Good afternoon,
I hope both of you are doing well. I am emailing you to inform you that the current unlicensed, unqualified and inexperienced administration in Lorain City Schools has created a mess. I also believe through multiple reports from teachers and principals that they are also in violation of the law.
The CEO has done the following in his time in LCS:
1. Repeated violations in special education
- Administrators have denied accommodations to special education students in multiple buildings and the most recent is at General Johnny Wilson.
- Principals have directed teachers to not allow students the accommodations stated in the IEP's just recently while administering a writing evaluation that they arbitrarily created.
2. Violations in Teacher tenure
3. Wrongful termination of several administrators
- After terminating they had to bring them back in substitute positions at their same rate of pay and reinstate their health benefits that they cancelled.
4. Have not created nor implemented a crisis intervention plan
5. Have created an unsafe environment in the entire district by not implementing safety policies
- They neglected to distribute student handbooks to parents and safety plans to staff
- Attempted to implement a restorative discipline plan that established zero discipline for students in violation of policies and procedures.
- The HS averages at least 3 major fights a day and students are not be held accountable
- Several teachers and staff have already been injured in multiple buildings due to major brawls and fights with students.
- Students that have brought knives, guns, and brass knuckles to school still walk the hallways and have not been disciplined
- In one incident 7 staff were injured at the HS trying to break up the fights. While they were attempting to break up the fight other students sat and watched and were spitting at the teachers.
6. There have been multiple reports that current central office administrators are creating racial tension
- One administrator (Bishop) told a group of students that they did not have to listen to that "Hispanic or white cop" because they are not the same as we are.
7. The CEO has engaged in hiring firms that he is personally tied to and had a previous relationship with.
- He had a direct relationship with Teach for America and has hired multiple unlicensed or certified administrators and teachers from there
- He has paid almost $106,000 in the past four months to a firm TNTP that he has a personal relationship to and is also tied to Teach for America.
8. After being in school over a month, administration directed teachers to delete all grades from the current grading system.
- With out any training to teachers or staff they arbitrarily changed the grading system after school had already been in session for over a month to a standards based grading that has been adopted by many charter schools
- This meant that students in the district would get a grade of 1-5.
- The administration also directed teachers that no student shall get above a 3 on their interim report and that the only comments they can use are "On Track or Not on Track"
- Teachers still have no idea how to grade students
- Luckily the HS staff were able to talk them out of doing that at the HS level...for now.
9. They have launched an attack on teachers
- Several, at least 5, have been physically walked out of the buildings due to accusations made by current administration
- In one incident a second year math teacher (many have said he is an excellent educator) was accused by administration of smoking marijuana. He was physically walked out and suspended with no investigation.
- He has gotten a professional drug test completed, which obviously came up negative, and he has engaged an attorney for a pending lawsuit.
- A group of 4-5 administrators are bullying teachers by use of intimidation by walking into their classrooms for a time of about 30-80 minutes and they call them a walk threw but they also questioning students in the middle of lessons and asking students if they are learning anything.
- Teachers are scared to speak out because they don't want to be walked out of the building and terminated.
10. A special education (Emotionally Disabled Students) student had a massive seizure in a teacher's classroom, the teacher tried to press the emergency button in the class but it didn't work. She then sent another student to get help. After the incident, administration told the teacher to not report or record the incident?!! I wonder why?
11. Another teacher, found pornographic pics of another child on a students phone. When she informed administration, she was told to delete the photos. She contacted her husband, an attorney, immediately and he advised her to not do that. Not sure hoe that story ended.
12. The CEO and administration forced shared attribution on the teachers for evaluation purposes.
- The two units of measurement they are using for 50% of the evaluations are;
- Graduation Rate
- Attendance
- Two things that teachers have zero control over
- The other part of the evaluation is based on performance evaluations that are being conducted by administrators who have never taught nor are they qualified to conduct an evaluations....again, unlicensed and not certified
13. The Academic Distress Commission is doing absolutely nothing. One commission member tried to inform the Department of Education of what is going on here and they responded by asking him if has spoken to the chairman. He told him he is part of the problem.
- The Chairman of the commission and CEO are have become Fellows of Pahara Institute together.
- The Chairman's foundation has funded a charter school in Cleveland which now employs another commission member John Monteleone? Is this a normal practice for state appointed employees?
- The Chairman's foundation just funded a trip to San Antonio to visit a charter school. The CEO, commission members, the administration and others all attended. I have made a public records request for all of the costs and expenditures as well as a list of all of those people that went.
14. The CEO and is administration has no complied with public records law.
- I have made several public records requests and they only give me what they want and not what I have requested.
The CEO and this incompetent administration has created a culture of violence, legal violations, intimidation and most importantly they have done nothing to improve our schools. Rather they have made our report card worse then what it was before this CEO. The nepotism and blatant attack on the teachers of this district and poor policy implementation have made it abundantly clear that the only mission here is to intentionally tear down this district to prove that public education is failing and to justify HB 70 and this political agenda. Lorain is absolutely the worse I have ever seen. Student and teacher moral is at an all time low and violence is at an all time high. What I have documented here is just some of what is going on. If any other superintendent in any other district had created this educational environment and this many mistakes and distractions they would have been terminated long time ago. We used to be required to hire licensed, certified and experienced administrators and teachers. Our teachers used to have to reach a Highly Qualified Status. Why is it different now? I have the answer to that question.
Any help you can offer would be greatly appreciated. Unfortunately the district and its dedicated staff have very little confidence in ODE as they have let this happen when they are ultimately responsible for this commission and its inexperienced CEO. Please help the students of Lorain!
Sorry for the long email but there is a lot of negative nonsense happening these days in Lorain. Any assistance or help you can offer would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks for your time.
