The Sherman File Part 1

Jedd Sherman received the letter on a Tuesday. 

“I will recommend that your contract to serve as Red Oak High School Principal shall not be renewed for the 2014-2015 contract year,” stated the third and final paragraph, dated April 8 by Superintendent Terry Schmidt. 

As brief and succinct as the letter was, it capped a two-year struggle between principal and superintendent, featuring disputed evaluations, heated arguments and secretly taped meetings. 

However, that letter would also prove to merely serve as the first course of a buffet of controversy that has since included allegations of illegally closed meetings, threatened legal action by a state board, a student protest, an emotional public meeting and deactivated security cameras. 

And yet to come is a pending administrative hearing to determine if Sherman should in fact be fired as Red Oak’s high school principal. 

If there has been one constant in the ongoing dispute between principal, superintendent and the school board it is this: since at least December 2013, Sherman has requested a public meeting to discuss his evaluations with the board in order to clarify what he believes are discrepancies in it. 

The school board has been equally consistent in denying Sherman’s requests, despite a recommendation to the contrary from the Iowa Public Information Board, which may result in punitive actions against the individual school board members. 

However, the school board and Schmidt have been unable to completely silence Sherman and his pleas for transparency as Iowa code allows him and anyone appointed by him to review his personnel file at central office. 

Several weeks ago, Sherman started sharing the contents of that file and his evaluations with Red Oak Express Editor Gregory Orear and KCSI Owner/Station Manager Jerry Dietz partially to publicize what he feels is an unfair evaluation system, but ultimately, with one goal in mind: to save his job. 

While part one of the series focuses on Sherman’s evaluations and his ongoing dispute with Schmidt, part two will detail Sherman’s inability to meet two of three remediation targets which lead to his firing, one of which stemmed from a perceived failure to implement an assessment program while the other accuses him of acting without integrity, largely due to consensually and secretly taping conversation between himself, Schmidt and other administrators. 

 The Evaluations

While Sherman has been employed at Red Oak for six years, he has undergone a formal evaluation process only in the last two. 

His first evaluation was completed in February 2013, and in it, Schmidt stated Sherman failed to meet four of six established standards. In his final comments on the evaluation, Schmidt ominously stated “it is unclear to this evaluator if remedial actions with Principal Sherman have a likelihood of success.”

Sherman challenged many of Schmidt’s statements in the evaluation and in April 2013, signed off on an amended version of it. In that amended version, Schmidt retracted an accusation that Sherman disregarded school policy when he advised an employee to file a police report regarding a breach of the school’s computer security.  

During that incident in September 2012, a student used a secretary’s computer name and password to access inappropriate material from the Internet.

While the call to police followed the school board’s technology use policy, the employee also told police she was the victim of harassment and Schmidt claimed the district’s policy for reporting employee harassment had been ignored. 

With this retraction, Sherman met three of the six standards and Schmidt also agreed to establish remediation targets for the other three. 

The statement regarding Schmidt’s opinion of Sherman’s future success was also retracted. 

The three remediation targets were finally agreed upon in July 2013, nearly nine months after the initial evaluation. 

They included:

-Development of a “shared vision” with the school community to “promote the success of all students;”

-Developing a “culture of learning” that is “conducive to student learning and staff professional development;”

-And, “promoting the success of all students by acting with integrity, fairness and in an ethical manner,” with an emphasis on teamwork with colleagues. 

As required by a 2007 state law, Red Oak’s school board finally approved in December 2013 the evaluation tool Schmidt had been using for more than a year, and in March 2014, Sherman was again evaluated. 

Sherman offered a portfolio in January 2014 demonstrating his proficiency regarding the six standards, but claims Schmidt ignored it. 

Under this evaluation, Sherman met three of the six standards, failing in two of the remediation targets, specifically those related to developing the culture of learning and acting with integrity and fairness. 

Two Becomes Five

While in that initial letter Schmidt indicated Sherman’s contract would not be renewed due to failure to meet two of the three remediation targets, five reasons were listed by the school board in a separate correspondence to Sherman. 

Those reasons include failure to “develop and maintain a satisfactory working relationship” with the superintendent, other administrators, teachers, and consultants, as well as failing to meet expectations regarding his management responsibilities, although this standard was met according to Schmidt’s evaluation documents for both the 2012-13 and 2013-14 school year.

Regardless of fault, Sherman’s file indicates his relationship with Schmidt has been strained at best in the last couple years. 

Evidence of this is littered throughout Sherman’s nearly 3-inch personnel file and evaluations, and include: 

-Sherman reporting to a state agency a bullying incident from May 2012; 

-The aforementioned computer hacking incident in the fall of 2012; 

-A disagreement regarding the need and location of a handicap-accessible restroom for a wheelchair-bound student. 

Sherman claims in an effort to build a case for his termination, Schmidt began documenting their disagreements, no matter how petty, for the last two years.

One dispute, which resulted in three separate entries in Sherman’s file, was caused by an inaccurate statement in the Red Oak Express. 

In the February 2012 article, the Express stated the high school’s new block schedule format would feature 7, 57-minute sessions instead of 7, 50-minute sessions. 

Schmidt sent an email to Sherman, Board President Lee Fellers, Vice President Warren Hayes, High School Counselor John Grabec and teacher John Gambs, questioning the source of the information while calling the account “one of the worst written articles I have ever seen.”

A few hours later, Sherman responded “I read what Mr. Orear wrote. The article is relatively accurate with the exception of the 57-minute period.”

Sherman further noted in the same edition of the Express, there were numerous other articles highlighting achievements of Red Oak students.

“Regrettably, perhaps foolishly, I saw also the good things being represented about Red Oak High School, thanks to the Red Oak Express,” Sherman stated. 

Sherman concluded his email by stating he didn’t feel comfortable being criticized via e-mail in front of select board members and members of his own faculty. 

“From an employee’s perspective, I feel that many people were involved in a discussion about me and my job performance and my feelings are hurt. I did not realize that I was going to be put on trial.”

Following a meeting the next day with Sherman, Schmidt wrote in a summary “as a result of your reactionary writing you were advised this type of behavior is not accepted and will not be tolerated in the future.”

Sherman and Schmidt’s conflicts were frequently documented via “conference summaries” and while entered into the file, were largely Schmidt’s interpretation of the events and not agreed to or signed by Sherman. 

Tensions reached a boiling point Aug. 23, 2013, when Sherman walked out of Schmidt’s office during a meeting after Schmidt allegedly continued to raise his voice. 

The two met again three days later and Schmidt provided this account:

“It was reported to Jedd that if he chooses to unilaterally walkout of another meeting with me or any group meeting (without being excused) in the future that he should expect swift and negative consequences. Jedd replied that he left my office on Aug. 23 because I was yelling at him. I replied that was an untrue statement. He expressed his disagreement.”

The disagreement stemmed from a conversation Sherman had taped between Schmidt, Sherman and other administrators. 

A story detailing the circumstances of that taped meeting, as well as others, will appear in next week’s Express.