City Council: All Norfolk schools need to be investigated

NORFOLK

Most Norfolk City Council members said Wednesday that an investigation into school testing violations should be expanded to include all public schools in the city. Meanwhile, school leaders said they plan to give a middle school principal and other staff faulted by a special report time to defend themselves before determining what action to take.

"We can't just say this is an isolated incident without looking at the rest of the schools," Councilman Don Williams said. "We've got to look at the entire school system. We have to in order to restore the public's faith in our public schools."

"We have to expand it," Councilwoman Daun S. Hester said.

Superintendent Stephen C. Jones called a news conference Wednesday to discuss the panel's findings. He said the School Board, which is appointed by the City Council, wants to avoid "trial by the media" as it weighs the report that outlined cheating, coercion and violation of regulations on tests used to determine state accreditation at Lafayette-Winona Middle School.

School officials have refused to release a copy of the report, saying that it contains confidential personnel information. The Virginian-Pilot obtained it from a source close to the School Board. A two-page, six-paragraph executive summary was sent to the newspaper last week. The executive summary in the report The Pilot read contains eight pages.

The panel, appointed by the board and Jones, consisted of an assistant city attorney, a division administrator and an Old Dominion University scholar.

Jones said Cassandra Goodwyn, cited for false statements and pushing teachers to bend state guidelines on Virginia Grade Level Assessment test rules, "still has the title of principal" at Lafayette-Winona. If the School Board confirms wrongdoing, Jones said, "We will take swift action to be sure it doesn't continue."

Penalties could include official letters of concern or reprimand, demotion and firing, he said.

School Board Chairman Stephen Tonelson said the board will quickly examine the panel's findings and talk with individuals named in the report.

The panel found that Goodwyn coerced teachers into fabricating students' work to help win state accreditation, then lied to get a teacher fired who refused to cheat and who reported testing problems to the division and the state.

Several special-education administrators left the school, the report said, because of the principal's testing practices and said Goodwyn told another special-education staffer "she didn't want her in the building" after the employee reprimanded a teacher for improperly administering the VGLA.

The VGLA is an alternative to the Standards of Learning exam for some students with learning disabilities. The state SOL tests are used to determine a school's accreditation. Poor-performing schools can harm property values, teacher recruitment and morale. Consistently underperforming schools face state intervention.

The panel found that Norfolk school administrators also refused to force Goodwyn to comply with state testing standards and dismissed the whistle-blower's evidence that he refused to bend testing rules.

The teacher, Henry Brent, reported the problems last year. The state investigated and found state and local testing regulations were violated.

Since December, city and state investigations of testing at Campostella and Dreamkeepers Academy elementary schools and Northside and Lafayette-Winona middle schools have also been revealed.

That tally of violations was so unusual that the state schools superintendent initiated technical assistance to Norfolk to help school staff learn to administer tests properly. State education staffers were in the city Wednesday to conduct audits and interviews at several schools, Jones said.

Goodwyn has denied any wrongdoing. Her attorney, Reid Ervin, said Wednesday that the investigation's independence is questionable because the panel includes a division employee and an assistant city attorney. Ervin suggested that Goodwyn was made a scapegoat by some of her teachers who admitted they had broken rules for administering the VGLA.

Jones said he will release a copy of the investigatory report to Goodwyn.

The report's findings took most members of the City Council by surprise. Many said they felt angered or betrayed by a lack of communication from the School Board and wanted to meet with the board.

The lack of communication is appalling, Councilman Paul R. Riddick said. Riddick also called for the board to fire Jones, who has announced he will retire this summer to spend more time with his family. "We need to stop the bleeding," he said. "They have to let him go."

The investigation found a culture of intimidation at Lafayette-Winona, where teachers said they feared retribution from the principal if they pushed for compliance on testing guidelines. One veteran teacher pleaded with the panel for "something to be done about the situation" at Lafayette-Winona.

Brent, a special-education teacher, refused to fabricate student work samples for the VGLA and told the principal he was concerned that some students didn't qualify for the alternative test.

The investigators found that as a result, Brent, who had received good evaluations from others, received a negative performance evaluation from Goodwyn. Her evaluation of Brent was based on inaccurate accusations and was used to bring the teacher before the Performance Review Board, the report says.

Joan Anderson, the division's special-education director, recommended that Brent be fired. Anderson took a job with Boston public schools last month.

Investigators found that Anderson failed to recognize that the principal's recommendation for firing Brent was likely based on the teacher's complaint about testing violations.

The investigatory panel also criticized Chief Operations Officer Michael Spencer, who failed to review documents that supported the whistle-blower's belief that he was unjustly targeted by Goodwyn in his job evaluation.

The panel also criticized Cathy Lassiter, the division's executive director for middle schools, for endorsing Brent's negative job evaluation and claiming that she had conducted an extensive investigation of his claims.

The report also says that several Lafayette-Winona students were marked on test documents as absent, even though records showed the students were present at some point during the testing period. Last year, an in-house division investigation of Dreamkeepers Academy grade school reported that the principal said she decided she could skip testing some students on the SOL exams and still meet a federal testing benchmark.

The principal, Doreatha White, said the division had misquoted and misrepresented her. She apparently was not disciplined by the division.

The outbreak of testing problems has prompted the School Board to schedule a "stand-down" for March 30, where principals and administrators will get a four-hour refresher on testing rules and procedures.

Steven G. Vegh, (757) 446-2417, steven.vegh@pilotonline.com