‘Rite Idea: District Let Down Lomond Students
By mishandling incident, administration and BOE unnecessarily disrupted kindergartners’ education; damaged relationship with teachers and parents; and showed troubling lack of transparency
The district’s mishandling of a Jan. 9 incident at Lomond Elementary School came to a disappointing end last week.
Superintendent Gregory C. Hutchings, Jr. sent an email to Lomond parents and faculty Feb. 24 informing them that the district had decided to place kindergarten teacher Cathleen Grieshop on “administrative assignment” for the remainder of the school year. The district put Grieshop on administrative leave Jan. 9 after a student asked her to go to his locker and instead ventured outside the building, according to Shaker Heights Teachers’ Association President John Morris.
Hutchings wrote that Grieshop’s substitute, Angeli Meris, will teach the class “for the duration of the school year to provide continuity. Ms. Meris has done an excellent job thus far.”
However, it seems Hutchings was using the term “continuity” loosely. According to Communications Director Peggy Caldwell, Meris’ first day on the job was Feb. 13 — more than a month after Grieshop was placed on administrative leave. Her first day, a conference day, was followed by President’s Day and three school cancellations due to cold weather, meaning that when Hutchings sent his email, Meris had only taught the class three days. This pales in comparison to Greishop’s time with the class — the whole first half of the school year.
Clearly, the district did not make this decision so that the kindergarteners would have a teacher with whom they’re familiar for the rest of what has been an irreparably disrupted year — their first year in formal education, a crucial time for cognitive and emotional development. Grieshop’s class has had five different substitute teachers since the district placed her on administrative leave, according to Morris.
Hutchings has previously emphasized how much his kindergarten teacher, Dorothy McKenzie, influenced his future success. He included a letter of recommendation from her in his application for the superintendent post, and invited her to speak at his first staff convocation. Hutchings explained that she inspired him as a child when she told him he could be the first African-American president of the United States. It’s ironic that Hutchings’ administration is now denying these Lomond students the opportunity to form similarly enriching relationships with Grieshop, who by all accounts is a wonderful, caring teacher.
Heather Macks, a parent of one of Grieshop’s former students, sent an email to the board and Hutchings detailing her grievances about their handling of the situation, which she forwarded to The Shakerite. “You have discouraged a number of families BRAND NEW to the school and have us all questioning whether we should continue our children’s education in this system,” she wrote.
If the district really valued providing the students with continuity, it would have found a long-term substitute more quickly — or better yet, reinstated Grieshop after an investigation lasting shorter than six weeks.
Instead, the district’s treatment of Grieshop after the Jan. 9 incident has been peculiar, at best.
High School Principal Michael Griffith said no teachers or staff members were put on administrative leave or disciplined in any way after police arrested a student Sept. 10, 2013 for allegedly raping a classmate at school, a far more worrisome breach of safety. The student was later convicted.
Lomond parent Randi Nathenson said she knows several parents whose children have “gone missing at different times in Shaker schools.”
Lomond Principal Carina Freeman said in an email interview that she is not aware of any students leaving the building unattended besides the one in Grieshop’s class. However, Susie Bauer, a former first-grade teacher who substituted in Shaker elementary schools, including Lomond, told the Board of Education Feb. 10, “I know for a fact that there are other children [besides the one in Grieshop’s class] who have left the building, and I don’t recall any termination hearings scheduled.” She said she was concerned “a bigger agenda” seemed to be driving the administration’s handling of Grieshop’s case.
Morris agreed that the administration has treated Grieshop unfairly. “We felt that there was a possibility that personality differences [with Freeman] could have exacerbated this,” Morris said.
Freeman denied this claim. “The situation was not about personality differences. I have always found Ms. Grieshop to be a very likable person,” she wrote.
However, because the district has been about as opaque as possible throughout this mess, we have no other explanation for the administration’s incongruent, bewildering treatment of a dedicated 22-year teacher.
By putting her on administrative assignment, which will involve test proctoring and substitute teaching, the district appears to be punishing Grieshop, who it seems did nothing wrong. Morris said Grieshop realized her student was missing after five minutes and immediately called the main office, computer lab, lunchroom and aftercare. A neighbor found the student and called the police three minutes later.
“I know that this teacher was devastated by the fact that her student left the building, beside herself with concern, did everything at her disposal to find this student in lieu of actually leaving 17 students alone and trying to go outside to find him,” Morris said.
Furthermore, by allowing Grieshop to substitute this year and return to full-time teaching next year, the district is indicating that it trusts her ability to keep students safe. This, coupled with the fact that Meris had only taught the class three days by Feb. 24, makes an ulterior motive for putting Grieshop on administrative assignment seem likely. Caldwell said, “it is not yet known where [Grieshop] will be next year.” We’re guessing it won’t be Lomond.
Administrators have bungled this situation so badly that it caused a public outcry. Morris said the administration indicated to him that the Board of Education would vote on whether to terminate Grieshop at its Feb. 10 meeting, but later decided against it. During the meeting, Shaker teachers, parents and community members vehemently contested the prospect of Grieshop’s termination, and made it clear that their confidence in Hutchings and the board had deteriorated.
There, Board President Bill Clawson announced that Grieshop’s potential termination was not on the agenda for that day. Inexplicably, however, neither Hutchings nor Clawson told the packed crowd — so full that people resorted to sitting in the aisles and on the stage and standing 10-deep at the two small auditorium entrances — that the administration was still investigating the incident, and hadn’t yet decided whether to recommend that the board terminate Grieshop. In his email last week, Hutchings vaguely mentioned the importance of following the investigative “processes and procedures we already have in place.”
What are those procedures and why did they take more than six weeks? We don’t know. Both Hutchings and Human Resources Director Darlene Bushley declined to discuss how the district investigates incidents like this one and decides whether to discipline or terminate teachers, even in general terms. Clawson didn’t respond to a Feb. 16 email seeking comment on behalf of the board. Hutchings told The Shakerite in an email March 2, “We will no longer discuss the incident from January 9.” No explanation provided.
At the Feb. 10 board meeting, Clawson reassured the angry crowd that “there is a strong push for transparency.” If this case is a preview of the rest of Clawson and Hutchings’ tenure, the district is pushing in the opposite direction.
The one slightly encouraging part of Hutchings’ email was his promise to review security practices districtwide. We hope he does. Unfortunately, there’s reason to doubt whether he will follow through. Hutchings has yet to announce the safety plan he promised he would have finished before the start of this school year. He must now redeem himself by delivering serious reforms to a clearly inferior security system and repairing the administration’s severely damaged relationship with disillusioned teachers and parents.
Meghan McGuan | Mar 6, 2015 at 4:26 pm
Ms. Hegler, while I agree with you that students should not go missing at any time and that it is simply not acceptable, I disagree with some of your comments. As Ms. Tuchscher noted in her comment, it is unclear what procedure the teacher broke that led to this incident. Should children should be allowed to go to a locker or to the bathroom. Perhaps the protocols for such occurences should be reviewed. Firing Ms. Grieshop would not protect children in future situations unless there is some finding as to what went wrong and steps are taken to prevent future incidents.
I am also very concerned with your use of quotation marks around rape. There was a rape at the high school. The defendant was convicted. This is factual and your quotation marks make it sound as if the rape was not real. That is also not acceptable.
I second your suggestion that The Shakerite should survey students about their safety. I agree that our children MUST feel safe at school – and I have a high school student, a middle school student and a grade school student that I intend to ask this question this evening. I think it’s very likely they will that each of my kids will tell me that they feel very safe at school, but I can tell you that as a parent, I feel much more secure in the safety of my 4th grader than I do in that of my 10th grader. After all, my 10th grader attends the high school where a rape (not a “rape”) occurred during school hours. And what’s more, there was no public outcry or teacher or staff member investigated or suspended as a result of it as there was with the incident at Lomond.
Reginald Williams | Mar 6, 2015 at 2:57 pm
This outcome seems fair. Clearly, the Board viewed aspects of Ms. Grieshop’s record as enough to warrant a temporary reassignment. The good news is that Ms. Grieshop keeps her job, pay grade, benefits, and pension. As the smoke clears, it remains unclear to me what it is the community feels we are entitled to know and why we should know it. The integrity of the process is in its confidentiality. If Ms. Grieshop wanted to share more complete information in her employment record with her supporters, she could have. But apparently she did not. And that was the right decision.
Yes, this is an unfortunate set of circumstances for the students. But their education is not “irreparably disrupted.” The children have a long-term substitute in place for the several months left in the academic year. That is continuity. I had a child at Lomond whose teacher left at some point in the middle of her kindergarten year. It happens. Children are resilient and ready to love. If Ms. Metris is a good teacher and we give her our unwavering support, those children will excel.
Regarding transparency, the Board and the Superintendent have to balance the interests of our students, our teachers and staff, and the community. They deserve more credit in this matter. A roomful of residents appear at a Board meeting, perhaps at the behest of Ms. Grieshop’s attorney. The matter is not on the agenda, but the Board opens up the floor to comments anyway and responds to our concerns as best as it can given the sensitive nature of the issue and the heated atmosphere. The Board and the Superintendent seem to have been as responsive to community inquiries as they can reasonably be given the confidentiality requirements they must follow and the tenor of our community input. Ongoing complaints of non-responsiveness and implications of bad faith, as in here, do more to drive a wedge between us all than anything they have done.
Watching this matter play out has raised an eyebrow. I’m left wondering if something more is going on in the collective mind of our changing Shaker community. Shaker is a wonderful place with good people in it. But change is fitful. We must have more faith in each other’s professionalism, commitment, and humanity if we’re going to see the Shaker schools through this change together.
Terrese Tuchscher | Mar 5, 2015 at 11:02 pm
What is not clear is where was security when the student left the building? What is also not clear is what procedure did the teacher violate? What is the procedure when a child needs to go to the restroom? Obviously a teacher cannot leave the class to escort a student to the restroom.
My children went to Lomond. Ms Grieshop was a wonderful teacher. This seems like an unsupported action that is difficult to understand.
It sounds like the teacher is being blamed for a security breach at the school. This soundslike scapegoating when the teacher seems blameless and did everything she could to resolve the situation immediately. I’m more concerned about security which we heard nothing about and which there were no admonishments. Sounds like the principal’s responsibility to me.