Calls for answers, resignations at Dublin City school board meeting

The overflow crowd at Monday night’s Dublin City Board of Education meeting wanted answers. Some of the board members wanted resignations.

Stewing for months, public outcry about the district’s financial crisis reached a boiling point over a recent decision to move alternative students out of Moore Street School to make way for a new magnet school. The new school would serve as a feeder program for the high school’s distinguished international baccalaureate program and would replace the controversial Irish Gifted Academy. However, many in the crowd perceived it as another means of putting white, out-of-district students ahead of its predominately black student population.

About 90 percent of Dublin CIty’s students are black while almost half of the approximately 300 students at IGA, which serves grades K-8, are white.

 Parents, residents and the board’s three black members said Monday they were blindsided by last week’s decision, which was made at called meeting April 21. Both the magnet school and changes at Moore Street passed by 4-3 votes. Both items were discussed as having been recommended by state officials to address the district’s financial crisis.

“I’m so disappointed in how we handled the meeting last week,” said board member Kenny Walters. “Our leaders have failed us because they didn’t get that information to us. … A lot of my constituents, even myself, have said maybe they need to resign. Maybe they need to get someone else to do it.”

Board member JoAnna Glover said she was “with Kenny on the recommendation to Miss Chairman Amanda (Smith), and (interim Superintendent) Marcee Pool. Something has to be done.”

The board last week heard about a 15-minute presentation detailing problems with the Irish Gifted Academy and why the IB magnet school would be a better option, if for no other reason than financially. The operational setup of the IGA was described as “confusing,” with no true way of determining costs. The magnet school also would generate state funding for a principal and other positions that currently are paid locally.

Most of the more than half-dozen people who spoke during public comments Monday demanded to see all formal cost-cutting recommendations that came from the state. Board member John Bell said residents would not have been happy with suggestions for Moore Street School.

“You know what the state wanted us to do with Moore Street by this past December?” Bell asked. “They were wanting it completely shut down and put in a trailer or a room or something at the high school. There wasn’t going to be any more Moore Street. Mrs. Poole and Mrs. Smith worked and worked with the state to get that changed where we would still have Moore Street.”

Bell said he also was unaware of last week’s proposals until they were presented at the called meeting but still voted for them.

“I knew nothing about what was going to be on the agenda – I knew nothing about any of that – but I thoroughly support what we voted for.”

Officials have sought to highlight the differences between the IGA and proposed magnet school, but Bell, who had already asked the crowd to quiet down once, caused a stir when describing the new school as “just changing the name” of the Irish Gifted Academy.

“Excuse me! I’m talking. You have no right to talk while I’m talking,” Bell said, at one point asking for one of the uniformed police officers on hand to step into the crowded board room. 

“Don’t talk. I’m trying to tell you the truth. If you don’t want to know the truth, if you don’t want to hear the truth, you can keep it up with the rumors and everything else.”

Earlier in the meeting. parent Alfred Wheeler said the Moore Street/magnet school decision was “introduced at the last minute to save IGA.”

“The lack of transparency is causing concern, confusion and anxiety in the community,” Wheeler said.

Wheeler and others asked that the board reconsider last week’s actions. Former board member Regina McRae and several other speakers also requested that all documented cost-cutting recommendations from the state be made public.

Selena Anderson, a mother of an Irish Gifted Academy student, said some parents are “thinking about changing schools, myself included.” She questioned the timing of the magnet school proposal and the fact that parents were uninformed.

“The votes of the majority of the board does not reflect the majority of the students,” she said.

Anderson and others also mentioned concerns about the district having recently been downgraded to the lowest level of accreditation. The downgrade is the final step before losing accreditation and requires a formal hearing before the state Board of Education on whether to recommend that the school board’s members be suspended and replaced by the governor.

“The uncertainty is causing real fear,” Anderson said.

Longtime board member Peggy Johnson expressed disappointment that she was not provided information prior to last week’s votes and that more board members did speak up about it. She had asked that the board delay the decision.

“I’m tired of all the nonsense. We are adults. …We need to come together and make sure what happened last meeting does not happen again,” Johnson said.

She also noted that the state and Cognia, the district’s accreditation agency, have raised concerns about some decisions made as the school system attempted to cut costs and climb out of what had been projected as a $13.4 million deficit by fiscal year’s end.

“We’re going to have to do better or we’re going to have to change leadership,” Johnson said.

She also addressed the seriousness of the district being “one step away from losing accreditation.” 

“We, as a board and superintendent, have no more excuses. If we can’t do it, I’d be the first to say they ought to remove us.”

Smith said she expects the board will have “some hard conversations coming up about doing better.” However, she has no plans to resign or step back as chairwoman.

“I don’t think anyone can question my love for the children because it would be really easy to throw in the towel right now. It would have been easy to throw in the towel when the state told me all of the concerns, when they told all of us (the board) of all of the concerns. My concern is what would come next.”

Smith said the district is preparing an action plan to address concerns and directives in the Cognia accreditation review.

“We knew it was going to be bad because the state had already been in here showing us some things,” said Smith. “We didn’t want it to be smoke and mirrors. We wanted it to be all out in the public because you can’t correct it if it’s not out in the public. We will talk about the state recommendations and other ways we can communicate with the community.”