By Chris Fox
For The Elmhurst Independent
At the recent meeting of the District 205 School Board, members voted unanimously during the meeting to approve a one-year consulting contract with Dr. Jarvis Sanford. Dr. Keisha Campbell, who officially began her role as District 205 Superintendent on July 1, recommended Sanford’s hiring for the 2021-22 school year. Campbell said Sanford will serve as a consultant in an interim capacity. She stated his duties will include supporting day-to-day operations and engaging school leaders.
She mentioned that Dr. Scott Grens, who had been the district’s assistant superintendent of innovation and systems management, was recently appointed as the district’s interim associate superintendent.
Campbell stated that she could end Sanford’s contract with the district at any time. Board member Jim Collins asked if there was a limit to the number of days Sanford could work for the district. Campbell said there was no limit. Campbell also said that she expected that the district would hire a full-time employee, presumably to fill the vacancy left by Grens’s promotion, in the spring of 2022.
Before becoming District 205’s superintendent on July 1, Campbell worked as the director of school leadership with the Academy for Urban School Leadership in Chicago. When District 205 announced its hiring of Campbell in April, an online search of the Academy for Urban School Leadership described the entity as a network of 31 schools with more than 16,000 students, and a private organization that partners with Chicago Public Schools, as well as other districts around the nation.
Sanford is a former colleague of Campbell at the Academy for Urban School Leadership. An online search of Sanford revealed a story (updated on May 12) from Chalkbeat—a nonprofit news organization covering education—that Chicago Public Schools plans to dismantle the Academy for Urban School Leadership, and “absorb its 31 schools back into the district over the next three years.”
That same Chalkbeat story reported that the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association aired grievances about Sanford’s treatment of principals. The story stated that Chicago Public Schools confirmed that Sanford, a managing director at the Academy for Urban School Leadership, was under investigation.
A WBBM Newsradio story from May 12 reported that the president of the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association alleged that the Chicago Public Schools Law Department conspired with “an allegedly abusive supervisor of principals to change the course of an investigation.” The WBBM story did not mention Sanford by name, but a May 13 post on the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association’s Facebook page noted that the association’s president referred to alleged abuses by Sanford. According to a May 11 post on the association’s Facebook page, “Despite the fear of retaliation, more than 20 principals and school administrators submitted statements alleging abusive behavior by Sanford.”
[A full story on the recent District 205 School Board meeting can be found elsewhere in this issue.]
