Why Was Nothing Done?
You'd think with all the allegations of reprehensible behavior flying around, that the school's governing board, or the Miami-Dade school district, would have swooped in, investigated, and determined the truth. But several factors kept that from happening, the most noticeable being a dysfunctional board whose members were openly warring with each other.
Illustration by Josef Gast
Steve Satterwhite
Top to bottom: "It's been hard, but I'm tenacious," says Ms. Mitchell; board chairman Vance Phillips: "Thought we'd resolved all that"; A.J. Melton, former Mitchell supporter: "I got mad"
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Also, initially the accusations against Mitchell were made anonymously, so the board and district felt they couldn't be taken seriously. In August 2001 the governing board, led by three concerned parents, held an open forum to discuss their "Mitchell concerns." Only a couple of dozen parents showed up, however, and most of them spoke in favor of Mitchell. (Mitchell's detractors claim she stacked the deck in her favor by getting the forum delayed three months, until most of the parents with serious problems had moved their kids to different schools, and packed the meeting with her fans). "She has their support," notes Carlo Rodriguez, a school district administrator who oversees charter schools. "I think that is a big statement." Rodriguez says the district heard the allegations and did investigate, but ultimately didn't have the evidence to prove them. "Everyone here respects the barriers she's overcoming with that school. It's doing much better."
Alwyn J. Melton -- A.J. to most -- remembers the meeting. He was one of the concerned board members who'd asked the chairman, Vance Phillips, to organize the forum. Melton, a stockily built county corrections supervisor, with chubby cheeks and soft brown eyes that make him look younger than 33, describes himself as a once-naive supporter of Mitchell, so much so he even wrote a letter to the Herald defending FIA. Melton's history at the school began like most of the others who end up serving on the board. He enrolled his daughter there in the '00-'01 school year; he began volunteering help with fund-raisers and such.
Soon Mitchell asked him to join the governing board, which had recently lost members. For a few months everything was going fine. But then Melton's constant presence at the school led him to develop friendships with some of the employees. He began hearing things that didn't match what he heard from management. "I started picking up little things," he reveals, such as parents complaining that Mitchell had unnecessarily called the cops on their children, or the high turnover of teachers -- that they had quit in disgust, or were fired for questionable offenses. "I got mad," he says. "The board was never told. [But] it's negligentnot to report to the board."
Melton, who quit in March along with two other board members, is not the only one to gripe about being kept in the dark. He, Reginald Brown, and another former member who asked not to be identified, each charged that Mitchell would take any items regarding teacher hirings or firings, money, or response to district officials, directly to chairman Vance Phillips. He would often sign off on letters, and the rest of the members would only hear about it later.
In January a group of them, led by Melton, tried to oust Phillips from the board for what they considered his illegally unilateral decisions. But the board attorney warned the members that they had no solid reason for removing him, and could leave themselves open to legal challenge if they persisted. By March Melton and members Gennie Brown and Inez Corbett had resigned in disgust. In May a new group of parents (including Mitchell supporter Mamie Davis) became board members, and Phillips stayed on.
In fact, the one constant on the barely functioning FIA governing board in four years of turmoil has been Vance Phillips, long-time proprietor of Famous Mr. Vance's Beauty Salon in Opa-locka. When he picks up the phone there, it sounds like he's speaking from a nail-polish madhouse. He says he doesn't have time to get into the soap opera he's been part of for the past year. "What?" he barks. "I thought we'd resolved all that."
Phillips says some of his colleagues at FIA were simply frustrated because they didn't understand the proper role of board members versus school administrators. Some of them saw him as part of the problem. "I was blown out of the water," he says. "They accused me of a lot of different things but it never could stick." In his opinion, the school is on the right track. "We've come a long way," he fairly crows.
Back in her office, Mitchell points out that the school district renewed her contract this summer, that attendance is high, and most parents report satisfaction with FIA on school climate surveys. Assistant principal Jackson thinks the school has accomplished a lot, considering its financial difficulties, the troubled histories of many of its students, and internal battles. "We were graded an F, but that's solely because of the students we try to help. We get a lot of students who are reading at the second- and third-grade level. If we were graded on how far we bring them from that, we would be an A school."
"I'm here to do one thing," Mitchell asserts. "That's to take care of the school. These kids trust me." Hunt, Williams, and a half-dozen other FIA veterans say that trust is misplaced. "Those kids are going through school being promoted and they aren't learning anything," Williams charges. "Then they get to high school and they will struggle and fail."
