It’s Saturday. DPS offices are closed. Yet, the agenda for Tuesday’s board review session isn’t posted yet. That’s pretty much par for the course. Sunday at 5pm is their target, as if they are all working away on weekends, getting everything right.
The reality is, they just don’t want to share with the public. They don’t welcome scrutiny, or respect the public’s right to know.
Looking into my crystal ball, I predict they’ll be accepting the retirement of Peggy Burks, one of their most talented principals, who has been paid all year not to work. Yet another embarrassing reality for this administration.
They are hoping to ratify a contract with the bus drivers. Because, if they don’t, they’re screwed come Tuesday.
They’ll be voting on other stuff in a review session, that they shouldn’t be voting on- because they can’t get their business done on a schedule with a business session. You know the ones where citizens and other interested parties get to comment.
So we wait.
But, in the mean time, the students of Belmont aren’t waiting. After Dr. Lolli came to campus a week and a half ago, read the riot act as she removed a principal a month and a half before the end of the year, and implemented draconian punishments only for Belmont- and not the other schools, the students have said they’ve had enough.
Come Monday morning at 8:30 the Bison of Belmont will be protesting the new policy of Saturday detentions for being late 3 times, and parents hauled into court if the detention isn’t served. Lolli also banned cell phones and headphones- only at Belmont. So much for equal punishment for all students at all schools. Isn’t this what got the district into a lawsuit with the OHSAA over a basketball fight? Thurgood kids all sat their mandated 2 game suspension- Dunbar didn’t.
The ice queen superintendent, who hasn’t a clue over anything other than the Marzano method and curriculum alignment is about to get a swift kick in the keester by some high school kids who still believe life is fair and that capricious rules should be protested and contested.
In the meantime, Dayton Public Prep is still signing up students, staff and teachers for a full-frontal assault on education by route with their alternative plan for running the district as a charter, focused fully on year round schools and creative empowerment in the classroom.
Reminder: If the bus strike happens, DPS will get a chance to beat Trotwood to the bottom of the state district rankings in one easy step. And if Trotwood manages to avoid state takeover with gains in Annual Yearly Progress- it’s probably because of the many talented DPS staff that left the district when Lori Ward was show the door. The same team that got DPS their last AYP A- the one Rhonda Corr got as a gift from the very person she shafted, David Lawrence who was the chief architect of the turnaround.
Wait for the conclusion to that drama when test scores are released in August.
Some interesting facts about Lolli and her agenda……
Short trip back in time…October 2017, Rhonda Corr is Superintendent of Schools for Dayton Public Schools (DPS), has just received a glowing evaluation for the past year and was given a three-year extension to her contract. Teacher contracts were ratified before a walkout, she achieved grade of “A-” from an “F” preventing a state takeover, and bussing issues improved by her implementation of a call center. Things are going well for the district. Flash forward to late November, there are sudden and unfounded allegations of misconduct, and the School Board that was so generous in their offering of an extended contract was now out for blood. An integral part of this is Dr. Elizabeth “Libby” Lolli, Deputy Superintendent. Dr. Lolli spent the year aligning herself with the elected infrastructure of the Mayor’s Office. In this Machiavellian scheme of Lolli’s, she is made acting Superintendent, and can carry out the wishes of the Mayor’s Office, and also target those close to and loyal to Rhonda Corr, thereby eliminating the threat to the orders being given from the Mayor’s office, and installing a Superintendent and Board ready, willing, and able to follow the directives being handed out. It is common knowledge around the District that the Mayor’s office “calls the shots” in the District, and it is well beyond the purview of the Mayor’s office to do so.
Lolli, resident disillusioned Bible-thumper, self proclaimed intolerant of the LGBT members DPS employs, and hand-puppet of the city officials in the Mayor’s Office, waged a personal war against Corr, and anyone loyal to her. Lolli donned the traditional green of envy and jealousy, wagged her finger of judgment from her high moral ground, and using Storm Trooper tactics to wage this very public and extremely personal war, managed to help secure the allegations against Corr with the School Board, who are also hand-puppets of the Mayor’s office, and, who were also just less than thirty days prior so generous with compliments of Corr’s performance and a contract extension as a result of that performance. Quite a turnaround in so small a time frame, wouldn’t you say?
Amid the rumor, speculation, supposition, and slave to her own ambitions, Lolli secretly pinned a target to the back of former Superintendent Rhonda Corr (her superior in every way)for being, as we’ve all come to know from the very public scrutiny and witch-hunting tactics DPS is famous for of late, a member of the LGBT community. As mentioned earlier, Lolli, a self-proclaimed LGBT intolerant in private while wearing the mask of tolerance to the public, Lolli has taken the next step in the eradication of LGBT members of DPS from the District, and also those loyal to former Superintendent Corr, by turning her Storm Trooper tactics onto Ms. Corr’s partner, and beloved Belmont High School Principal, Melanie Walter.
But, before going after Ms. Walter, Lolli hedged her bet by appointing, through gritted teeth and the most fake of smiles, Shauna Welch as employee of the year. This is important to note because Welch is in fact also a member of the LGBT community. Now Welch is nothing more than a token of the school’s new Superintendent Lolli, and the award itself given to Welch is made meaningless when given by a discriminatory individual such as Lolli. It is an embarrassment to all those in the LGBT community and it can now be said that any progress made with acceptance in the last few years has now been made a mockery with this one intended, easy stroke. A semi-strategic move by Lolli and a feeble attempt at moving the chess pieces across the board before going on the attack against Walter, Lolli wants to appear as though she is accepting and tolerant of those who are proudly LGBT, while privately carrying out her “hit list” of all LGBT members in the district and replacing them with more religious, straight educators. Lolli’s timing is a bit off, though. Lolli obviously gave the award to Welch in an attempt to fool an otherwise unknowing public that she is tolerant of those who choose an alternative lifestyle, and made it look as though it was just another day presenting a fellow educator with a deserved reward.
Students, faculty, and staff have been visibly shaken by the news that Ms. Walter would not be finishing the school year at Belmont. Ms. Walter offered her resignation effective the end of the school year just two days prior to the announcement she would be taken out as Principal of Belmont High School. Citing parental complaints and the building being “out of control”, Ms. Walter was ordered to report to Ponitz as an Assistant Principal effective last week. It is of paramount importance to note that Belmont is grossly overpopulated by several hundred students, forced into the building by Lolli’s office. Ms. Walter made several requests for extra educators and SRO’s (security officers) for the building, but was told there was no money in the budget for such help. Ms. Walter also asked for enrollment to be closed in the building and was also told no to that as well. Lolli has not only intentionally set up Ms. Walter to fail but put the students at Belmont in grave danger with overcrowding and not enough educators and SRO’s. Now, it takes a team of 25 people to replace one Principal? 25 people because she has also placed targets to the backs of Ms. Walter’s entire administrative staff. Not for performance. No. Just for being a part of Ms. Walter’s staff. There are no performance issues with the Administrative Staff at Belmont at all yet it is another piece of misguided personal vendetta to send a message to all in the District there is a price to pay for being LGBT and/or a part of a staff that has an LGBT member as its leader. Only after Corr’s contract settlement does the attack on Ms. Walter come, in addition to Lolli’s discovering that Corr and Walter were joined in marriage last week, infuriating Lolli’s hatred of LGBT members even more. Lolli had local news media outlets in the pocket of the Mayor’s office call both parties asking for comment and well-wishing the union.
It is also of paramount importance to mention that one of the 25 member team sent to “lockdown” Belmont is a paraprofessional (a person to whom a particular aspect of a professional task is delegated but who is NOT licensed to practice as a fully qualified professional) at Kemp; Gary Armstrong. Armstrong has for the last seven-plus years carried on a romantic relationship with the Principal of Kemp, Stacey Maney. This relationship is common knowledge with the staff, students, and the community at Kemp. She has pushed for Armstrong to become an administrator, and more importantly, he REPORTS DIRECTLY TO HER! This is a clear violation of not only the Ethics Policy but also of Board Policy, and it goes uninvestigated by Lolli, who has clear knowledge of the relationship, and does nothing about it. Is it because the relationship fits into the norms of accepted behavior for men and women despite being against those high morals Lolli believes in so deeply that fuel her hatred of the LGBT community? Or is it yet more proof that Lolli has her own agenda and will stop at nothing to implement it? Didn’t Lolli have state audited financial issues at Barberton before she abruptly stepped away from that position? Libby dear, what goes around comes around and someone younger and more ambitious, more willing to follow orders from the Mayor’s office will be there to paint a target on you.
Gerry,
A few things:
I made a word cloud of your post, which may be viewed here: https://worditout.com/word-cloud/2921454
Lolli and LGBT are near the top of the noun frequency list.
It seems curious that when Corr and Lolli were both being investigated for being racially insensitive that none of Lolli’s bias towards the LGBTQ community, a bias that you portray as being an uncontrollable hatred and loathing, that none of this was elucidated at the investigation’s end.
The para in paraprofessionals means merely alongside professionals. They are not aides, and to become a paraprofessional one must have at least an associates degree, pass a standardized paraprofessional examination, and clear FBI/BCI background checks. I do not get the feeling that you teach in the district. If you did, you would have an appreciation for the integral role that paraprofessionals play in the schools.
What did Maney have to do with your post? How does she fall into this coup d’etat? It seems as though the function of mentioning her was to gossip about the personal life of another woman. It is odd that you defend the right for women to choose their partners without reprisal in 80% of your post, then pivot to claim, or vicariously imply shame on another woman in the remaining 20%.
I think many would agree, myself included, that the swift change of heart by the school board, the backroom deal to appoint Lolli as czar without public input, and the haphazard displacement of Belmont’s Principal is troubling at best. This is likely the beginning of another bloody April to August clash of the DPS Cabinet v. DPS Stakeholders.
The riot act at Belmont? I believe what you meant to say was “Dr. Lolli informed the Belmont students that the CURRENT DISCIPLINE policy of Dayton Public Schools would be enforced”. Sounds fine by me.
And don’t forget to sign up for the Dayton Prep! Where undoubtedly, David Esrati, with his infinite wisdom, will have a seat at the board table.
And Gerry, thanks for the craziness!
David Jones, just about every school board in America works better than the Dayton school board. Just about every school district in Ohio is better than the Dayton school district. Why defend something that is so horribly broken?
It is time for a restart.
I was at the downtown library less than two weeks ago and a group of people left a meeting room. Three faces I recognized were Whaley, Mims, and Lolli.