Board members who voted against the new, one-year contract included Will Smith, Karen Wick-Gagnet and Dion Sampson.
Smith pointed out that the board doesn’t need an entire year to find their next superintendent. He noted that Columbus and Akron schools are both trying to find a new superintendent for this next school year now, and bigger districts than Dayton have been able to find someone.
Smith said people in the community thought there was going to be a change and he didn’t see the need to pivot away from that. He said he will work with the next person no matter who is chosen.
“If we did not feel that was gonna happen then we should have let (the community) know hey, no change is gonna happen, and we’ll keep moving,” Smith said.
Wick-Gagnet said she felt the board didn’t open up a national search in a timely manner, and said she felt new leadership is needed in closing gaps. She noted the highest achieving buildings in the district are on the east side of Dayton while the lowest achieving buildings are on the west side of Dayton.
She said when she has the opportunity to hire new leadership, she wants to identify some important pieces that she would like the leadership to look like and characteristics they should embody.
“It’s no disrespect to the current leadership, but I believe that it looks a lot different,” Wick-Gagnet said.
Jocelyn Rhynard, a member who voted in favor of keeping Lolli for another year, said she felt the board should be slow and deliberate about who the board hires next.
“We will show our community, our district, that this is the right person,” Rhynard said.
Multiple members of the community also spoke about the one-year contract.
David Esrati, who is currently running for Dayton City Commission, opposed the new contract.
“You are embarrassing our community if you think about finding somebody from out of state, from someplace else, that is going to come into this community and figure out what’s wrong and figure out how to lead when you’ve got 29 buildings that Dr. Lolli probably still needs a GPS to get to some of them,” said Esrati, who has been an outspoken critic of Lolli.
But Angela Bailey, another long-time critic of Lolli’s, said she has found in working with Lolli on a parent advisory board in the last year that Lolli is willing to acknowledge mistakes and make amends. Bailey said she wanted another year with Lolli and said the board should take their time to pick the next superintendent.
“She asked us what we needed, and she has gotten us everything that we needed,” Bailey said. “I still have several frustrations, many which preceded her being here, so I can’t put total blame.”
The board put out a request for proposals for search firms in February but re-issued another request on April 5. The deadline for that request is May 8.
Board president Chrisondra Goodwine said the board only got a handful of proposals the first time, most of which were not from search firms that worked with urban districts, and the board is hopeful to get a more competitive field this time around.
Lolli’s base salary was $205,000 in the 2021-2022 school year, according to her contract. The Dayton school board voted at its Jan. 10 meeting five to one in favor of granting Lolli a retroactive 5% increase to Aug. 1, 2022. Member Joe Lacey was the sole no vote at that meeting and board member Gabriella Pickett was not present.
Lolli was first hired as the assistant superintendent for teaching and learning in 2016 for the district. She was promoted to interim superintendent after former superintendent Rhonda Corr was ousted in fall 2017, following a teachers’ union meeting where Corr was described as “unkempt” and after she allegedly broke other rules for the district, including receiving death benefits for a domestic partner while legally married to another person, according to a pre-disciplinary hearing notice.
Lolli was named superintendent in March 2018 and was named 2023 Ohio superintendent of the year. Lolli has been in education for 45 years, with 15 years as a superintendent in various districts.
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