Mr. Smith Goes to Fairfield

As many of you may know, it was announced yesterday that the new Superintendent of Fairfield City Schools will be Mr. Billy Smith.  Mr. Smith is currently the lead principal of Fairfield High School, a post he has held for most of the past 7 years.  You can click on this story from the Journal-News to get more information.

We're sure Mr. Smith is a very nice man personally with all the best intentions in the world.  We think he might even make a good Superintendent of a school district someday.  At a later date.  In a different district.  And we wish him all the luck possible in trying to manage this school district.  Anyone would need it.

While it is not the fault of Mr. Smith; who is simply trying to do the best for himself, his career, and his family as any of us would do; the fact remains the citizens of Fairfield have once again been ignored by the powers that be in our community.

It is obvious Fairfield City Schools has given this community yet another huge middle finger.  

We won't beat around the bush or mince our words one bit.  The Board of Education for Fairfield City Schools does not care what you think.  This process to hire the Superintendent of our school district was dirty, lacked transparency, and was as crooked as the Board of Education that oversaw it.

Yes, you read that correctly.  We'll say it again. 

In their elected capacity as public figures and members of our Board of Education, Jerome Kearns, Balena Shorter, Dan Hare, Michael Berding, and Brian Begley have acted without integrity or transparency during the search for our new Superintendent.  But what else is new?

It is our contention that the fix was in the entire time in regards to the hiring of a new Superintendent.  How else can one conclude otherwise?

Paul Otten handed in resignation notice on April 5th.  You can read more on that story here.

The public meeting to gather public input on what Fairfield residents wanted in a new Superintendent was held May 5th, according to this Journal-News story.  

Mr. Smith was announced as the new Superintendent on June 2.  That meant the entire search process took less than two months from the day Mr. Otten resigned.  The Board only had public input on the topic for 27 days before making a selection.  

We stand by our statement that Fairfield City Schools ignored what the public said in regards what you wanted in a new Superintendent.  Many residents present at the May 5th public input meeting expressed a strong desire for the new leader of our district to come from outside our community.  So what does the Brain Trust of Bach Lane do?

They essentially said 'screw you.  We'll do what we want.  We'll hire an insider.  A crony.  It will be business as usual here at Fairfield City Schools.'

At least our Board was upfront about it's intention to spit in your face one more time.  According to the previously cited article, Board member Michael Berding told the Journal-News last month Fairfield was looking for someone already working for the district “and it would definitely be a positive if someone understands what we are about here in Fairfield."
Yes, Mr. Berding, we all know what Fairfield City Schools is all about.  The past 19 months or so has taught us all that.  The past 29 months has certainly enlightened the Olsen family on what Fairfield is about.

The Board had a pretty good chance at starting to heal this community and unite us all behind a new Superintendent.  We had the chance to change the culture in our district.  But Fairfield threw it all away.  

With their actions, Fairfield City Schools has dug it's stubborn heels in, and pigheadedly declared that it never did anything wrong in Emilie's case.  The district has stated by it's actions that it will continue to carry on behaving in the way that has made them world famous (more like infamous).

Fairfield City Schools has been raked over the coals worldwide over it's grossly negligent misconduct and disgusting antics in the Emilie Olsen case, both before and after her death.  Emilie's story has appeared all over local media.  Fairfield has made national news on both Good Morning America and more recently in the Washington Post.  The injustice doled out to Emilie by this school system has even appeared in international news, like the Daily Mail in the United Kingdom.

Fairfield City Schools has quite the reputation now.  They have only themselves to thank.  Hiring an insider does nothing to change this fitting reputation.

Putting aside the highly questionable process surrounding the hiring of Mr. Smith as the new Superintendent, the qualifications of the man himself raises several red flags, in the opinion of this group and many in our community.  First of all, Mr. Smith has never been a Superintendent before.  He hasn't even been an assistant superintendent.  

Granted, he has led a building of 2400 students.  But that is a far cry from managing an entire school district with 10,000 students and helping to oversee a budget of millions of dollars.  Even the most diehard of unquestioning supporters of the district have to acknowledge that fact.

Fairfield as a school district and as a community does not have the luxury of affording a new superintendent a set of training wheels until he learns the job, and perhaps even blossoms into a superb administrator one day.  This isn't a Summer internship we're talking about here.  It's the chief administrative position for the schools in your community.  There is little margin for error.

In addition to his glaring lack of qualifications to lead one of Ohio's larger public school districts, some incidents that have taken place at Fairfield High School, and the responses to them by Mr. Smith, leave us quite uncomfortable.  

Even as far back as 2010, bullying horror stories about Fairfield City Schools, and the High School particularly, began to surface.  Check out this story from WCPO in 2010 - while Mr. Smith was Principal.

What knowledge did Mr. Smith have about Sara Clark being bullied?  Was it brought to his attention personally?  If so, what actions did Mr. Smith take?  Was the bullying brought to the attention of Mr. Smith's staff?  If so, what actions did they take, and did they inform him, as policy mandates they do?

These are all important questions that need to be asked, and which Mr. Smith needs to answer.  Perhaps Mr. Smith did everything he could to help Sara Clark.  It may be that he followed the district's bullying policy to the letter.  She says otherwise in a lawsuit.  Will the district please set the record straight?

Still, we don't get a good feeling about promoting a man to the job of Superintendent in a district plagued by a bullying scandal, when the district he serves was sued just a few years ago over an alleged bullying problem in the very building he was supposed to be administering. 

Another problem plaguing Fairfield City Schools during the scandal surrounding the Emilie Olsen case has been the lack of transparency by the district and an intolerance for dissent or criticism.  As you can see in this May 21st, 2013 e-mail, Mr. Smith feels you, the parents, citizens, and taxpayers of this community should not be permitted to criticize the district:

 

We're also quite troubled by the role Mr. Smith played in a 2013 incident in which police were summoned and state in their incident report investigation that the victim's allegations had merit.  Read the report for yourself.  It seems to us that Mr. Smith is way out of line here, and as so often happens at Fairfield City Schools, was blaming the victim:

Fairfield High School was also featured prominently in the news in December 2015, and as often is the case for our community, it wasn't in a positive light.  We all probably remember this graphic and disturbing video from an incident within the offices of FHS:

As the video depicts, Mr. Smith was not with these students as the incident unfolded, and that is perfectly fine.  He may well have been attending to other duties.  The building principal cannot be everywhere at once, and no reasonable person would claim he could be, or even lay blame for this incident at the feet of Mr. Smith personally.

However, this incident did occur in the main office area at FHS, and presumably just feet from Mr. Smith's office.  How did this incident occur?  Why were two agitated, feuding students in the main office with no other adults, save one, immediately present?  Why were the students who filmed the incident permitted to roam the main offices at FHS?  What measures were put into place by the building's head principal, Mr. Smith, to ensure this sort of incident did not take place again?

Mr. Smith needs to explain what happened here.  The district never has explained.  Fairfield's solution often tends to be to ignore the public and hope we forget when an incident or scandal occurs.

We're certain that thin-skinned and unquestioning supporters of Fairfield City Schools will make their usual, played out claims that we're attacking Mr. Smith.  That we are the bullies, in fact.

That's a false argument.  A canard.  It's a talking point to distract you and the discussion away from the authentic issues we have raised here:

• Lack of integrity and transparency by the Board of Education
• Mr. Smith's lack of qualifications to be Superintendent of a district as large as Fairfield
• Mr. Smith's past actions and incidents 

Can district supporters and Fairfield City Schools address the issues we have raised?

We wish Mr. Smith all the best in his new position.  We're certain he will try his best.  And when Fairfield City Schools is actually ready to start working with the entire community - not just the vocal, increasingly small number of unquestioning supporters - our group will be here.