that the Board was likely to decide by the end of the month.

The meeting then returned to the published agenda as the television news teams and the Plain Dealer reporter all began to withdraw.  Kaye’s announcement signaled to them that there would be no dramatic action to announce on the 11PM news or in the morning sports headline. As it turns out, they left prematurely.

The twenty-plus members of the public who stayed to the end included several parents of the boys who had protested coach Popp’s intemperate reign. Among the parents and relatives were Frank Barber, Nneka Slade Jackson, and Carlos Slade.

Waiting more than four hours for the public participation of the meeting was not going to deter them. After all, they had been waiting more than four months for a fair and final resolution. Last night, with boys and girls summer basketball leagues already underway, and every school in the conference reportedly participating but their own, and with the superintendent on record with her choice to replace Popp, the parents focused their fire on the Board and unleashed their frustration.

The brother and sister team of Jackson and Slade performed a pick-and-roll that pushed the board to advance its next meeting, promise to resolve the situation, and, after four months, to acknowledge, virtually for the first time, that Popp’s alleged behavior was inappropriate. We will be posting video of the public exchange later today.

Slade was even able to prod board member Aaron Burko into admitting that he had filed a report with fellow board members months ago about what his observations after sitting in on the February meeting where coach Popp was presented by the parents with the charges against him and denied nary a one.

Intelligent and affirmative citizen action is a beautiful thing.

Flunking the test in Richmond Heights

We have been digging into issues in the sleepy but deeply troubled Richmond Heights community for about the past two months. What we have learned — from the public record as well as from numerous conversations with public officials, past and present school district employees, parents of children in the district’s effective but critically-ill school system, other district residents, school volunteers and others with knowledge of the city’s schools — has so shocked us that we have had to work to maintain appropriate distance from the story to be able to tell it fairly.

Most county residents, your scribe among them, likely paid scant attention to the tiny suburb of Richmond Heights before the boys basketball coach became an advance ad earlier this year for the forthcoming Cameron Diaz comedy, "Bad Teacher". Aside from the occasional attention  the town may draw as home to the county airport, or for its Richmond Town Center at Wilson Mills and Richmond Roads, the place is easy to overlook. Tucked underneath the City of Euclid, its large municipal neighbor [the county’s fourth largest city] in the northeast part of the county, it is possible to drive through Richmond Heights without even knowing you have been there. Its roughly 10,000 residents live in a mixture of mostly ranch homes and a few large off-the-beaten path apartment complexes.

The city’s profile was raised in February when the entire high school boys varsity basketball team pushed their parents front and center to demand that the school district remove their coach because of his creation and maintenance of a racially hostile environment directed at them. The coach, Jason Popp, is a health teacher at the high school, and also president of the teachers union.  The all black team and ready to forfeit the balance of their then-undefeated season if the situation was not resolved.

School superintendent Linda T. Hardwick, when confronted by the parents, quickly confirmed the likely veracity of the boys’ complaints — which Popp appears not ever to have denied — and replaced the coach for the balance of the season. 

Hardwick later set forth certain conditions under which Popp might be permitted to return. When Popp, with the none too subtle back channel support of several school board members — even as a new teachers contract was being negotiated — defiantly refused to apologize to the students or to take other steps also required by the superintendent, Hardwick told the board  last month that she would not consider Popp as next year’s coach.

Tonight, according to various published reports, Hardwick intends to recommend Jason Priah as Popp’s successor. Priah has been an assistant basketball coach at conference rival Beachwood for the past four years and was highly recommended. He comes with the endorsement of both the district's athletic director and the high school principal who interviewed him.

It is expected that a Board majority, led by its twenty-six year old president, Josh Kaye, who less than a decade ago was a Richmond Heights High School student, will reject Priah as a candidate. They will likely cite for the record vague legal and technical concerns if they choose to comment at all. But Kaye has regularly signaled that he wants Popp to remain as coach even if, as seems likely, not one boy comes out for the team, and that the majority of the best team in school history transfers out of the district.

It remains a public mystery why Richmond Heights parents and taxpayers, have not descended en masse upon the board of education to demand answers to some very basic questions:

1.     Why isn’t the Board on record condemning the utter unacceptability of any district employee gratuitously demeaning, belittling, and/or insulting any other member of the Richmond Heights school community?

2.     How can the Board justify considering extending a new contract any district employee who has so flaunted federal and state laws, as well as board policies and the union contract, by engaging in such conduct?

3.     How does a majority of the Board reconcile its desire to reinstate Popp as coach for next season, knowing that Popp’s conduct is the basis for one or more of the several complaints that have been filed with the Civil Rights Division of the US Department of Education and are currently under investigation?

4.     What kind of legal advice is the Board receiving that would protect the District from heading down the expensive road of defending these claims in court?

5.     What makes Jason Popp more valuable to the District than the children he is charged with nurturing and protecting?

To pose these questions is important, even though the Board will likely duck and cover as best it can. All over Richmond Heights, and indeed throughout Cuyahoga County, these questions should be asked until the truth comes out.

The Board meets at 7PM tonight at district headquarters. Return to this space tomorrow for the skinny on what happens.

Video of Supt.'s Announcement on Richmond Heights Basketball Coach

This video was shot by The County Reporter for publication here at The Real Deal. The video speaks for itself but confirms the account published here in our last post. 

The video begins by showing the adjournment of the official May 16 meeting, followed immediately by Board President Kaye’s gestured invitation to Carlos Slade to pose his question. In the context of the evening as well as prior events, Kaye and everyone in the room knew that Slade was going to ask about the school district’s stance regarding Popp.

Slade is the father of a Richmond Heights middle school student and the uncle of a varsity basketball player. His pointed question, directed to  school superintendent Linda Hardwick, asked whether responsibility for inaction on Popp’s status  rested on her shoulders or on the Board of Education.

Her reply, made with the tacit approval of the Board, as indicated by their silence, was that she had made her decision in the best interest of the children, and that she would not consider an application by Popp to return as coach. Her response produced vigorous and agitated responses from board members Aaron Burko and Bob Fox.

• • •

Interested citizens may wish to compare the video with the account published by The Sun Messenger, which reads as if ghostwritten by the operating Board of Education majority.

That account invites readers to infer that the superintendent spontaneously began discussing her decision not to accept the application from health teacher  — and teacher’s union president — Jason Popp to coach the school’s high school basketball team next school year. Hardwick had relieved Popp as coach in February after the team refused to continue playing if he remained as their coach and the players’ parents had submitted a letter detailing Popp’s alleged verbal abuse and denigration of the team, their family members and the community.

The S-M account fails completely to acknowledge that school superintendent Linda T. Hardwick was responding to a question from a resident that board president Josh Kaye invited and permitted after the board’s official meeting had ended.

Let us know your views of the following account after watching the video:

http://blog.cleveland.com/sunmessenger/2011/05/jason_popps_coaching_status_re.html

See also:
http://mobile.cleveland.com/advcleve/db_96574/contentdetail.htm;jsessionid=F9D76EFCD402DA752CA46AC204D79FF8?contentguid=XFUOFAG5&detailindex=4&pn=0&ps=5&full=true

• • •

Next week’s board meeting promises to be as entertaining as any Spartans basketball game. If you care about education in Richmond Heights, you might want to be there early. The meeting is scheduled to start promptly at 6PM on Wednesday, May 25.

Superintendent Announces Decision on Richmond Heights Basketball Coach

Superintendent Announces Decision on Richmond Heights Basketball Coach

Disarray and Discord Dominate Richmond Heights School Planning Meeting; 
Board Member Fox Outraged

“Things are seldom what they seem; skim milk masquerades as cream.”

—   Gilbert and Sullivan

Shortly before the start of Monday’s special board meeting, Richmond Heights school superintendent Linda Hardwick placed an envelope on the table where each board member would sit.

The envelopes remained unopened throughout the regular meeting, perhaps because the board members sensed the contents contained political anthrax. After all, last Friday’s Plain Dealer had reported that Hardwick planned to announce her decision about whether to reinstate Jason Popp as high school basketball coach. She had removed him ¾ of the way through the team’s undefeated regular season when team members, supported by their parents, complained about his regular and repeated use of racial slurs. Popp is white; all team members are black.

The published agenda for the meeting called for the board to hear a report on family and civic engagement from Deniese Spencer followed by an executive session to discuss personnel, legal, and other sensitive matters that public bodies are allowed by law to consider outside of public view.

Neither of these events took place. Spencer was not present and the board scratched the executive session before proceeding to hear reports from senior staff about future plans for the district. For the most part, these reports appeared disjointed and not terribly useful, more living room discussion than serious information sharing or planning.

The staff reports came out in informal and more or less random  fashion. Topics discussed were varied, including: summer cleaning; the need for air conditioning at the start of school in August; the status of textbook orders; the need for a foreign language teacher at the elementary level; declining enrollment; progress on a master schedule for the school year; the challenges of special education; transportation issues including the need for new busses; school district collaboration, the insufficiency of the district’s supply of working computers; the oncoming need to name new coaches for the winter sports, whether there will or should be a reconfiguration of the middle school this year or next; the desirability of the district’s regaining its accreditation; the importance of behavior modification training to equip school staff to deal with problematic student behavior; the availability and cost of textbooks; the number of seniors at risk of not graduating; the concern that some students may be gaming the system of supplemental education; and the fact that not a single teacher had signed up to teach summer school.

If the foregoing seems complex and disjointed, it mirrors the impression this reporter had from the meeting. There was precious little planning being done at this “planning session”.

Important information was being disclosed however through this two hour and fifteen minute session. The district treasurer revealed that the annual allocation of funds for the purchase of new computers regularly went unused.  School enrollment is declining at a rate of about 50 students each year. Six nurses who applied for the position of school nurse rejected an employment offer once they learned the salary before one accepted. Her probable start date is July or August.

Almost in passing, spurred by its treasurer, the Board seemed to arrive at a consensus that a levy would have to be placed on the ballot in 2012 to deal with the enormous drop in state support to local school districts in the prospective state budget now being negotiated in Columbus. Members acknowledged a duty to propose the levy while publicly presuming a lack of voter support that would make attempted passage a vain exercise.

Throughout the meeting there was a palpable sense of tension between some members of the board — most notably Bob Fox, but also Aaron Burko — and the school superintendent. This manifested itself both in their respective tones when addressing one another and also in the way they repeatedly interrupted each other to dispute things that had been said or done in the past.

The discussions were most antagonistic around two issues. Fox and Burko were irritated by an alleged lack of accountability on the part of community liaison Deniese Spencer. They asserted that she was hired as a direct report to the Board but seemed to hold the superintendent responsible for Spencer’s failure to keep the Board informed. They were impatient and dismissive of Hardwick’s attempts to read and/or summarize Spencer’s reports to her.

For her part, the superintendent claimed she was being kept out of the loop as to the status of union negotiations. Discussion of this issue should have been staged at the elementary school as she and various members of the Board [I’m sorry, the three white men] traded accusations of irresponsibility. [“It’s your fault.” “No, it’s your fault!” “NO, It’s YOUR FAULT!”]

Before this meeting came to its official end, resident Carlos Slade spoke up from the audience. The father of a 7^th grader and uncle of a member of the high school’s basketball team., Slade asked the Board for 5-10 minutes to discuss an important issue. Board president Joshua Kaye attempted to parry the request, citing a legal limitation on the meeting, but Slade was persistent and would not be denied. Kaye then  proposed that if Slade would be patient, the entire board would remain after the meeting was adjourned to hear his question. Slade consented to this request and the meeting continued until 9:15PM as reported above.

During the unofficial continuation of the meeting, Slade directed his inquiry to the superintendent regarding the unresolved status of coach Popp’s suspension and possible reinstatement as basketball coach. Slade said the delay was doing much harm to the district, causing many parents to make plans to enroll their children outside of the district for the next school year.

Hardwick replied by saying she had made a decision, one she believed was in the best interests of the children, and that she had conveyed that decision to board members by letter.

As board members then recognized, opened and read the contents of the envelope in front of each [Fox did not open his letter, saying he would not be able to keep his composure if he read the letter — he lost it anyway!], Hardwick said she would not accept the application from Jason Popp to coach the boys basketball team next year.

The meeting broke up at this point with several board members crying foul. Aaron Burko said that Hardwick’s public statement subjected the district to potential legal liability and tossed out a likely cost of 20 to 30 thousand dollars. Fox did not read the letter but nevertheless verged towards apoplexy.

* This post to be continued. Video of parts of the meeting including the superintendent’s statement will be posted, hopefully within 24 hours. Stay tuned.

Ruminating in Retreat from the Rain

I’m sitting in the East Ninth Phoenix Coffeehouse waiting on a noon appointment, wondering what effect the rain — cold, nasty and nearly nonstop — will have on the suburban school levies voters are deciding today.

I especially have my eye on the outcome of the vote in Euclid and Maple Heights. The communities have different political dynamics but also share many key characteristics, including declining median incomes, a majority of students classified as economically disadvantaged, “continuous improvement” status for most schools, and a significant increase in each district’s African American population over the last decade. Of note is that each district has several brand new buildings coming on line in the next few years.

Race and class are the fault lines in American society. They are the 8,000 lb. gorillas in our boardrooms, living rooms, and legislative bodies. We won’t be competitive much longer as a nation if we don’t find ways to have honest, intelligent, informed and civil discussions about their impact upon our polity, our economy, and our society.

Cuyhaoga Dems & Repubs: Confluence and Contrast

  This week found me attending the annual dinners of both the Cuyahoga Democratic Party and the County Republican Party. I’m not sure if they typically fall in a four day-period but the contrast was instructive.

  It had been some time since I had witnessed a GOP function in the flesh, and as it was my first-ever Lincoln Day shindig, I was uncertain what to expect. 

  I was struck immediately by subliminal markers as I entered the GOP turf and moved towards the Grand Ballroom of the downtown Renaissance Hotel. First, all I saw were white people. A lot of them old. Thin. Wealthy in appearance. No identifiable Hispanics, or even Asians. There was a smattering of young professionals. 

  Whether I moved around or stood near a central vantage, I seemed invisible to most attendees. I was looking for either familiar or friendly faces but found only a few. One belonged to Bruce Akers, the ever-gracious mayor of Pepper Pike, a consummate political insider who is always ready to listen and engage in reasoned exchange. 
  Another friendly face belonged to Skip Claypool, an affably dogmatic Tea Partier from Geauga County.

  Once I received my media pass [the volunteer handling that chore was, to my delight, a regular reader of the irregular Real Deal] I moved around with a little more verve, confident that I would not be unmasked and expelled.

  I stationed myself at the ballroom entrance, the better to observe  the entering celebrants. Like the Democrats three days earlier, the main event was preceded by a VIP reception. The GOP crowd was more subdued, notwithstanding their  November victories that have them feeling entitled to remake Ohio. ["Give them an inch, they'll make it a mandate."] 
  There was a cash bar and a silent auction display that seemed to feature mostly Reagan adorabilia. Laura Bush seemed more popular than her husband, and there was a heavily discounted offering of books by Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi donated by “a former Democrat”.

  There were about 750 people in attendance, about the same number as attended the Democrats’ bash. The room was much bigger, however, so the evening seemed less intimate and the attendees were in the main less gregarious. The evening’s loudest roar came when final passage of Senate Bill 5 was announced.

  New Ohio Treasurer and hometown boy Josh Mandel was given a prime opportunity to speak. There seems little doubt that he will challenge Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown next year, as Mandel went out of his way to address standard GOP hot buttons like abortion that have little to do with state finances.

  The evening’s featured speaker was former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty, who recently kicked off his campaign to be the Republican nominee in next year’s presidential campaign. While he was blunt, harsh, and direct in his assault on President Obama’s leadership, Pawlenty still managed to appear more reasonable and thoughtful than just about all of his rivals for the GOP nomination.
  Pawlenty denounced President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for not understanding that America is exceptional, and that “our place is to lead the world in everything”.

  I counted perhaps fifteen black faces in the crowd, exclusive of hotel staff, or about 2% of the nominal heirs to the party of the proclaimed "Great Emancipator".

• • •

  The foregoing account may fuel perceptions that I am race-obsessed. Rest assured that I did no racial counting at the Democrats’ bash last Sunday at the Intercontinental Hotel. The gathering was too integrated for that. In fact, by most demographic measure — race, gender, religion, geography — the Democrats were so thoroughly integrated as to render such considerations moot.

  A relaxed tone for the evening was set during the invocation by a priest who delightfully, naturally, enthusiastically and reverentially channeled his inner Father Guido Sarducci. Of course the mood of the Party was enhanced by numerous surprising touches initiated by new county party chair, Stuart Garson. There was  — gasp — an open bar [!], which adroitly shut down before relaxation could turn to mischief, and then reopened when the dinner ended exactly on schedule, as an inducement for attendees to continue mingling.

  The evening clearly reflected from beginning to end chairman Garson’s desire to obliterate any connection with the Party’s slovenly past, dominated by the hail-fellow-well-met atmosphere fostered by its disgraced former officials, Jimmy Dimora and Frank Russo.

  On this evening the effort was a complete success. Cleveland mayor Frank Jackson was characteristically brief, but several members of Congress spoke, and all were on and off the podium in record time. There was a professional video that radiated pride in Democratic core values, and a total orderliness to the entire proceedings at the Inter-Continental Hotel. The impression fostered was that of a party focused on its mission.

  The dinner was a pricey $175, in contrast to the GOP’s $50 affair, but the Democrats need operating cash.

  Keynote speaker for the evening was Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald, who is the face of the new, leaner, inclusive, and effective party that Garson is intent on building. His demeanor — humble, professional, earnest, compassionate, and policy-oriented to serve county residents — seems to make him ideal for the role.