The athletic director at North High School, who was placed on administrative leave in May pending an investigation into wrongdoing, has resigned from the district.
In a single-sentence letter Jan. 14, Carrie Stewart said she was resigning “from all of my positions at Akron Public Schools” effective that day. The Board of Education accepted her resignation Jan. 27.
The investigation, which was completed in July, concluded that Stewart had repeatedly violated the school district’s ethics policy, including by leaving unauthorized video cameras in her office and by failing to keep unsupervised students out of her office. Signal Akron received a copy of the report Wednesday in response to a public records request.
She also refused to move her office, despite being directed by the North High School principal multiple times to do so. And she provided false information to the principal about a missing student, the report concluded.
A second report, completed in October, looked into whether Stewart had taken supplemental contracts for coaching and advising roles and failed to do the work. That report concluded that it was not clear whether she had fulfilled those duties, and it seemed unlikely that clear evidence would be available to make a determination.
It also said that she recommended her daughters, Erika and Emily Johnson, for coaching positions at the school.
“Stewart violated APS Policy by recommending herself and her daughters for supplemental contracts,” the October report states. “Doing so raises a ‘reasonable question of conflict’ with her duties and responsibilities as Athletic Director, as she and her daughters both benefit financially from such recommendations, in clear violation of the APS Conflict of Interest Policy.”
District was moving to terminate Stewart
Stewart, who started at North High School in 1999, told Signal Akron as the investigation began last May that “I plan to retire from North High School some day.”
She did not respond to a phone call seeking comment about why she decided to resign, but Don Malarcik, an attorney representing Stewart, said he was contacted by an administration attorney in November, who advised him that the district was moving to terminate Stewart.
Malarcik said in an email that Stewart’s resignation “was in no way an admission of wrongdoing,” but that he advised her that challenging a wrongful termination would take years.
“I felt confident that she would eventually be vindicated, yet I certainly understood her desire to move on and avoid years of litigation,” he said.
Malarcik said in a text message that Stewart did not want him to comment on her “current or future employment opportunities.”
The fact that Stewart continued to collect a paycheck for months after the report showed she had violated school board policy is “concerning,” said Carla Jackson, the president of the Akron Board of Education.
She said the school board will be following up on some of the issues identified in the report and has already begun to do so.
“A policy is only as good as it’s adhered to,” she said. “What are the measures of accountability? It’s a question I would pose to my colleagues.”
Investigation follows conclusion of inquiry into North principal
The inquiry into Stewart began as another investigation concluded into then-North High School Principal Kathryn Rodocker. Rodocker, who was placed on administrative leave for nine months while the district investigated accusations that she created a toxic work environment, was later cleared. She returned to work in another role last May and is now the campus principal at Garfield Community Learning Center. Rodocker did not respond to a phone call seeking comment.
While the probe into Rodocker was ongoing, other issues at North came to the forefront. One involved Stewart’s office, which was a hub for student activity, according to the reports.
The original report into accusations against Rodocker, from April 17, said Stewart encouraged students to skip class by hiding in her office, had video cameras in that office and refused to move offices when Rodocker told her to do so.
Stewart was also said to have thrown a surprise party in the school gym without a permit, to have violated fundraising policies in the district and to have consistently parked her car in a painted, lined area instead of in staff parking spaces, even when offered a designated spot.
“I run this bitch,” Stewart said to a leader of one of North High School’s academies and referring to the high school, according to the report.
Stewart previously told Signal Akron she was “a little unnerved” to see the accusations against her in the report after so much time with “never a single complaint.” When reached last May, she said the fact that she had a camera in her room was “not a secret” but that “there were never any cameras to tape students.”
Video cameras in office were cause for concern
The video cameras in Stewart’s office were one of the focal points of the July 8 report. While Rodocker repeatedly told Stewart to remove the video cameras from her office, Stewart did not intend to comply, the report said. Instead, she told Rodocker in an email that she unplugged the cameras during the week and only left them plugged in on the weekends. The cameras were only removed when Rodocker took them down.
The audio and visuals from the cameras streamed to Stewart’s cell phone, an academy principal at North said in an email included in the report.
The cameras came to Rodocker’s attention after a female student told the academy principal she wasn’t concerned about being alone in Rodocker’s office with two male students because of the presence of cameras. A month after Stewart was first told to take the cameras down, they were still there.
Additionally, the July report said Stewart did not intend to move her office — one of 12 that Rodocker planned to move to better utilize space in the school and a change that the principal planned to make to Stewart’s room, in part, in response to students skipping class and spending time in the office instead. Although Rodocker repeatedly offered Stewart help to pack and move to another room the two had agreed upon, two months later, she still had not moved.
Students congregated in athletic director’s office
Unsupervised students congregating in Stewart’s office was an “ongoing issue” through the 2022-2023 school year, the report said.
Rodocker asked Stewart to keep students out of her office, the report said, but there was “no evidence demonstrating that Stewart took any meaningful action to curtail this issue.”
“In fact, there is evidence demonstrating that Stewart encouraged this behavior by giving certain students keys to her office,” it said. Some wore the keys on a lanyard that said “Stew’s Crew,” according to the report.
Students also had access to the room via a piece of metal that was hidden behind a picture in Stewart’s office that they used to shimmy open the door without a key, the report said.
And the report said that Stewart had a paper accordion blind that she used to cover her windows. Rodocker removed it from Stewart’s door twice; Stewart continued to put it back up, the report said. Rodocker said at least six students faced truancy issues because they spent more time in Stewart’s office than they did in class.
Parents of students who got in trouble for congregating in Stewart’s room were upset over the circumstances of their discipline, Rodocker said in the report.
Stewart’s actions demonstrated ‘poor judgment’
In another instance, when a student went missing, Stewart provided Rodocker with the wrong name of the student even though she had visited that student the day before, according to the report.
Her actions demonstrate “poor judgment” and “a lack of personal integrity,” the report said.
Stewart refused to be interviewed for the report. In his email, Malarcik said he believed the investigations into both Rodocker and Stewart were “biased and flawed.” Stewart decided to resign when it became clear that the administration was making her a scapegoat, he said.
Stacey Hodoh, a spokesperson for the school district, said in an email the district does not comment on personnel investigations. Diana Autry, who was president of the school board during the investigation, did not respond to a phone call or a text message about Stewart.
In addition to questions about conduct in her office, the investigation also looked into issues with Stewart failing to reserve rooms at the school for athletic and other events, leading to conflicts over who had priority in the spaces. Stewart often scheduled such events without getting the proper permits, according to emails included as part of the report.
“Any time there is a problem, it is unfortunate,” said Jackson, the board president. “School is supposed to be a place of learning, of structure.”