Ex-principal alleges racial bias at Norfolk alternative school

NORFOLK

Black students were disciplined more harshly than white students in Norfolk schools last year, and the city's main alternative school lacked books, a nurse and other resources, a former principal contends.

The Madison Alternative School and other Norfolk schools also handled special needs students' education inappropriately, he says.

These and other allegations of civil rights violations have been leveled by Madison's former principal, Michael L. McIntosh, who has filed merited civil rights charges against at least one other school division in the past. He also says that top administrators in Norfolk suspended him for voicing concerns.

The U.S. Department of Education is now investigating McIntosh's complaint. If the department's Office of Civil Rights finds any violations and an agreement cannot be reached to make improvements, then federal money could be withheld from the division or the matter could be referred to the U.S. Department of Justice.

McIntosh, who now works for Hampton University College of Virginia Beach, declined to comment in a recent e-mail.

Current and former teachers at the school praised McIntosh for filing the complaint, saying they shared some of his concerns.

School officials referred questions about the complaint to Assistant City Attorney Derek Mungo, who said the only misconduct related to Madison was committed by McIntosh.

"It's a wrong doer projecting wrong doing," Mungo said. "It's kind of like he looked in the mirror and projected his improprieties to the school division."

The Madison school, at 37th Street and Hampton Boulevard, first opened nearly 100 years ago and has served as an elementary and junior high school. Today it educates middle and high school students with the most serious behavior problems, including some in probation or parole programs. Students under 18 who are pursuing GEDs in a special program also attend.

Most students are sent to Madison for long-term suspensions. The offenses can include multiple discipline violations, gang-related activities and assaults in the schools - problems that Norfolk city and school officials have wrestled with this year.

Largely because of its population, former students and their parents describe Madison as a school with students prone to bad behavior and teachers who try to instruct but don't always succeed.

"It was just like a baby sitter," said Diane Riddick, whose granddaughter attended Madison last year. "I really didn't see too much work she was doing as far as book-learning."

Superintendent Stephen C. Jones hired McIntosh in July 2007, despite questions from School Board members about his employment history. McIntosh held 10 education-related jobs in three states and Washington, D.C., between 1998 and the summer of 2007.

He filed a civil rights complaint against a North Carolina school system in 1998. Investigators found merit to some of the allegations. As a result, the Iredell-Statesville school system agreed to several measures, including steps to ensure that minority students could access honors and advanced placement courses, according to reports in The Charlotte Observer.

In Norfolk, teachers said Madison ran smoothly under McIntosh, whose strict rules and visibility in the building were effective.

He started a program to help middle school students who were significantly older than their peers catch up academically and introduced a block schedule that allowed high school students to complete full-year courses in one semester, said James Mayo-Pitts, who left Madison this spring after teaching there for two years.

McIntosh "always talked to us and helped us understand what we needed to do to get out of the school," said Lotisha Cowell, who attended Madison last year. "He gave off the impression that he really cared."

Teachers liked that McIntosh advocated for the school to top administrators, Mayo-Pitts said.

"He was asking for more staff, more security, an accelerated program to help these students," Mayo-Pitts said.

But not everyone got along with the principal. Former Madison student Heather Eggleston said she preferred McIntosh's predecessor, who Heather said in an e-mail "would at least listen to us, and if we had any problems she at least tried to help us."

Madison's facilities and services were inadequate, according to McIntosh's complaint.

The school lacked a nurse and a psychologist, and there were "few books and other instructional materials," his complaint said.

Some former teachers agreed with McIntosh.

Mayo-Pitts said the school also had no library or a high school social studies teacher last year.

There were two discipline deans and two security officers, but Madison needed more staff members to control student behavior, said Karl Elder, who retired this summer after five years as a dean at Madison and more than 29 years as a Norfolk educator.

Curtis Crumity, whose daughter, Anniesha, attended Madison last school year, said he saw no problems with security. Anniesha disagreed.

"They didn't know about all the fights," she said. "People had weapons, and they didn't know that either."

Mungo, the assistant city attorney, said Madison's conditions don't violate federal civil rights regulations. "The contention of the school division is that we're supplying that which is required under the law," he said.

McIntosh's complaint alleges that black students were given longer suspensions and were considered repeat offenders for fewer violations than white students.

Last year, 88 percent of Madison's students were black, compared with about 65 percent of Norfolk students in grades six through 12, according to school division statistics.

"Without a doubt, there was an amazingly large number of African American students at Madison as compared to white students," Elder said.

McIntosh also contends black students weren't allowed to return to their zoned schools after serving their long-term suspensions at Madison.

Some high school administrators maintained that Madison's class schedule didn't correspond with their class schedules, Elder said.

He said he felt it was wrong for the schools to say they could not accommodate these students because of their schedules.

The assistant city attorney said McIntosh's accusations of racial discrimination were baseless. Nationwide, there is a problem with minority students being disciplined more than white students, Mungo said.

"It's easy for someone to cry out 'race, race, race,' in the area that we're dealing with," Mungo said.

School officials say they have taken a number of steps in recent years to ensure that discipline is doled out more consistently throughout the division. Last year, they created the position of hearing officer who is responsible for making sure that student assignments to Norfolk's alternative schools follow the division's practices.

In his complaint, McIntosh said that Madison and other Norfolk schools mismanaged special education students.

Richard Turner, who headed Madison's special education department last year as a third-year teacher with a conditional license, agreed.

Three teachers, a long-term substitute and two aides were not enough to handle up to 70 special education students attending the school at once, he said.

Under federal law, Madison was required to follow specific educational plans for each special education student. The plans are meant to ensure that the students' learning environments address their disabilities. Any changes must be approved by a group that includes teachers, administrators and the child's parent.

At Madison, Turner said students' disability categories were changed improperly to justify new classroom or program placements. For example, a student who had been identified as learning disabled would be changed to emotionally disturbed without consulting the required parties.

Turner said he doesn't know who made the changes.

He also supported another of McIntosh's complaints, Zoned schools often were late or negligent in sending required records for special education students who transferred to Madison. Without that information, it was difficult for the alternative school's teachers to know the specific needs of arriving special education students, Turner said.

"They could be in the wrong class for one to two weeks," he said.

Norma Eggleston said her daughter Heather's education suffered because of problems with Madison's special education program.

There was only one class exclusively for special education children, meant to serve students who were identified as emotionally disturbed. As a result, Heather often attended a class with mostly middle school students when she should have been in the ninth grade.

Heather's class assignment changed frequently without regard for her educational plan, and specific directions on how to discipline her weren't followed, causing her bad behavior to escalate, Eggleston said.

"It was horrible," she said. "She didn't get any education while he was there."

In e-mails sent early last year to top administrators, McIntosh mentioned concerns about Madison's special education program that later appeared in his civil rights complaint. The Pilot obtained copies of the e-mails through a Freedom of Information request.

In a Feb. 4 e-mail, McIntosh requested another teacher in order to create a separate class for students such as Eggleston's daughter. He wrote that having one classroom for emotionally disturbed children "has been totally unsuccessful" and "does not meet the needs of the students."

On Feb. 20, McIntosh wrote to the head of the school division's special education department about problems receiving special education paperwork from other schools.

E-mails later in the school year document administrators' efforts to help improve Madison's special education program.

Mungo said McIntosh was responsible for any civil rights violations associated with special education at the school.

"He violated laws, and he's saying he was retaliated against," Mungo said. "No. He was sanctioned appropriately for illegal behavior he'd been advised was illegal."

McIntosh was placed on paid leave in April pending a review of Madison's instructional program. His civil rights complaint says his suspension was in retaliation for bringing concerns to top administrators. He later resigned.

At the time, Superintendent Jones told The Pilot that the review led to concerns, but declined to elaborate, calling it a personnel matter.

Educators give mixed reports on the state of Madison this year.

Sharon Byrdsong, the school division's senior director of alternative options, said there have been several changes.

For example, the school now has a high school social studies teacher and a part-time nurse, she said, and a special education administrator who spends more time there.

But some Madison teachers continue to worry about inadequate security and inconsistent discipline practices at the school. They recently gave a list of concerns to the Norfolk Federation of Teachers.

"There are just so many issues over there," Marian Flickinger, the federation's president, said, "and this has been long-standing."

Amy Jeter, (757) 446-2730, amy.jeter@pilotonline.com