Chaos reigned at school
CPS records show violence after move
BY BEN FISCHER | BFISCHER@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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WEST END - On a hot August day last summer, children from some of
Cincinnati's poorest neighborhoods filed into the just-completed, $12.8
million Hays-****ter Elementary School for the first time.
Over the next two months, the luster tarnished quickly - and violently.
Do***ents recently obtained by The Enquirer tell a story of a school where
fights landed at least one student in the hospital, while a slew of other
incidents of intimidation and bullying led parents to repeatedly tell
Cincinnati Public Schools administrators they feared for their children's
safety.
Meanwhile, teachers were targets of student outbursts, and low-level
misbehavior was ubiquitous, records say.
One student needed surgery to fix a "severe" eye injury after getting
punched in the face during gym class, and another had "partial amputation
of the fatty side of her finger" in a classroom incident.
A brawl erupted in the main office. Another student told a teacher, "Get
the f - - - out of my face" before hitting her with a belt, and the
student's punishment was never imposed, according to records.
By mid-October, CPS assigned a two-person security team full time.
The school's principal, 30-year veteran Henri Bradshaw, abruptly resigned.
Do***ents detailing the troubles offer a rare unvarnished picture of how
one of the district's newly constructed schools struggled from the start
because of a last-second move to the building, lax management and
violence.
The CPS records were made public earlier this month in response to an
Enquirer open- records request.
Typically, the district strictly limits public access, and employees are
forbidden to speak to the media without prior approval from senior
administrators.
"Throughout our tenure their (sic), the school was in constant
disarray," said the security team's leader, Ron Dicks, in an e-mail to his
boss. "Students leaving classrooms without permission. The students that
had notes would travel throughout the building harassing others. Students
were running in the halls. We were constantly and excessively called to
certain classroom to assist with a student or restore order to their
classroom. Students tore books, wrote on tables, threw paper-balls,
purposefully spilled chemicals, constantly used profanity toward staff,
ignore directives from teachers, were constantly late to class from lunch,
there were fights, etc."
The discipline problems have eased since the fall, parents and union
officials say.
CPS spokeswoman Janet Walsh acknowledged the school's opening weeks were
challenging, but said it was an unusual set of cir***stances.
"In the vast majority of our schools, on the vast majority of days in our
school year, discipline is not a major issue," Walsh said.
'SO I'M THE FALL GUY?'
CPS officials declined interview requests, including one with the new
principal.
The records place much of the blame on Bradshaw, a 1998 winner of the
National Educator Award from the Milken Family Foundation.
"Mr. Bradshaw was unable to bring order to the school environment and
there was no indication that appropriate consequences for the misconduct
were pursued," wrote Deborah Heater, CPS' chief human resources official,
in a memo describing a visit to the school in mid-October.
Bradshaw, in an interview last week, said the district officials are
wrong.
"So I'm the fall guy?" he said.
Cincinnati Police Sgt. Rodney Carter, who oversees the city's police
officers assigned to the schools, said the officers often heard about
serious fights second-hand, from parents, days after they happened. When
students see their friends get into fights without a swift and decisive
reaction from senior administration, routine disciplinary problems change
to extreme cir***stances.
"If kids see that things aren't being dealt with, they pick up that same
behavior," Carter said.
Responding to Heater's memo, Bradshaw said: "That's not correct. I refute
that."
He said his resignation, which has since been reclassified as a
retirement, was not related to the disciplinary problems.
"Basically, I retired just because I felt it was time," he said.
SUDDEN DECISION TO MOVE IN
While the do***ents describe a thorough lack of effective leader****p at
the school, the problems had their origins before cl***** started, others
said.
In August, district officials decided at the last minute to start the year
in the new building, instead of moving mid-year as originally planned,
said Ed Jaspers, a teachers' union official who handles complaints from
members.
As a result, teachers scrambled to move their classrooms into a barely
completed structure over a weekend, time they'd typically use to prepare
for the start of the year, he said.
"The bottom line is, there were a lot of issues in that building that
would let things not get off to a good start," he said. "Anytime you start
the school year, it's im****tant to start organized, get off the ground
running, set the tone and attitude."
Also, Bradshaw didn't back up teachers when they did try to impose
discipline, both the union and CPS administration said. Bradshaw disputes
that charge.
According to records, CPS considered firing one Hays-****ter teacher,
Carvell Williams, because of allegations that his classroom was
dangerously undisciplined.
But he ultimately served only a three-day suspension after successfully
arguing that Bradshaw had a pattern of not enforcing discipline referrals
made by teachers.
As the only remaining CPS elementary school in the West End, Hays-****ter's
saga is a cautionary tale of the dangers of consolidating schools without
enough planning, said school board member Eileen Cooper Reed.
'DIFFERENT CULTURES'
The new school combined students from the old George W. Hays School and
Heberle School for the first time, schools that used to have compact
attendance boundaries. But because of shrinking populations in the
surrounding neighborhoods, the school today draws students from a wide
area, encompassing the West End, Over-the-Rhine, Fairview and elsewhere.
"Just like neighborhoods have different cultures, so too do the schools
that sit in them," Cooper Reed said. "Cultures can merge and exist well
together, but there has to be an intentional way of helping that to
happen."
Outside the school last week, Cariyan Jones was waiting for younger
cousins to leave Hays-****ter. She said the older kids in the
prekindergarten-through-eighth grade school bring feuds and neighborhood
turf issues to school.
"You do get a lot of different kids from everywhere here in one school,
you've got the buses going to get them, then coming down here; it's a lot
of confusion," she said.
Bradshaw signed his retirement letter on Oct. 16, and spent a month as an
assistant principal at Woodward High School in Bond Hill before retiring
permanently in November, an arrangement he said Superintendent Rosa
Blackwell allowed to let him get his retirement paperwork in order.
A NEW PRINCIPAL
The week Bradshaw retired, a new interim principal, Adonica Jones-Parks,
took over. In addition to the discipline problems, management noted a long
list of other management deficiencies after the leader****p change.
Though all of the disorder is now starkly laid out in internal memos,
e-mails and disciplinary re****ts, the school never appeared to be "out of
control," said former U.S. Rep. Tom Luken. Luken - a regular volunteer at
Hays-****ter - said he never saw any of it firsthand.
"Teachers I talked to, on one or two occasions, talked about a situation
that had developed, but from what I heard, it was a tem****ary
situation," Luken said. "No, there was never any general chaos there or
anything like that."
Luken, who spends one morning every week with a first-grade class, praised
Bradshaw, but also said many teachers thought he was burnt out. Bradshaw
also disputed that *****sment.
The situation didn't improve immediately under Jones-Parks, according to
records. But over time, the school regained its balance, say teacher's
union leaders and parents.
Stacy Jones, a parent and aunt to Hays-****ter students, said Jones-Parks
has communicated better with parents and been more proactive in addressing
behavior problems.
"Now, they'll send out notices saying what you can and cannot do at
school," she said. "At first, there wasn't none of that. It was just come
to school, do your work and go home."
Jaspers said the union hasn't fielded a complaint from a Hays-****ter
teacher in months.
Parks-Jones, in her interim role, will not return to the school in the
fall. Last month, CPS promoted Nedria McClain, an assistant principal at
Westwood Elementary, to take over Aug. 1.
"I hope for the children of Hays Elementary that they're able to get a
quality education," Bradshaw said. "I really do. And whatever difficulties
the school is going through at this time, I hope it can be rectified
before next fall."
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At a glance
Hays-****ter Elementary School
Location: 1030 Cutter St., West End
Grades: Preschool-eighth
Enrollment: 476 students (450 capacity)
Ohio re****t card rating (2006-07): Academic Watch (4th of 5 ratings)
Interim principal: Adonica Jones-Parks
History: New building opened August 2007 on former site of ****ter Middle
School
Construction cost: Building, $12.8 million ($15.1 million total cost,
including site prep, demolition)
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