Jay Greeson
Hamilton County District Attorney General Neal PinkstonA scathing 23-page report from the Hamilton County District Attorney's office details the mismanagement, misdeeds and, in some scenarios, the miscarriage of justice that covers the leadership of the Hamilton County Department Education's leadership in general and the former leadership of Ooltewah High School in particular.
The findings are nauseating.
To paraphrase the report, HCDE failed to train its employees, supervise its students and appropriately handle the Ooltewah rape case last December.
Neal Pinkston's report concludes that these egregious misdeeds - errors that damaged students who were hazed and sexually assaulted and errors that undoubtedly will cost the school district untold amounts of money - are directly related to leadership failures in the system.
It's fair, then, after Pinkston's report, to have a wealth of questions and for all of us to demand a truckload of answers.
The report states school officials failed to take action on earlier problems reported at Ooltewah. Reread that sentence. And the question lingers if the powers that be had acted earlier, then it's fair to surmise that this December tragedy could have been prevented.
If they had prior knowledge and did nothing about it, then the silence from the officials at the school did nothing but embolden the bullies, hazers and sexual assailants in this issue.
While we're here, this is a fair time to ask, after the findings of this report, why former Ooltewah principal Jim Jarvis was not charged along with former athletic director Jesse Nadayley and basketball coaches Karl Williams and Andre "Tank" Williams?
We are a growing community. However, it seems as if ineffective leadership at the school district has left our public schools mired in the quicksand of indifference for far too long. We hope the new administration - however long it's there - can take giant, bold steps to begin what most assuredly will be a long turnaround process.
The DA's report also exposes other failures of leadership in schools other than Ooltewah:
- A Hixson High School coach making inappropriate comments to female players;
- A teacher's jaw being broken by a student at Hixson Middle School;
- An Orchard Knob Middle School teacher being drugged by students.
These revelations underscore three points.
First, the whispers of a cover-up mentality that have long hovered over the Department of Education are clearly true. Far too many people in the upper levels of leadership in our school system have been doing whatever they can to protect their jobs rather than doing whatever they can to do their jobs.
The folks at Bonny Oaks either knew about the unacceptable culture at some schools and did nothing or they fostered a system so broken that they did not know anything that was happening at these schools.
Each is a tragedy.
Secondly, this has to be the final and most clear signal that any member of Rick Smith's senior team cannot be the next superintendent of our school system.
Finally, the Hamilton County school board needs to be on notice that it must be prepared to act swiftly and decisively when and if similar issues arise.
They must demand answers. They must demand direct accountability. They must demand transparency.
Because we all must demand better than this.
Contact Jay Greeson at jgreeson@timesfreepress.com and 423-757-6343. His "Right to the Point" column runs Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays on A2.