Dayton Public Schools Superintendent Elizabeth Lolli said the district would not comment on personnel matters. Jones and Davis did not return phone calls seeking comment.
Hunter said DPS Executive Director of Athletics Victoria Jones was the one who recommended that the three associate directors’ contracts not be renewed. Hunter said in an email he was not given a reason why the contract wasn’t renewed and said he felt it was unfair to the students he was working with.
Victoria Jones did not respond to questions from this news outlet about why the moves were made or how the athletic department structure would change moving forward.
The three associate directors have only been in their current roles since 2021, according to district records. Two coaches spoke at the board meeting, about six hours after the meeting started, in support of keeping the current associate athletic directors.
From 2015 to 2018, DPS was shaken by sports scandals. There was the attempted “fixing” of a football game for playoff reasons, multiple cases of ticket money going missing, and a basketball eligibility scandal that eventually forced DPS to apologize for wrongly suing the Ohio High School Athletic Association.
In 2018, Shawna Welch was named athletic director after the previous AD, Mark Baker, was moved to the truancy department. Near the same time, DPS hired two full-time associate athletic directors, Ramon Johnson and Marscilla Packer, to work under Welch, eliminating the six part-time “building AD” positions that had served each high school for years.
That lasted only two years, and the current athletic director, Victoria Jones, was hired in July 2020, after Welch moved to Edwin Joel Brown Middle School to become the principal. The three associate ADs joined Victoria Jones in January 2021 (Hunter and LaShaunta’ Jones), and July 2021 (Davis).
Also, a resignation agreement for Welch, effective June 30, was unanimously approved by the school board Tuesday night.
The DPS board was in executive session — a part of the meeting closed to the public — for almost four hours on Tuesday night. The reason listed on the board agenda was “to consider the employment or dismissal of employees.” The associate athletic directors could be seen entering and exiting the room where the executive session was being held.
The votes to end the employment of Jones and Davis were both 6-1, with only board member Chrisondra Goodwine voting to keep the pair. For Hunter, it was a 4-3 vote, with Goodwine, Dion Sampson and Joe Lacey voting against non-renewal.
The two coaches who spoke to the board, Ronnee Tingle and Fazlullah Ahmad, said they have been coaching since 2011. Tingle said there have been multiple changes of direction while she has coached, but that the last two years have been stable. She asked the school board to consider not changing everything so drastically and to see what is working.
“We cannot lose anyone else,” Tingle said.
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