Everyone’s counting on new head of schools
Dear Superintendent Dixon, Let me first congratulate you on your selection as the latest superintendent of Columbus City Schools. I know you are not due to begin with the district until March, but I thought it prudent to write while you have ample time to reflect upon the unique set of challenges that await you here in Ohio’s largest city, in the state’s largest school district.
And what challenges they are!
I am writing this letter on Dec. 6, a few hours after Mary Jo Hudson resigned from the Columbus Board of Education.
Hudson’s resignation came two days after board President Gary Baker repeatedly shut down her attempts at a board discussion of an important issue by pounding his gavel with the thundering gusto of an Italian mother-inlaw prepping poultry for her chicken piccata.
Hudson wrote in her letter of resignation that she could no longer stand by while the board ran the district “without the needed expertise, data or hard facts.
“Likewise,” she continued, “our current leadership model uses tight-fisted, bare majority rules that disdain rather than promote outside-the-box thinking.”
Although Hudson castigated her former colleagues for failing to think outside the box, former board member Dominic Paretti in particular is known for letting his imagination run wild. This summer, the legislative aide at the Ohio House of Representatives sent two female House colleagues separate series of unsolicited texts in which he shared a number of graphic sexual thoughts.
First he blamed his cousin for sending the texts, then backpedaled and blamed the booze. He resigned, incidentally, about 18 hours after he and the rest of the board voted to hire you on.
Maybe you knew that the superintendent search that led to your hiring was the second conducted by the Board of Education. The state auditor would tell you this do-over was ordered by his office after it came to light through reporting by The Dispatch and his investigators that much of the first search was conducted in secret, and therefore in violation of state law.
Detractors would suggest that such willful subterfuge flies in the face of school district Goal No. 3, as outlined on its website: “The District is accountable to our communities and customers; confidence in the District is maintained through strategic, responsible and transparent leadership.”
The board would point out that by “goal” they mean they aren’t there just yet. Baker did not feel the need to apologize even with the auditor steaming up his eyeglasses.
“We’re going to do whatever it takes to find the best person,” he said.
I just had a terrible thought, Talisa. They haven’t kidnapped you, have they?
You may have heard other rumors. You may be telling yourself, “These stories can’t be true.”
Oh, yes they can. Yes, the district was wracked by a datarigging scandal that led to the resignation of one of your predecessors. Yes, that prompted the mayor to butt heads with the school board in a bid to turn the district around. Yes, that involved the creation of a commission and a pitch to raise taxes, and yes, that effort failed as badly as the school district tends to do on its annual report cards.
Yes, the district received another “F” this year. Yes, that has raised the specter of a state takeover. But there is always a bright side. An “F” suggests the district hasn’t gone back to cooking the books.
Hopefully these opportunities for growth have not sent you running for cover like the battalions of mice and roaches that scamper through the district’s academic flagship, Columbus Alternative High School.
Because truly— not only at CAHS but also at schools throughout the district— there are thousands of children who hunger for knowledge. There are passionate educators eager to oblige, and they are desperate for help from on high.
A city’s future blooms in the hearts and minds of its children. Starting in March, their futures rest in your hands.
Please don’t be the next to let them down.
tdecker@dispatch.com @Theodore_Decker