Mediator to resolve dispute with district
By Bill Beene
Of the St. Louis American
A two-week-long fight between Riverview Gardens School District and its high school student body over the controversial contract refusal for their popular principal is still in full swing.
While both sides have agreed to an official mediator, neither is backing down.
Students who walked out of school twice last week and marched to protest at district headquarters on a wet and nippy Thursday want their principal of nearly two years, Clem Okaoma, to have his contract reinstated.
Riverview Gardens Superintendent Henry Williams and School Board President Marlene Terry say their decision is final.
Okaoma has been laying low but said he would come back if the board decided to renew his contract.
Okaoma and students are supported by parents, teachers and some school board members who have talked the protesters into returning to school.
“We decided to tell them to go back to school and finish out the school year and we would get a mediator, but the battle isn’t over,” said Donna Vickers, a parent who helped coordinate the protest.
The choice of a mediator might mark the beginning of yet another battle.
While board president Terry said she plans to tap a mediator with the Missouri Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, parents and students have recruited a Washington University School of Law teacher to mediate.
With a mediator, parents expect to get to the bottom of why Okaoma’s contract wasn’t renewed. Most of them believe that the non-renewal of his contract was a personal blow.
Former board member Richard Hunt agrees.
“I believe he didn’t get a fair shake,” said Hunt, who said he decided not run for another board seat due to the “politics that Marlene (Terry) tries to play.” “She wanted him out of that school, and she got her way,” he said of Terry.
Hunt said he knows first-hand that the decision not to renew Okaoma’s contract stemmed from a visit that Terry made to Riverview Gardens High School.
According to Hunt, Terry became upset when a police officer working the school parking lot entrance didn’t recognize her.
“She stormed into Mr. Okaoma’s office demanding that everybody know who she is and that she is allowed to come and go as she wishes,” Hunt said.
“She was trying to verbally reprimand him when the police officer was just doing his job.”
Terry had a run-in with Okaoma in January, when he and some students and staff suggested that the graduation ceremony be relocated from Powell Symphony Hall to St. Charles Family Arena. They thought the move would save money and allow more guests to attend.
Hunt said that Terry and Okaoama had problems repeatedly this year and that she used her influence on the administration to trump up charges against him.
“She has several other board members that will follow whatever she says,” Hunt said. “If she says not to rehire him, they will agree not to rehire him.”
When Hunt and another “independent” board member started questioning the non-renewal of Okaoma’s contract, Hunt said Terry bristled.
“She said we shouldn’t be questioning something that was going on when we have hired this person (Williams) in as a superintendent – he knows what he’s doing and we should just let him do his job,” Hunt recalled.
Williams, who ran a consulting firm in Creve Coeur before he took the super job in Riverview Gardens, came with a blemished educational career.
Though he reportedly cut a school’s dropout rate in Syracuse, N.Y. and raised test scores and attendance, he was criticized for purchasing $700,000 worth of computer equipment without the board’s permission.
After the Kansas City School District gave him a three-year contract, they bought him out after two.
Three years before that, Williams accepted a Little Rock, Ark. position, but was often in opposition with the board and obtained a reputation for having a bad temper.
Students at Riverview Gardens High School accused Williams of calling them “ignorant” and Terry of calling them “ghetto.”
On the other hand, students, parents and board members have high praise for Okaoma.
“He made our school much better,” said Freshman Ebony Wyse.
“He was the best principal we ever had,” said senior Samantha Speed.
Hunt said Okaoma had a positive impact on the school, which currently only has provisional accreditation and is plagued with fights.
“Some test scores had been improving, graduation rates improved and dropout rates declined,” Hunt said of Okaoma’s tenure of nearly two years. “If given the opportunity, he would have turned the school around.”