Akron teachers’ union seeks injunction to stop tutoring program, members protest at board meeting

The Akron Education Association filed suit Monday against the city’s Board of Education and its superintendent, Michael Robinson, to stop a tutoring program the board approved earlier this month. The suit also accuses members of violating open meetings laws.

At a school board meeting later in the day, Robinson recommended the board rescind its vote to approve the tutors, a proposal that failed in a 5-2 vote. Board members said they wanted to learn more about community concerns about the program. They said they intended to come back to discuss and perhaps reconsider their decision before a Feb. 1 deadline to accept state funds for tutoring. 

The suit, filed in Summit County Common Pleas Court, asks a judge to enjoin the district from using Varsity Tutors or any other private tutoring firm. Don Malarcik, an attorney representing the AEA, said the way the contract was approved was “improper and illegal.”

The board voted to approve the tutoring contract Jan. 8 after coming out of executive session. There are limited legal reasons that let a board hold a discussion away from the public, and Malarcik said members of the Akron Board of Education did not provide an acceptable reason.

Board President Diana Autry said the discussion was for personnel and pending legal matters, but according to the lawsuit, that’s insufficient detail. Votes coming out of an illegally held executive session should be voided, Malarcik said.

“This isn’t a new area of the law,” he said. “You either do it right or you do it wrong, and they did it wrong. There are consequences to doing it wrong.”

On top of that, Malarcik said, the board further violated the state’s open meetings law by posting a video of the meeting that clips a discussion about the Varsity Tutors vote. 

Meeting minutes corrected to include information from missing video

During the Jan. 8 meeting, the livestream showed board member Rene Molenaur talking about her concerns about voting on the contract before board member Barbara Sykes asked that discussion be focused on the contract itself. That exchange is no longer part of the video available online.

At the board meeting Monday, Molenaur pushed to correct the section of the official minutes that dealt with the missing video. She noted that a discussion of the livestream was moved off the agenda within an hour of the board meeting. The minutes were approved once they were amended to make note of the fact that Sykes called for a point of order — drawing attention to a violation of the board’s meeting rules — and there was no response to the call, and no further discussion, before the vote.

Pat Shipe, the AEA president, said in a Jan. 16 letter to members of the teachers’ union that the video was “very quickly and, we believe, quite evidently edited to remove the exchange between Molenaur and Sykes.” 

Robinson refuted that claim the next day, saying in a letter to Shipe that her implication was “both reckless and inaccurate.”

A public records request from Shipe asking for unedited and edited copies of the video as well as edits made to the livestream was denied because “no portion of the 1/8/2024 Board meeting was edited,” said Alex Cortes, an attorney representing the school district, in an email that was included as part of the filing.

Mark Williamson, a spokesperson for the district, declined to comment on the lawsuit. The district will have 28 days to respond in writing.

Malarcik said he thought the video had been edited, given there is no missing time in the rest of the recording — or similar issues in videos from other meetings. He said the district’s excuse that there was a buffering issue was “not believable.” He said the missing exchange was in line with an attempt to shield discussion about the contract from the public.

“To think buffering magically happened during the criticism is just not credible,” he said.

AEA members turn out to protest during board meeting

The AEA’s concerns about the contract also led the group to file a grievance with the school district. In the grievance, Shipe claimed the tutoring contract is subject to the collective bargaining agreement between the board and the AEA. 

That concern brought dozens of sign-toting members to the meeting Monday. During public comment, some AEA members and their supporters expressed concern about their jobs and questioned the quality of the tutoring company itself.

Alana Treen, a social studies teacher at East High School, said she has seen complaints online about the quality of teaching offered by Varsity Tutors.

“Varsity Tutors is wrong for the district; Varsity Tutors is wrong for our families,” Treen said. “I respectfully ask you to do what’s right.”

Kathleen Brown, a tutor at North High School, suggested the district could use the money available for the tutoring program to make other hiring selections. 

The $156,000 contract with Varsity Tutors for Schools, a Missouri company, would be funded by the Ohio Department of Education and pay for 2,400 hour-long sessions with Akron Public Schools students through the end of June. In her letter to members, Shipe called it “one of the most disturbing assaults on our collective bargaining agreement and workplace conditions we have seen in the recent past.” 

She said the plan threatens members’ jobs, undermines the teachers’ contract the school board agreed to, and “greatly damages and further erodes the trust and transparency which we have attempted to maintain in good faith” with the administration.

Shipe said she also intended to file an unfair labor practice complaint with the State Employment Relations Board Tuesday.

Others are in favor of the additional tutoring, and told the board as much. One person, Cynthia Blake, told board members the additional tutoring would be a “great help” to her granddaughter, who is struggling. Gregory Harrison said not supporting reading help for students would be a tragedy.

“When students can’t read, they have no chance,” he said. “Do not make us choose between teachers and the community. We can support both at the same time.”

‘A sad day for our scholars and families’

In asking that the board rescind the vote, Robinson said he thought the tutoring program was an “incredible opportunity” for fourth grade students who didn’t receive promotion scores in reading on the Ohio state test as third graders. But the AEA’s resistance caused him to reconsider.

“What started as something wonderful has turned into the opposite,” he said. “Today is indeed a sad day for our scholars and families.”

In rejecting the request to rescind the vote, board members said they had unanswered questions based on issues attendees brought up with Varsity Tutors. They wanted to do more research before making a hasty decision to reject the contract.

Carla Jackson, the board’s vice president, said in an interview that she thought teachers would be able to fill the positions. She wasn’t concerned about the quality of Varsity Tutors’ employees, she said, if they were Akron Public Schools teachers — but now, she’s not sure if there is accountability for employees.

“I just think some clarity needs to happen,” she said. “Ultimately, we want to serve kids. Infighting between adults doesn’t serve children.” 

Board member Bruce Alexander said he wasn’t on the board “to make everyone happy” but was concerned that the city could lose funds meant to help students. Robinson confirmed that if the district rejected the state money, it would go elsewhere.

While no other meeting was scheduled, members discussed the possibility of holding another vote on the topic next week. Stephen Thompson, the district’s chief financial officer and treasurer, suggested another meeting would be futile without discussion with the AEA.

“You need to engage with union leadership first and make sure you have something to bring to the table,” he told the board.

Later, Thompson added that he hoped there would be “robust negotiations” between the parties. He said he didn’t want Akron to lose access to the money.

But Autry, the board president, said the injunction filing made that a challenge.

“We don’t have a lot of time,” she said.

In the meantime, the contract is continuing to move forward. Molenaur voted to rescind, saying she wanted residents to know there would be a “thorough discussion” when the board next meets. Board member Job Perry joined her in doing so.

Amy Kerem, a tutor at Schumacher Community Learning Center who watched the exchange, said she’d like to know if the state can give the school district the money to make its own tutoring decisions. She noted that in-school tutors don’t work on Fridays. Additional money could pay for more hours.

She said she was concerned that board members didn’t ask questions about what tutors would be teaching and what qualifications they had. 

Shipe, in a text message during the meeting, said educators who work for the school system “will not be applying to a private vendor in order to do their own jobs” and teach their own students.

“The only party that is denying our students additional instruction is the Board and the Superintendent through their own actions,” she wrote.

Later, she said she was disappointed the board decided not to rescind the contract. The AEA will continue to move forward with its grievance and other legal efforts, she said.

“What we saw today at the board meeting was a groundswell of support from across the state demanding transparency, accountability and teacher-led instruction,” she said.

In the suit, Shipe also states that the district did not respond to an October open records request she made asking for information regarding the district’s relationship with Varsity Tutors. In addition to the injunction, the suit requests $500 for every violation of the open meetings law, plus attorney fees. The lawsuit also asks for the records to be released.

“It’s all part and parcel, they’re all related,” Malarcik said of the records requests and the alleged open meeting violations. “We’re going to be aggressive in our attempts to get to the truth.”