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Alafia Principal, Parents Begin Reconciliation

Tribune photo by D’ANN LAWRENCE WHITE

Parents at the Nov. 20 meeting aired a variety of complaints about Principal Ellyn Smith, from bullying to rundown temporary buildings.

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By D'ANN LAWRENCE WHITE

dlwhite@tampatrib.com

Published: November 26, 2008

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• Read The Assessment

  Ellyn Smith

VALRICO - The beleaguered principal of Alafia Elementary School began her work week Monday as she usually does – standing in front of the Valrico school as the students arrived by car, bus or holding the hands of their parents.

This time, however, Principal Ellyn Smith had company. Longtime educator Grace Ippolito was by Smith's side, greeting parents and students. Ippolito, who was principal when Alafia opened in 1987, returned to the school last week under an hourly paid contract with the Hillsborough County School District to serve as Smith's mentor and coach for an unspecified period of time. Her mission is to teach Smith the people skills Alafia parents say she's lacking.

The pairing of Ippolito and Smith was among a series of steps that a 16-member school district assessment team recommended be put into place to alleviate the stressful environment at the school and "eliminate practices that foster fear of intimidation and retaliation."

Parents, however, say the recommended fixes are nothing short of bizarre.

"How can you retrain someone not to foster fear of intimidation and retaliation?" asked parent Amy Dreyer. "You can't change someone's attitude. You can't teach empathy. Working cooperatively just isn't one of her traits. She's very condescending. She talks to you like you're an idiot."

The Tribune was not able to contact Smith.

School Superintendent MaryEllen Elia met with angry Alafia parents Nov. 20 to explain that she intended to give the assessment team's recommendations a try, adding that she thought the problems were being handled in a series of meetings between parents and school district administrators and had no idea the troubles at the school had reached such a boiling point.

"We thought we were working on this issue. We obviously weren't doing it the way we needed to be doing it. I think part of this got out of control for all of us. I've accepted responsibility, and I've also accepted responsibility for the principal," she said. "She's got to fix it."

Parents Want Principal Out

Most of the 180 parents and staff attending the meeting weren't proponents of the fix-it solution, though. They prefer to see Smith go.

In three days, Dreyer collected 275 names on a petition and presented it to Elia at the meeting demanding that Smith be replaced.

"It's not like they haven't given her plenty of chances," she said. "This has been going on forever. Parents have had numerous meetings with school district officials, and she hasn't changed."

Parents say the recent relocation of the media center, kindergarten, first and second grades into portables to accommodate school renovations is a case in point. Although the construction won't begin until January, parents say Smith told teachers two weeks ago that they had to move into the portables and only had four days to make the move. Parents came to the rescue, helping to pack books and materials, only to discover that the portables were filthy and in disrepair.

Parent Bonnie Hernandez said she removed 28 wasps that had made their home in one of the portables.

Ashunti Douglas said her normally nondiscriminating 6-year-old son complained about the filthy conditions and the fact that the portable had no bathroom.

The parents wanted to know why Smith made the teachers rush to move and why the portables weren't inspected and readied before the move.

Elia promised to get back to the parents Monday with answers posted on the school's Web site. That topic, however, wasn't addressed.

Steve Hegarty, spokesman for the school district, took the blame for the lack of information.

"We were under a deadline to get all of this information on the Web site," Hegarty said. "We put the action plan on the site, the parent survey, the teacher survey, the assessment team's recommendations, a lot of stuff. It was my idea to separate out the piece on construction and create a separate action plan just dealing with that subject that can be updated as needed, and we'll be putting that on the site as well."

The separate document addressing construction concerns was added to the Web site by Wednesday. In it, parents were told the 13 portables were scheduled to be cleaned Nov. 13 but teachers jumped the gun and moved in before the work could be done.

Bullying Concerns

A subject that was addressed immediately, but not nearly to the satisfaction of the parents, was their concerns about bullying and physical abuse in the classroom.

One mother began crying as she relayed to Elia how another child attacked her daughter with a desk. Parent Dana Gleason said the same child hit her fourth-grader across the face with a stick and she was never contacted about the injury.

"My child has been constantly bullied by one child," Hernandez said. "I have a 7-year-old who is afraid to come to school. Mrs. Smith's solution was for me to get a special assignment to Cimino (Elementary School just down the street)."

Parents say they pleaded with Smith to remove the bullies from the classroom, to no avail.

Dreyer said one kindergartner, who would throw blocks at children and curse at the teachers, clearly needed to be in an exceptional education program, but for whatever reason he wasn't tested and placed in a program until the day before the school assessment team was due to arrive at Alafia.

"She repeatedly disregards safety concerns through her inaction," said Dreyer.

As with the other concerns, Elia vowed to address this one in an action plan posted on the Web site the Monday after the meeting.

Hegarty said the portion of the action plan dealing with disability awareness and behavior management training for staff was specifically intended to address this problem. School district counselors Shannon LesPerance and Shelley Cedola-Hayes will provide the staff with training Dec. 2, Jan. 8 and 15.

Coming Under FOCUS

In the meantime, Alafia will receive a lot more "FOCUS" from the school district.

Normally reserved for schools that receive F grades based on state assessments, FOCUS schools are schools that receive a bit more assistance from the school district based on Florida Department of Education guidelines. Shaw, Robles and Oak Park elementary schools in Tampa were made FOCUS schools after receiving F grades.

Alafia has been an A-rated school since 1998 when the state rating system began. Prior to coming to Alafia in February 2005, Smith taught at Seffner Elementary School. Seffner received a C grade in 1998-99, A ratings from 1999 to 2003 and had a B grade from 2003 to 2005 when Smith was transferred to Alafia.

Hegarty said he had not been able to assemble cost estimates for Ippolito's time as Smith's coach and the additional training for the administrators, staff and teachers recommended by the assessment team.

He said he thinks Elia sent out assessment teams to schools "eight or nine times" before to investigate concerns of the nature that Alafia parents brought to the attention of the school board. He said he did not recall any time an assessment team recommended removing a principal.

However, that's exactly what took place in May 2006 at Carrollwood Elementary School when parents began complaining about Principal Jan King and Assistant Principal Jamie Whitlow.

The team uncovered "a very stressful work environment" with leadership deficits and conflicts among groups of parents.

On the advice of the assessment team, Elia replaced both administrators. Hegarty was the school district's director of communications at the time.

"The superintendent decided it was time for a change at the school," Hegarty told The Tampa Tribune in a May 2, 2006 article.

When reminded of the incident, Hegarty recalled that he was a member of that assessment team but only visited the school one day. Hegarty also was a member of the Alafia assessment team.

When asked, though, he did not remember the recommendations of the Carrollwood assessment. He said he thought the principal had resigned. In fact, the principal retired and the assistant principal was reassigned.

Reporter D'Ann Lawrence White can be reached at (813) 657-4524.

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