The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

DAYTON – The Dayton School Board held a regularly scheduled work session meeting at 6 p.m. on March 2, 2022. All Board members were in attendance.

The night before, the School Board held a two-and-a-half-hour special board meeting which consisted of a long executive session.

At the beginning of the meeting, Board Chair Jeff McCowen announced an executive session would be held under IAW RCW 42.30.110 (f). This section of the Open Public Meeting Act (OPMA) allows a closed session specifically to receive and evaluate complaints or charges brought against a public officer or employee.

The closed session was added to the agenda to be held after public comment and before action is taken on the two agenda items. The action items consisted of the Superintendent’s Recommendations and School Planning.

Superintendent Guy Strot presented his final recommendations proposal. The focus of the presentation were seven recommendations, five of which are essential:

1-Critical look at K-12 math curriculum and classes. – Essential

2-Engage and support the MS / HS students in changing culture. – Essential

3-Update the AG/metal/wood shops and add a CAD Lab.

4-Reorganize the administrative structure. - Essential

5-Redo MS/HS Master Schedule and add elective classes and choices. - Essential

6-Establish a partnership with Walla Walla Community College.

7-Develop a financial plan for this fiscal year and next fiscal year. - Essential

The Superintendent’s presentation of recommendations is available on the Dayton School District website, https://tinyurl.com/2p9k6rwd

The second action item for the night was Resolution 2021-2. This addressed the fifth recommendation from the Superintendent’s presentation regarding reorganizing the administrative structure. The resolution would change the assignment for the elementary principal to K-8 principal. It would eliminate the High School Principal position and the full-time Superintendent position and create a combined HS principal and Superintendent position.

The resolution would also allow the administration to lay off Kristina Brown as the high school principal. Though not stated in the resolution, it is assumed Guy Strot would move to the new superintendent/HS principal position.

Resolution 2021-20 is available to review on the School Board page of the DSD website, https://tinyurl.com/yhykvrex

After minimal discussion between the board members, the meeting was open for public comment.

The first speaker had some issues with Strot’s plan to improve the Ag shop and greenhouse.

A student asked for some clarification on the proposed partnership with WWCC.

Dave Phillips, a HS math teacher and tech coordinator, expressed dissatisfaction with the extensive use of online testing and outside consultants instead of allowing the teachers to solve problems without interference.

Kristine Warren, the HS academic counselor, spoke of her efforts to make electives, particularly foreign languages, available in some form for all students. She expressed concern the partnership with WWCC may further drain funding available to Dayton.

Clay Hutchens, a community member, said that the effort to keep kids from leaving was more about the school’s culture than programs. He said culture starts with the superintendent and the principal; the dysfunctional relationship between the superintendent and secondary principal is no secret.

“These two positions are really important and I’m not confident there is enough trust and confidence from teachers and community for these leaders to effectively fix culture. The school board must keep in mind that you have responsibility to put teachers in place who have the ability to cultivate a different culture than we’ve been experiencing the past couple of years. It does not seem like a good idea to me for Mr. Strot to act as superintendent and principal,” said Hutchins.

Pearl Dennis said she appreciated earlier comments including a student saying the relationship between the principal and the faculty is critical for student success. She ended her comments questioning the reorganization resolution.

“The superintendent has declared not just once, but twice now, that the superintendent’s responsibilities at Dayton School District can be performed by a half-time job. Perhaps you should believe him and staff and fund the job as a half-time position,” said Dennis.

Paul Bryan, an elementary school teacher, cautioned about making change for change’s sake.

“When we talk about saving revenue, I don’t see how eliminating one administrator and getting two non-teaching personnel, moving them from the classroom to other type jobs is going to help. That’s not saving revenue,” said Bryan.

Jeremy Trump, a parent, said that although some of the proposed changes may be helpful, he thought the administrative change would harm the school culture by moving the middle school to the elementary administration. He also questioned how the school hoped to increase elective offerings while reducing the teaching staff.

Katie Leid, former Chair of the Dayton School Board, said, “We as a school board hired Guy in June, and in November, I knew it was the wrong choice. So, I did not share that, well I tried to share that with my board at the time, and I was not supported. That’s one of the reasons why I left the board. The other was because my husband was dying of cancer.

“So, you as a board are young, you have so much to learn and what I know from the staff at Dayton School District, that your superintendent does not tell the truth, does not follow through. If any of you would like to call me or talk to me about that, that would be fine. Thank-you.”

Leigh Cranmer told the Board she had ‘choiced’ her three children out of the district this school year. She hopes to regain confidence in the Dayton School District so her children can return as students.

“I’m disappointed in the recommendations mostly because I don’t see references to where the Superintendent has conferred with his staff to develop the recommendations.”

Vicki Zoller said proposed improvements and changes to the school culture ‘roll uphill, directly into the superintendent’s lap.’ Concerned that Strot has not been able to resolve these issues in his position as a full-time superintendent, she questioned how things would get better should he transition to a half-time role.

Zoller said it felt like a cobbled-together, desperate plan to somewhat fix things for the superintendent but not necessarily resolve the issues that parents, community, and teachers are concerned about. She also asked why the rush?

“Maybe there needs to be an opportunity for more input from the people that are truly the stakeholders in all of this, the teachers and the parents so that they can have some say in this before there’s nobody plugged in full-time to those high school students who deserve, deserve, deserve, deserve to have that instead to have some half-time, busy, unfocused leader, that isn’t really a leader.”

A student expressed surprise that the superintendent’s plan omitted student comments to the consultant who visited classrooms. Multiple classes told the consultant that the administration is “pretty toxic.”

The student said other comments omitted included the effect on students from the loss of teachers over the past four years. The student said these were some of the reasons other students she knows left the district. After public comment, Board Chair McCowen spoke to attendees before adjourning to hold the executive session.

“This board of five people plus two, everyone on this campus, we all want what is best for kids. Sometimes what’s best for kids is going to be in conflict with what’s best for those people who teach kids. Sometimes that may be in conflict with how the public perceives it.

“The truth of the matter is, even if you are boots on the ground, at best, maybe you know seventy-five percent or eighty percent of all the information. If you’re well informed within the community, you might know half of that as well.

“I’m going to speak for everyone here, even though they didn’t ask me to, and they can tell me I’m wrong. This has been a not fun two weeks for myself; it hasn’t been good for my family, but everyone here and you folks here in the building or those online are evidence we all care, we all need to come together, we all need to be cooperative, we all need to figure this out together, because this is our future. We have to put aside petty things. We need adults to be adults so that so that kids can be kids...”

School Board member Aneesha Dieu made a statement to attendees after the executive session.

“I would just like to corroborate with that and say that this is a piece of the whole situation, the whole picture. So not everybody knows everything that we know, and while this is just a step, it is not the entire movement of what is going on. I would just ask that you guys have respect for what we are trying to move forward and do, that you would have patience with us and that you’d give us a little bit of grace as we continue to discuss everything, and learn, and dive into things. And that’s all I would like to say.”

Before going into executive session, the board asked to meet without Superintendent Strot attending. After leaving and immediately returning, it was not clear he was able to stay for the executive session.

After the closed session was adjourned and the public meeting was reconvened, Board member Korinda Wallace moved to table voting on the Superintendent’s Recommendations pending further study. The board voted unanimously to pass the motion.

The board did vote unanimously to approve Resolution 2021-02, restructuring the administration as proposed by the superintendent in his recommendations.

Discussion by the board in open session was limited at this and the previous evening’s meetings. With several board members asking the community to trust them as only they have the full story, some feel uneasy about the lack of transparency surrounding recent decisions. The Board’s decisions on voting have the appearance of being agreed on in executive meetings.