Goodwine threatens Esrati.com

I made a mistake about 4 years ago- I actually suggested people vote for Chrisondra Goodwine for Dayton School Board. Mind you the pickings were slim, and multiple people had failed to get on the ballot, including Karen Wick- who managed the impossible and won as a write-in thanks to the party and bags of cash on mailings.

Since then, I’ve learned a lot about Ms. Goodwine and watched her in action. She makes a show at almost every board meeting where she’s in attendance. It’s as if she thrives on trying to pull “gotcha” statements out to embarrass the district and their employees. I could cut a highlight reel, but it would be a very long one – and no one would watch it.

I debated even sharing her college classmates cease and desist letter, as I’m on vacation in Europe visiting family and looking forward to see Kim Deal rock the Barbican theater on Saturday night at a sold out show. It arrived Monday as a certified letter at my office with a 10 day response timeline.

And then I read Mario’s (she prefers her last name not to be used) recounting of the latest “Emergency Meeting” of the DPS board called by it’s president, Chrisondra Goodwine on Feb 25th, 2025 (yesterday): Mario is a former school board member, an active positive force in the community, a lifelong educator and attends more school board than anyone else who isn’t getting paid to be there.

Never mind what’s going on in the Federal government, we have our own bit of disfunction right here in River City.

The Special Board meeting called for today was to “Discuss the Treasurer’s Contract, Board Travel and Human Resource agenda items.”

The meeting lasted about 25 minutes. The first recommendation was to approve the retirement of a 4th grade teacher at the end of the year.

Eric Walker asks “Why could these not wait until our meeting in March, our regular meeting?”

Chrisondra Goodwine – “Because I allowed them to put ‘em on.”

Eric goes on to state “But I thought the meeting was called for a different reason.”

“It was. I still allowed them. Any other questions?”

Eric is not wrong. Her retort is essentially, I get to make the rules as I go along. Jeez, sound familiar? Not to mention that her tone is not collegial at all. Of course, neither was his. And it only got worse by the end of the meeting.

A resolution was presented to prohibit non DPS students from participating in DPS athletics. A full discussion is at the 23 minute mark. It is the result of a devasting ruling for the Dunbar basketball team. This resolution will give DPS time to flesh out procedures for communication between community schools and DPS administrators.

Go down to the last 4 minutes of the meeting. Recall the first agenda item was the Treasurer’s Contract. Apparently the President pulled it off the agenda without telling all members of the Board. Eric thought it should be put back on. He asked if they could talk in Executive Session. Chrisondra says she was not going into Executive Session because she did not plan for a long meeting. She further refuses to discuss any part of this because it is “contract negotiations” and “Legal” is handling that.

By law, they have until March 1 (Saturday) to inform the Treasurer her contract will not be renewed. I don’t know if that also applies if the Treasurer refuses a proposed contract. Will Smith made the motion to approve an extension of the Treasurer’s contract. Chrisondra votes no stating she does not know the terms of the contract. More snarky comments. It fails.

Eric Walker chuckles disdainfully, as he comments “Basically we had a Board meeting to do HR stuff, that’s all it was. Ineffective department’s recommendations.”

At the roll call for adjournment his name is called and there is a pregnant pause. His name is called again.

“I’ll say yes and payback is coming. Take that how you got it.”

What in the hell does that mean? I don’t know what power he thinks he wields as a Board member, but I can tell you it ain’t much. I really expected better.

An additional observation. The Board, with the exception of Eric who voted no, approved the Superintendent contract extension with raise after an hour and a half Executive Session. Each and every one of them look dismal. Immediately after the vote the President calls for a motion to adjourn. No comments, no congratulations, no nothing. After his vote to adjourn, Will Smith quietly says he looks forward to continuing to work with the Superintendent, Karen Wick applauds and Will Bailey chuckles. The rest look like their puppy just died and they walk off the dais without any interaction with the Superintendent or each other. Really sad.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1BGkKZYY9x/

Mario included a link to the Youtube video:

Board member Eric Walker weighed in with a snotty response:

For clarity because you continue to miss it and not being able to quite reflect on what’s really taking place, You can report once you have all the facts, just as others do.

I raised concerns about the agenda to ensure meetings stay focused and transparent. Special meetings should prioritize their stated topics. My final remarks reflected frustration with how the meeting was handled, but my commitment remains to transparency, due process, and putting students first. Disagreements happen, but our priority should always be the best interests of Dayton Public Schools.

My neighbor, Amanda Korb responded to Eric:

Eric, so you said what you said and how you said it on a publicly accessible video. And you are angry that someone watched said video.

You have an engaged resident, yet you sit there and try to gaslight us all that Mario is a reporter who should shut up until she digs out all the facts?!?! We aren’t that uninformed.

If you are so ready to preach, why don’t you share those missing facts? I happen to agree that special meetings had better be urgent business, but you certainly have a way of pushing any support over the cliff.

I’m glad you are committed to the kids but you won’t get much done if you let your emotions take the driver’s wheel.

And trust me . . . Chrisondra doesn’t come off smelling like a rose either. It’s not like Mario isn’t an equal opportunity observe.

The agenda– was long and involved for an “special meeting”- which was supposed to be to figure out what to do with the upcoming treasurers contract renewal- which is supposed to be completed before Mar 1, 2025. It failed 4-3 with “Jocelyn Spencer Rhynard, Karen Wick, Chrisondra Goodwine, William Bailey” voting against it. (see the comment by Bubba Jones below about the legality of what Ms. Goodwine did).

This is further indication of incompetence from this entire board- they have to have a treasurer, and to be doing anything at the last minute, usually doesn’t end up well. I’m not a huge fan of Hiwot Abraha, the current treasurer, especially, since her office is charge of purchasing- and I think they are grossly incompetent from their handling of the “Digital Marketing” contract which ended up a failure due to their non-adherence to their own RFP- and failure to adequately vet their chosen vendor (that’s a story I’ve still got to write).

However, we’ve not got time to go to a head-hunter to find a treasurer at this point- and frankly, most people with any brains would watch this board’s meetings/shit shows and abstain from applying.

Which brings me back to the cease and desist.

Chrisondra takes umbrage at what I’ve wrote and thinks she’s Donald Trump and can sue the media over their representation of her. In other words, she’s thinking of running again for something, and doesn’t like what comes up in Google with her name.

Reality is, I’ve been publishing Esrati.com since 2005 and this is the 3rd or 4th time I’ve gotten one of these, and only 1 had any merit at all.

Here’s the letter:

I’m not going to explain all of my legal defenses here, because I’d hate to be teaching Goodwin’s classmate and attorney JaMeesha L Williamson of Lima Ohio (who doesn’t even have a website for her legal practice- just a Facebook page) about the First Amendment and free speech.

But- a few things that my readers should know by now, I don’t write unsubstantiated claims, and I know the rules of procurement very well for DPS.

I can say with authority that the Hoodies didn’t go through a legal process nor did the granting of $100K to Bing Davis, but, I’m sure the jury will absolutely love watching a highlight reel of Ms. Goodwine’s antics on the dais- and any jury will know how poorly DPS has performed under Ms. Goodwine’s tenure.

As to using the name Dr. she’s going to embarrass herself in court. Here’s a link to a University of Akron informal opinion on the subject, and if you do a google search, the AI summary comes up with the short version “the legal community generally discourages its use in professional settings unless in specific academic contexts; meaning a JD holder in Ohio can use the title “Dr.” but it’s not considered standard practice within the legal field”

Reality is, only people with big egos and low self-esteem would do such a thing. If she want’s to be called Dr. on the School board- she can go get a Doctorate of Education, or an M.D. – anything else is crass.

Considering Goodwine was in charge when our Dunbar athletes once again got penalized for the acts of the adults (btw- my video of the Dunbar Football game throwing is my most watched video of all time), that they re-hired Libby Lolli, that the district has been sued more times than I can count for everything from having a paraprofessional carry a kid by his ankles to fights in the libraries, she should have a lot more on her plate than coming after me- unless…

As they say, the truth is the ultimate defense, and it also can hurt.

The most important thing right now is finding good candidates to run against Goodwine, Joe Lacey, and to fill Karen Wick’s seat. I am still wondering if Jocelyn Rhynard deserves a third term. She bravely countered this board with her effort to install sexual discrimination rules for Board Members after her unfortunate incident with Will Smith in Washington, but was instrumental in keeping Dr. Lolli.

To run for school board requires at least 300 signatures (although you can work with 3 others to collect them for all of you) and turn in is in August. Which will probably be around the same time a visiting judge embarrasses Ms. Goodwine and her lawyer by awarding me damages for her lame attempt at bullying the press.

I can guarantee that my lawyer will beat her lawyer.

Also, if you want to join the growing community of people who support my reporting by making a small recurring donation (or one time) to this site (and my legal defense fund) you can at www.esrati.com/donate

Song “Cease and Resist” by David Esrati- from London UK