Roy Exum
When Ooltewah High School vice principal Jesse Nayadley and two of the school’s basketball coaches, Andres Montgomery and Karl Williams, were brought before Juvenile Court Judge Rob Philyaw last week, widely-respected attorney Lee Davis quickly brought up the “totem pole.” The three men are being charged with failure to report the sexual abuse of a child. But Davis pointed out, “There should be three more benches up here.”
Let’s amend that to four more benches. Within hours after an Ooltewah basketball player underwent emergency surgery on Dec. 22, the chain of command in the Hamilton County Department of Education, all the way to the top, was quickly notified of the heinous aggravated assault that occurred in Gatlinburg on a school-sanctioned trip to play in a holiday tournament.
Two weeks ago formal charges were filed by District Attorney General Neal Pinkston against Nayadley, who is also the school’s athletic director, Montgomery and Williams. At last Thursday’s first appearance in court, Judge Philyaw, DA Pinkston and lawyers for the three defendants agreed to a preliminary hearing to be held on Feb. 15.
But here’s the rub: Due to Davis’ suggestion of “three more benches,” earlier this week Pinkston issued subpoenas for school superintendent Rick Smith, assistant superintendent Lee McDade and Ooltewah principal Jim Jarvis. He also subpoenaed the schools’ secondary education director, Steve Holmes, because there is no doubt four other faces on the “totem pole” had almost immediate knowledge the 15-year-old who was grievously injured and three other minors were sexually abused.
Immediately after the first three were charged, Smith suspended all three without pay indefinitely. Yet in a school system that has been found to be rife with double standards, being charged and being subpoenaed are obviously two different things, even though those subpoenaed are already on record as saying they knew about the crime within hours of when those who were charged did.
For the record, the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services website pretty specifically demands: “Everyone in Tennessee is a mandated reporter under state law. Any person with reasonable cause to believe a child is being abused or neglected must, under the law, immediately report to the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services or to local law enforcement. The reporter can remain anonymous.” (The key words here being “everyone,” “mandated reporter” and “immediately.”)
And what happens to anyone who fails to report? According to the TDCS website: “Failure to report abuse is a violation of the law and a Class A misdemeanor, carrying a sentence of up to three months imprisonment, a fine or both. Those who report and ‘act in good faith’ are immune from any civil or criminal charges which may result. The reporter has the right to remain confidential and anonymous.”
Are all seven equally guilty despite the fact three are charged and four subpoenaed? The lawyers for those charged claim their clients are innocent and that the charges should be thrown out. But the TDCS claims no one called to report the tragedy. Many feel a cover-up, as has most certainly happened in the past, was carefully being put into place.
A call was made to the Knoxville Police Department by alarmed emergency room personnel but in the view of the district attorney general, state law was clearly broken when everyone – whether you multiple it by three or seven -- failed to report four counts of sexual abuse to a minor to the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services hotline.
What is perplexing is how high – or low – on the “totem pole” do you have to be to avoid being suspended without pay indefinitely? It is going to take some smarter than me to know where to cut such a pole of faces with a chain saw.
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NO ‘JUNK FOR JESUS’
The first of what will likely be many names for a new school superintendent is being floated about. The notion is that when the local foundation he was running went belly up, it gave us the ‘great opportunity’ to hire this wizard before he does something else. But I’m saying this isn’t a ‘Junk for Jesus’ kind of deal – we must hire the best school superintendent we can find. This is most definitely not about giving the job to some yahoo because his ill-fated foundation just closed down.
‘Junk for Jesus’ is a deal some Christians use in a perverse way; Let’s say a guy has an old car so he gives it to the church in exchange for a tax-deductible receipt for the $5,000. That’s what he insists the car is worth. But when the preacher takes the car to his deacon’s car lot, it turns out the jalopy ain’t even worth a grand. In short, the sly ‘Christian’ pushed some junk off to Jesus for five times what it was worth but the church still got $1,000 to feed the poor. Chattanooga’s leaders aren’t about to hire the new leader of our schools by taking somebody else’s junk.
The public – especially those with children in Hamilton County public schools – must insist we look high and low for the best person for the job. Not only should we accept applications, we need to issue some invitations. In a completely transparent manner, the public should have the opportunity to meet the finalists, advise their school board representative of their opinions, and then let the school board elect the person who will restore our school system.
Right now the members of the school board, as well as our county’s leaders who are buying into the “Chattanooga 2.0” education initiative, are making two lists. One is of possible interim superintendents and one is of permanent candidates. The permanent candidates must have a PhD in education but there is some thought a proven business executive may work well in the interim role because the budget – over $400 million – desperately needs “new eyes.”
Additionally, the interim team quickly needs “feet on the ground,” actually visiting our 75 schools and engaging faculties, students and parents. We should make this a totally new day with a deep commitment to brighten every facet of our educational process.
The last time a superintendent was hired by the Hamilton County School Board was a total fiasco. There was only one candidate and nobody else could apply. Even then, Rick Smith was barely voted in what was a mockery of due process. In four years the command center of HCDE, known as the ‘central office,’ has failed our students miserably.
I know there are some good people in the central office who will hopefully be retained but there is also a worrisome number of “yes men” whose lone goal is to never rock the boat. There is an old adage, “When everybody agrees, failure is inevitable.” On the other hand, there are some in the central office who should be “excused” rather promptly and, according to teachers across the system and other staff, they are pretty easy to recognize.
Fear, uncertainty, and – let’s be real honest – bullying in the HCDE by a power-crazed upper echelon must stop. Teachers who perform poorly must make way for promising newcomers. We need trained human resources experts instead of some failed educator who has “been kicked upstairs” and, as unbelievable as it may well seem, is now deciding who the best candidates are. The system screams for common sense in many other areas, trust me.
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IT’S THE PRODUCT, NOT THE PROCESS
I have a delightful friend, “Larry the Engineer,” who has more walking-around sense than a tree full of owls. So he has given some thought to a complete overhaul of the school system and here are five superb talking points:
“I say several things should be paramount in what will hopefully be a complete overhaul of the school system:
“1. Focus on the product, not the process; the process obviously hasn't been working, because the system has lost sight of the product. If the kids graduating can't do anything, what's a school for?
“2. Get an experienced businessman to run the whole shebang. Not a so-called educator; we've tried that, and it just doesn't work! Get a real businessman who is used to solving real daily problems of all sorts and working with real daily budgets, etc. Maybe get a businessman who has built his own business from the ground up, not just someone who's been playing with somebody else's ideas and money
“3. Put an absolute cap of $100,000 on all salaries in the system, and limit those to a very small percentage of the necessary jobs. We aren't in competition with anybody else's school system; the job here is to educate local kids, period.
“4. Eliminate unnecessary jobs--just ask the real workers in the system, and they'll tell you which jobs aren't necessary. Don't worry about those who lose their jobs; they know full well they haven't deserved their pay and benefits.
“5. Use the immediately available excess money in the budget to raise teachers' salaries maybe 10%, and from that point on base pay rates on performance--real visible performance, as measured by someone completely outside the system.”
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Can you see what he is saying? Larry is a deep thinker yet can simplify even the most complex problems.
royexum@aol.com