Brenda Battle-Jordan is the President of the Westwood Heights Board of Education, in doing some of the coverage on the candidates being considered for the Superintendent of Toledo Public Schools, I referenced a quote from Battle-Jordan in relation to one of the lawsuits filed by Dr. Deborah Hunter-Harvill, stating the lawsuit was “frivolous” — Battle-Jordan found some of the coverage related to the TPS Superintendent search on Glass City Jungle and posted several comments.

The dissension and turmoil in the Westwood Heights School District related to the employment, the administrative suspension, the lawsuit and the settlement issues related to Hunter-Harvill was briefly referenced here and in the Blade (link):

Another candidate, Deborah Hunter-Harvill, sued the Westwood Heights Board of Education near Flint, Mich., last fall. The parties settled this month.
As part of the settlement, she resigned, according to the district’s central office, contacted by The Blade yesterday.
She and a school board member butted heads over her disciplining a principal for having a poker night fund-raiser at his school, according to published reports. She could not be reached yesterday.

After reading one comment in particular written by Battle-Jordan here, I wanted to talk to her to get clarification:

[If] Dr. Deborah Hunter- Harvill is one of the three finalists, may God help them, she came to our district, with suing in her plans, she said it to one of our board members, “I will sue this district if you get in my way” that was the way she started out, she was playing the race card game too…she even wanted me to remove my youtube videos of some of our school board meeting.

Battle-Jordan gave me her phone number to contact her if I had questions, so I called her and I asked her about the “playing the race card” accusation she directed at Hunter-Harvill, since both women are African American. Battle-Jordan said that Hunter-Harvill targeted several white employees and community members including former Superintendent and current Board member James Mitchell. She said that Hunter-Harvill targeted Mitchell early on and suggested on more than one occasion his decisions were based on race. Battle-Jordan said when she defended Mitchell and employees who were white, that she felt were doing a good job, she was called an “Uncle Tom” by supporters of Hunter-Harvill. Supporters of Hunter-Harvill attempted to have Battle-Jordan recalled as a board member twice, they did not get enough signatures to get that recall effort on the ballot. Mitchell was a part of a successful recall effort that targeted board members that had supported Hunter-Harvill’s removal of employees last year, (link).

Battle-Jordan also expressed concern with this being the third lawsuit Hunter-Harvill had filed, she said she contacted Blade reporter Christopher Kirkpatrick after reading his above linked coverage, provided him with information via fax concerning that and some of the concerns she shared with me, including her wanting it to be clear that the settlement that was paid out to Hunter-Harvill was only the contracted amount Hunter-Havrill would have earned had she remained superintendent. She said Kirkpatrick’s response to her was “sounds like you have it out for her (Hunter-Harvill).”

Battle-Jordan, during the hour I spoke with her, expressed more concern for her community, the education of children and how James Mitchell and others were treated, than giving the impression that this was some type of a personal vendetta against Hunter-Havrill. Questions were raised during Hunter-Harvill’s evaluation related to staff morale issues, not following board approved policies/procedures (one example was Hunter-Harvill changing the discipline policy at a high school without board approval) and a high number of days away from the job of superintendent to attend seminars paid for by the district, some related to National Alliance of Black School Educators, which Hunter-Harvill was former president of (link) She also confirmed that no one from OSBA or Toledo Public Schools had contacted her to ask about Hunter-Havrill’s performance or the 9th grade program that was created and she was not aware of any other board members there being contacted.

How does this all tie into Toledo? Beyond the obvious, how a superintendent behaves under fire is important and some of the video clips of Hunter-Havrill’s behavior did not demonstrate professionalism. Serious questions were raised in my mind about Hunter-Havrill’s ability to handle a large urban district like Toledo, that has community members not afraid to speak their minds, after watching two videos in particular. In one Hunter-Havrill becomes very upset and states she needs her husband and her attorney to come to the board table after school district performance questions are raised by one board member and an audience member speaks out of order, telling the board member “you can’t talk to her like that” Link to that video, another video was from early on in Hunter-Harvill’s employment as Superintendent, Link to that video, she takes issue with media coverage, speaks over the Board President, tells a member of the audience that she did file a police report, that she will file a police protection order if necessary and that she will not allow her name to be slandered.

Westwood Heights was going through some major challenges, they went through 7 superintendents in a several year time period, board member recalls and test score issues, while things are not completely solved there, Battle-Jordan said things are “night and day improvement” now compared to when Hunter-Havrill was superintendent there.

With it being reported that it’s possible the Toledo Board of Education members may select a superintendent tomorrow and that Hunter-Havrill is one of the three finalists? Let’s hope board members take a very long look at the three finalists and ask some hard questions before making a decision. I realize it’s been suggested that Toledo should consider superintendent of color and that Hunter-Havrill is the only non-white finalist, if it is going to be between the three, I sincerely hope race is not a main factor in the Board’s vote.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 13th, 2010 at 9:32 pm and is filed under Blogging, Education, Media, Toledo. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.