As always, this is great Tom. One company of his that nobody seems to discuss is St. Chi Enterprises, which he opened in Sept. 2020 to "purchase and lease real estate across the United States." What do we know about St. Chi's holdings? Given the concerns about gentrification associated with the new school in Evanston, you would think that it would be a no-brainer to disclose whether the national real estate firm he is operating on the side is potentially benefiting from the investment of public funds from the District.
On the "white supremacy" stuff. I was on the Zoom call that Fox picked up on in August 2020. I think it was one of the first times he had a quasi-public meeting. I distinctly remember him making the statement about allowing students of color to come back to in-person school first. I didn't care too much about the impact to my kids since we were in no hurry to send them back before they were vaccinated. But my immediate response was "you can't actually do that. It's against the law." This drilled home to me that the Board hired someone who was in over his head. I couldn't imagine previous superintendents Paul Goren or Hardy Murphy being so careless in that setting--even though Horton was navigating a very difficult situation.
I'm not sure how much Horton has actually grown on the job. It is hard to imagine him in charge of such a large district as they have in DeKalb.
Although I hope DeKalb hires him to get him out of Evanston, I have to admire the process they are undergoing when compared to how the feckless District 65 board undertook the Horton hire. Requiring candidates to account for their experience, qualifications, and character is essential. DeKalb may ignore citizen concerns and still hire him. But if/when things go south there will be a demonstrable record that the concerns were well known by the public and the board.
I just imagine how Evanston could have possibly gotten a better candidate if we had a similar opportunity to scrutinize the candidate before hiring.
Tom, I hope you continue this blog post-election. It would be very useful to try and get the board members on the record about how they intend to execute the next superintendent search. I did not see all of the candidate forums, so i don't know if Salem, Hernandez, or Wilkins were asked this during the campaign.
I saw Halperin defend the process recently on the District 65 parents facebook page by saying they wanted it to be anonymous to "attract the best candidates." Of course, this is illogical. They love Horton and he was applying all across the country in 2019 in public searches. Even though the board president claimed during the search that the candidates "requested anonymity", it is pretty much impossible to believe that this was the case with Horton.
Anonymous job searches and hidden processes are antithetical to low-bias recruiting and hiring. More transparency, partner-engagement, clear lines of accountability and articulated, visible, known selection criteria are fundamental to equitable hiring that mitigates selection bias and maximizes community input and investment.
The Board absolutely has an opportunity, and obligation, to be more equitable and transparent in their next hiring process.
This is how I feel about the contract award process too. We want to give contracts to companies owned by women, black and brown folks? Great! Let's open it to ALL those people, not just the ones who happen to be personal friends with the superintendent. This process is severly anti-equity.
Also keep in mind when D65 hired Dr. Horton he wasn’t coming out of the blue. He had relationships dating back to his time in CPS/AUSL. Several staff members and one board member (that I know of) had relationships with him already. It was likely they had him in mind when they started the search.
I have spent hours searching recorder of deeds systems for proof of properties owned by St. Chi and come up empty handed. If it does own properties its not in the tristate area or any major city with a public recording of deeds.
Please, ATL friends, take all of this with a grain of salt. You will find Horton an agent of change. He will change test scores and readiness levels. He will change how your district funds projects and spends money. He will change the teacher/staff satisfaction. Lots of change. Well, considering the turmoil you’ve experienced, perhaps not. Horton is a great man. Just ask him.
Also, I had a friend who received one of the "your a white supremacist" emails in early Jan. 2021. Imagine the surprise when it was directed to a local newspaper to cover and instead of an article on that, we woke up to news of "hate crime"..... It was VERY CLEAR from the timeline that Tom presents above and from the EPD report that the so called "hate crime" to Biz's car was completely fabricated to avoid an apology and instead redirect the attention and double down on the narrative that the board was under threat. SUPER OBVIOUS. Read the police report. It's ridiculous. And, try and remember the last time a lesbian leader was under threat in Evanston...
Question - while I am super happy they are picking up your research, I am a little surprised they aren't honing more in on enrollment loss and bad achievement for Black/Brown students during Horton's tenure. DeKalb student population is 80%+ Black and Hispanic and in yesterday's AJC article, two of their board members said “Board members were most impressed with Dr. Horton’s innovative approaches that have consistently led to demonstrated success in dramatically improving student achievement for all students.". I just don't understand how they could say that. I have seen ZERO data that shows any student achievements. In fact, it's quite the opposite. So what info. are they relying on? Data from before D65? Any ideas?
That's a great question. Transparency is a core government function and I think all government agencies should be be willing to support FOIA. District 65 is a 150 million dollar organization funded most by locals, surely they can handle the ~12 or so FOIA requests they get per month from parents. Before local newspapers were dead, they would get probably more than this from local journalists, who are all now unemployed.
Requests that are too burdensome, request identifying information, or take too long just get rejected anyway. You have to know what records you're looking for in advance. You can't just go fishing.
I should add: I *don't* like that this is becoming a partisan issue for the left because we are annoyed that conservative parents are asking about the CRT curriculum. If the powers ever change (and they will), we will want these transparency laws in place when the next folks in charge start putting together a curriculum that prioritizes "creative design"
You certainly have a right to petition the government; that's guaranteed in the first amendment of the constitution, much less the board policies. But you don't have a right to force them to listen or agree with you. The whole point of elections is to vote for people who we think will administrate the ideas we believe in.
Did you listen to the song in the background? It's hardly celebratory, it's literally a song about racism. And either way if you read the emails he is sharing they *are* creepy. He was posting that to make a point that racism still exists and would he would be right, especially given the last 5 comments you've left. There is nobody in office that deserves to receive emails like that.
Are you one of the people who sent him a creepy email?
Listen, I get it. Some of the emails that they said are threatening were okay. There were a bunch that were just boring complaints. However, there were certainly a handful with weirdass religious undertones and at least one with a legitimate threat.
So I thought that no one actually ever received any death threats, where is proof that happened? Please delete previous comments on the articles you just locked please. I was trying to help shed light however now it seems you are also looking to harm by not deleting the posts you so many times wanted to have go away . Delete previous comments please.
“I want to be clear about our efforts to fight the pandemic of racism that has taken just as many lives as COVID-19. We will not stop, we will continue to provide equity training for our staff. We will continue to diversify our workforce, we will continue to build an anti-racist curriculum, we will continue to build learning environments where all students can thrive and be their authentic selves.”
Imagine a leader making the Covid pandemic about racism of the past and that any blowback is solely because of his race or ethnicity
As always, this is great Tom. One company of his that nobody seems to discuss is St. Chi Enterprises, which he opened in Sept. 2020 to "purchase and lease real estate across the United States." What do we know about St. Chi's holdings? Given the concerns about gentrification associated with the new school in Evanston, you would think that it would be a no-brainer to disclose whether the national real estate firm he is operating on the side is potentially benefiting from the investment of public funds from the District.
https://bsd.sos.mo.gov/Common/CorrespondenceItemViewHandler.ashx?IsTIFF=true&filedDocumentid=124077680&version=2
On the "white supremacy" stuff. I was on the Zoom call that Fox picked up on in August 2020. I think it was one of the first times he had a quasi-public meeting. I distinctly remember him making the statement about allowing students of color to come back to in-person school first. I didn't care too much about the impact to my kids since we were in no hurry to send them back before they were vaccinated. But my immediate response was "you can't actually do that. It's against the law." This drilled home to me that the Board hired someone who was in over his head. I couldn't imagine previous superintendents Paul Goren or Hardy Murphy being so careless in that setting--even though Horton was navigating a very difficult situation.
I'm not sure how much Horton has actually grown on the job. It is hard to imagine him in charge of such a large district as they have in DeKalb.
Although I hope DeKalb hires him to get him out of Evanston, I have to admire the process they are undergoing when compared to how the feckless District 65 board undertook the Horton hire. Requiring candidates to account for their experience, qualifications, and character is essential. DeKalb may ignore citizen concerns and still hire him. But if/when things go south there will be a demonstrable record that the concerns were well known by the public and the board.
I just imagine how Evanston could have possibly gotten a better candidate if we had a similar opportunity to scrutinize the candidate before hiring.
Tom, I hope you continue this blog post-election. It would be very useful to try and get the board members on the record about how they intend to execute the next superintendent search. I did not see all of the candidate forums, so i don't know if Salem, Hernandez, or Wilkins were asked this during the campaign.
I saw Halperin defend the process recently on the District 65 parents facebook page by saying they wanted it to be anonymous to "attract the best candidates." Of course, this is illogical. They love Horton and he was applying all across the country in 2019 in public searches. Even though the board president claimed during the search that the candidates "requested anonymity", it is pretty much impossible to believe that this was the case with Horton.
Anonymous job searches and hidden processes are antithetical to low-bias recruiting and hiring. More transparency, partner-engagement, clear lines of accountability and articulated, visible, known selection criteria are fundamental to equitable hiring that mitigates selection bias and maximizes community input and investment.
The Board absolutely has an opportunity, and obligation, to be more equitable and transparent in their next hiring process.
This is how I feel about the contract award process too. We want to give contracts to companies owned by women, black and brown folks? Great! Let's open it to ALL those people, not just the ones who happen to be personal friends with the superintendent. This process is severly anti-equity.
Also keep in mind when D65 hired Dr. Horton he wasn’t coming out of the blue. He had relationships dating back to his time in CPS/AUSL. Several staff members and one board member (that I know of) had relationships with him already. It was likely they had him in mind when they started the search.
I have spent hours searching recorder of deeds systems for proof of properties owned by St. Chi and come up empty handed. If it does own properties its not in the tristate area or any major city with a public recording of deeds.
Please, ATL friends, take all of this with a grain of salt. You will find Horton an agent of change. He will change test scores and readiness levels. He will change how your district funds projects and spends money. He will change the teacher/staff satisfaction. Lots of change. Well, considering the turmoil you’ve experienced, perhaps not. Horton is a great man. Just ask him.
Also, I had a friend who received one of the "your a white supremacist" emails in early Jan. 2021. Imagine the surprise when it was directed to a local newspaper to cover and instead of an article on that, we woke up to news of "hate crime"..... It was VERY CLEAR from the timeline that Tom presents above and from the EPD report that the so called "hate crime" to Biz's car was completely fabricated to avoid an apology and instead redirect the attention and double down on the narrative that the board was under threat. SUPER OBVIOUS. Read the police report. It's ridiculous. And, try and remember the last time a lesbian leader was under threat in Evanston...
Question - while I am super happy they are picking up your research, I am a little surprised they aren't honing more in on enrollment loss and bad achievement for Black/Brown students during Horton's tenure. DeKalb student population is 80%+ Black and Hispanic and in yesterday's AJC article, two of their board members said “Board members were most impressed with Dr. Horton’s innovative approaches that have consistently led to demonstrated success in dramatically improving student achievement for all students.". I just don't understand how they could say that. I have seen ZERO data that shows any student achievements. In fact, it's quite the opposite. So what info. are they relying on? Data from before D65? Any ideas?
Their enrollment numbers are coming from an out of date D65 website: https://www.district65.net/Page/2508
That's a great question. Transparency is a core government function and I think all government agencies should be be willing to support FOIA. District 65 is a 150 million dollar organization funded most by locals, surely they can handle the ~12 or so FOIA requests they get per month from parents. Before local newspapers were dead, they would get probably more than this from local journalists, who are all now unemployed.
Requests that are too burdensome, request identifying information, or take too long just get rejected anyway. You have to know what records you're looking for in advance. You can't just go fishing.
I should add: I *don't* like that this is becoming a partisan issue for the left because we are annoyed that conservative parents are asking about the CRT curriculum. If the powers ever change (and they will), we will want these transparency laws in place when the next folks in charge start putting together a curriculum that prioritizes "creative design"
You certainly have a right to petition the government; that's guaranteed in the first amendment of the constitution, much less the board policies. But you don't have a right to force them to listen or agree with you. The whole point of elections is to vote for people who we think will administrate the ideas we believe in.
If he's not using district resources to do it, I don't care
Did you listen to the song in the background? It's hardly celebratory, it's literally a song about racism. And either way if you read the emails he is sharing they *are* creepy. He was posting that to make a point that racism still exists and would he would be right, especially given the last 5 comments you've left. There is nobody in office that deserves to receive emails like that.
Are you one of the people who sent him a creepy email?
Listen, I get it. Some of the emails that they said are threatening were okay. There were a bunch that were just boring complaints. However, there were certainly a handful with weirdass religious undertones and at least one with a legitimate threat.
Congrats you can find discrimination in the dictionary.
Now define "unjust" or "just" - I would start with Plato's Republic Book 2. See you in 30 years.
Context matters, surely.
If you have 9 boring complaints and 1 death threat, the 9 boring emails do not cancel out the death threat.
So I thought that no one actually ever received any death threats, where is proof that happened? Please delete previous comments on the articles you just locked please. I was trying to help shed light however now it seems you are also looking to harm by not deleting the posts you so many times wanted to have go away . Delete previous comments please.
Hello anonymous - I did FOIA it. Did you? Did you read his apology? I suspect not because you were too busy obsessing over his thoughts about race.
“I want to be clear about our efforts to fight the pandemic of racism that has taken just as many lives as COVID-19. We will not stop, we will continue to provide equity training for our staff. We will continue to diversify our workforce, we will continue to build an anti-racist curriculum, we will continue to build learning environments where all students can thrive and be their authentic selves.”
Imagine a leader making the Covid pandemic about racism of the past and that any blowback is solely because of his race or ethnicity