“To his credit, he did say that he would still like to have some type of dialogue regarding the concerns at the high school. At this point, I am not certain how we do that. He said that he does not do Facebook, so he is not planning to answer any of my postings online within the threads. In lieu of the Public Input Meeting, I suggested that he hold a series of Press Conferences, but he didn’t seem to be real interested in that scenario either, despite the fact that he could be quoted by the newspapers, radio, and television to give his perspective on many of the issues that have been raised.

Therefore, I am sorry to announce that the Public Meeting on February 8th has been called off at the request of the Superintendent.”

There is an auction scheduled for Saturday at the former MVTHS campus.  There is a gallery of the things up for auction on Olson’s Facebook page.  It is to my understanding that the new school opened being short on supplies.  Here is Olson’s latest post entitled Update #11

“Many people have found it odd that Superintendent Smith agreed to participate in an Open Forum to answer issues about the high school during a phone conversation with me at 9:30am on Monday morning, but then less than 6 hours later he called to cancel the meeting because he knew he didn’t have “control” of the situation and he is quite frankly afraid of what we have been discovering about how he and Knutson have been conducting day-to-day business at the school without any accountability or discipline by the board.”

“It’s starting to unravel, the secrets are coming out and they know it. The three unions that represent the teachers, maintenance, and clerical staff at Mt Vernon high school recently took a vote of “No Confidence” against both Smith and Knutson in November. The list of grievances and accusations against Knutson were presented to the board in their January meeting. The vote of “no confidence” against Smith has not yet been presented to the board, but was made public following a special closed session meeting of the board last week during which time the board met in an attempt to quiet the storm of information that has recently been flowing like an avalanche to the public through social media and letters to the editor and is now becoming the focal point of local and area newspapers and television. The latest newspaper to join the chorus is the Wayne County Press in Fairfield, which has taken an interest due to the fact that Smith spent one year as Superintendent at Wayne City in 2008 before coming to MVTHS.”

“To add new fuel to the fire, Superintendent Smith and Assistant Principal Knutson have organized yet another massive auction of the contents from the old campus. As you recall, hundreds of items were sold for pennies on the dollar back in the summer, including filing cabinets, desks, chairs, video projectors, computers, televisions, telephones, copiers, tools, maintenance equipment….even all the trash cans were sold. Nothing was taken to the new school. They felt everything needed to be new, which of course has added to the taxpayers cost. All of those items in the summer were sold for a net amount of $61,000 payable to the school district. The replacement costs for all of those items is hundreds of thousands of dollars. It is reckless spending by the administration with no accountability and discipline by the board.”

“Some of the classes at the school such as foods (Home Ec) and automotive (CTE-Career & Technical Education) began operating this year without essential items needed to hold class such as stoves, refrigerators, automotive lifts, tools, and engines. This is especially troublesome and unfair to the Seniors who looked forward to their final year of high school in a shiny new facility only to be let down by a total lack of competence and organization through the actions of Knutson and Smith. The athletic department is also operating without an ice machine although they always had an ice machine at the old campus. If they want ice now, it is under lock and key by Knutson and coaches/teachers have to request ice. In fact, a LOT of things in the school are under lock & key by Knutson.”

“Now, another auction of used items from the old school will be sold at auction again this Saturday for pennies on the dollar. Among the items to be sold are the original ice machine I mentioned, and several gently used stoves and refrigerators from the old campus that all could be used now and SHOULD be utilized now at the new school where they are needed. Other items in the auction include stainless steel whirlpool tubs, laptops, desks, chairs, filing cabinets, clocks, telephones, lockers and other classroom supplies. Some of these file cabinets are likely “fireproof” which would be very expensive to replace. If you investigate the current inventory at the new campus, there are probably areas where these are still needed to preserve important files against fire. The auction begins at 9:00am this Saturday near H building at the old campus. If you are ticked off about this auction, I encourage you to stop by the auction and tell the administration what you think. Look at the attached PHOTOS of the auction items. Do you see any reason why these gently used items cannot be utilized at the new campus and SAVE the taxpayers money? Replacing any of these items with something new is senseless spending.”

“If the administration and school board are actually concerned with saving money as they indicated when they tried to take action to demote Doug Creel and cut his salary last month under false pretense, then why are they insisting on buying EVERYTHING new and not utilizing anything from the old campus at the new campus? It’s just more careless spending and no accountability. The taxpayers are getting tired of the same old song & dance that is playing on this broken record.”

“For those of you who have been out of the loop, let’s review some of the additional snafu’s that this administration and school board have their fingerprints on. The football field was not done properly as a “crown” was not built into the field for proper drainage. As a result, the football team played all home games at the old campus this year and might have to do the same thing next year. None of the buildings at the old campus have been demolished and the school continues to pour money into the old campus buildings through utilities, insurance and maintenance. There is some concern that school will not be able to host track meets this year at the new facility because the installation of the shot put and discus area was poorly done and not properly leveled. This administration did not even have the foresight to build a maintenance building at the new campus for storage. That’s right, over $72 million spent on a new school and no thoughts about storage for the maintenance equipment. Therefore, workers drive back & forth across town to get supplies and maintenance items that are still stored at the old campus. Crazy, huh? You can’t make this stuff up. But sadly it is all true and you notice that none of them have been able to refute anything I have said or printed.”

“The CTE program has already lost two of their feeder school programs and it is likely that Woodlawn and Waltonville students will pull out of the program next year in favor of going directly to Rend Lake College for the same curriculum. Many former programs in the CTE department have been abandoned including 3D design and animation as a result of failed oversight by Rob Knutson. At one time, MVTHS had a series of State Champions in architecture and engineering competition from students enrolled in the programs. Those have all fallen by the wayside and Knutson actually removed all of the awards that once adorned two walls at the high school that used to inspire students who might be interested in the program. Knutson also purged all of the former work books and files that were used by a former long-time instructor who has now retired. That instructor built up the program to the highest standards in the state and Mt Vernon was looked upon with great pride in their vocational program (CTE). Not anymore. Now it’s become a joke and the students are the ones suffering.”

“As a result of Knutson’s actions, the new young instructors in the program do not have the resources and knowledge they need to effectively teach classes at the same level and they are often asked to teach multiple subjects within the same class period to multiple students, which is nearly impossible to do and not up to appropriate standards. In fact, the CTE program is one of the many areas where there has been an exodus of teachers due to the antics of Knutson. He continues to manipulate enrollment numbers within various classes to create a false impression of the popularity or interest in a class. Smith and the board are allowing this to happen without any accountability or discipline.”

“The board needs to take action against Smith and Knutson. The public is speaking out and so are the employees of the school district. The board also needs to rescind the vote they took against Doug Creel last month under false pretense. Smith convinced the board that Doug had given him a retirement date and agreed to a package which he did not. Therefore the vote they took was exercised using false information. I confronted the Superintendent about this on the phone and he confirmed to both me and my wife that there was NO retirement date given or implied. The Superintendent will likely deny saying that now. He has been known to change his story many times before. The next school board meeting is Tuesday, February 21. I encourage all concerned citizens of the district to attend the meeting which begins at 6:00pm and show them that the ground swell against Smith and Knutson is getting larger. Our students and our faculty deserve better.”

I spent a lot of time at MVTHS, as a substitute teacher, as well as I did my student teaching there in 1993.  From my point of view Randy Olson has given a fair assessment of the situation. Here are a few of my observations from the situation.

• Joyce Dalton was a good administrator.  She was a tough, but fair disciplinarian.  She set a good Christian example for the young girls in the community.  She took several African American girls under her wing.
• Three of the board members that are running are former teachers in the district.
• I know a few people that attended the last auction.  They said there were a lot of things that were sold “dirt cheap.” There were a lot of desks and office furniture that could not even get a bid.
• Smith was never visible on the campus.  He never left his office.
• I had a vocational student from another district that had a life threatening medical emergency in the classroom.  One employee called 911 while I was trying to reach the vocational office.  I was put on hold on the school switchboard, which was plausible.  I called the district in which the student resided.  I was reprimanded for not following the “proper channels of the chain of command” by Knutson.
• The last few months I was there, you could just tell something was bad wrong, seriously wrong.  I have “pinch hit” at a lot of districts over my lifetime, and I can tell something was just not right.  The massive turnover of teachers was also observed.

Any issues mentioned in this story both Smith and Knuston are free to respond.  Here is my phone number 513-2516.  Feel free to call anytime.

*Steve Dunford is an independent contractor of franklincounty-news.com