AND THE WALLS CAME A-TUMBLING DOWN
Votes of No Confidence Elicit Firings, Resignations and Retirements
The Lede
· NAIS President Donna Orem announces retirement after leading campaign to ruin elite privates
· St. Matthew’s Parish School (CA) Headmaster Ed Kim fired after years of incompetence
· Latin School of Chicago (IL) Board Chair David Koo resigns after being named in lawsuit by parents of 15-year-old LSC student who committed suicide
· Rye Country Day School (NY) Board accepts incoming headmaster Randall Dunn allowing students to call each other the N word
They Would Not See The Land
National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) Board Chair Randall Dunn and National Association of Episcopal Schools (NAES) President Ed Kim leave their respective schools under clouds of disgrace. Figures who should be standard bearers of competence and leaders above reproach have been abject failures. How did two utterly inept headmasters become national organization leaders? Were they innocent cases of failing up? Nope, we are not buying the NAIS and NAES heads just happened to be incompetent despite being chosen to be heads of prestigious national organizations. It looks to us we are facing a situation of incompetence by design. Feigning incompetence is an obvious easy way they cannot be accused of intentionally destroying Independent X School. Yup, these Klingenstein Fellows knew exactly what they were doing.
March Around The City
NAIS Board Chair Randall Dunn, whom spies have reported is apparently quite taken with Undercover Mother, leaves Latin School of Chicago (LSC) in a trail of devastation – allegedly: doubling his assistant’s salary via inexplicable bonuses; giving school contracts to businesses run by said assistant’s partner; compelling teachers to unionize; directing suspect property acquisition; empowering self-avowed Black Panther Randolph Carter and wife Elizabeth Denevi to supplant strong academics with illiberal identity ideology; hiding data from parents from the high priced DEI audit by Bain; constructing the toxic environment for bullying by students and teachers that led to trauma born by countless children and adults, including the suicide of 15-year-old Nate Bronstein; and punishing those, including teachers, who exposed the corruption. Funny – Dunn, who attended Milton Academy with LSC parent JB Pritzker before graduating from Brown, is set to make over $1M by avowing to bring “equity” to private schools. How did he helm LSC for 11 years before deciding in the 11th hour LSC had systemic issues of racism and inequality? Could this be the ever-clever “cause the problem, fix the problem” strategy? Now he is en route to destroy – ahem, fix, one of the Waspiest schools in NY – Rye Country Day. Because, “equity.”
The Trumpets Were Sounding
Only 2 days after a picture perfect graduation ceremony, NAES President Ed Kim was fired as headmaster of St. Matthew’s – oddly another Wasp school, after 4 years of incomprehensible incompetence – allegedly: ignoring parent communications; cancelling school on Wednesdays for an entire school year; acting inappropriately; hiring his wife and daughters to work at the school; compelling a mass exodus of families including alumni families; plummeting secondary school admissions; and causing historic decline in annual giving. Chartered just 3 years after NAIS, NAES includes 1200 of the 1600 NAIS schools in America. Second only to Episcopal Bishop Michael Curry (who presided over the Windsor Castle wedding of patron saints of woke hypocrisy Prince Harry and Meghan Markle and presides over America’s church – the National Cathedral), as president of NAES, Kim is essentially NAIS co-chair. Kim must be kicking himself for helping his lower school principal become the next NAES Associate Director as he is packing a moving van. But with a permanent position on the NAIS Institute for New Heads, we bet the NAIS cartel will place Kim as headmaster of an international NAIS school in no time despite his history of failure. (Sidenote: $5-6K admission for Independent X headmasters to be taught by failed headmasters seems a tad wasteful and questionable.)
Go Back And Occupy Your Own Land
With NAIS headquarters on Code Red alert, it’s no surprise Donna Orem announced her retirement as NAIS President. Orem thanked seminally destructive board chairs Katherine Dinh (Marin Country Day – CA), Bernie Noe (Lakeside – WA), Randall Dunn (LSC – IL), and Jack Creeden (Whitby – CT). Strange, the same headmasters keep coming up. Nice of Randall Dunn to provide glowing remarks in Orem’s retirement announcement, but not even NAIS could persuade Orem to stay and deal with the shitstorm Dunn, Kim, Independent X headmaster, and NAIS have caused by their heavy-handed hubris. Now that her retirement is finally public, will Michael Nachbar be announced as NAIS President to guide “independent” schools from a world of once inspiring dedicated teachers to a future of oxymoronic “humanizing” online learning overseen by menial aids? “Imagining the possibilities for NAIS” is truly inspiring.
Illiberal Ideology ushered in by authoritarian NAIS cartel has proven to be a disaster destroying age old institutions and more - the very psyche and physical beings of children. Let us repeat - children. NAIS will always back the absurdity of its destructive agenda: “At the final session of [last] year’s NAIS Annual Conference, the long anticipated keynote speech from award-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones was about to start. Latin School of Chicago Head Randall Dunn had just delivered a thoughtful introduction, then turned the virtual podium over to Hannah-Jones. But when the live Zoom session focused on Hannah-Jones, the creator of the New York Times 1619 Project, she sat quiet for a moment, then said, “Oh, I was told this was only going to be a Q&A.” Wow, the intellect blows us away. The real question is – why are parents and more importantly trustees allowing it?
Trustees: Self-dealing, ethically questionable “donations,” threatening the enrollment status of children of outspoken parents, emboldening your children to be bullies, or just sitting back. We get it. Your daddy issues and internal insecurities force you to hold tight to your power as trustee. But Junior let his blankie go and so can you. With the current state of affairs, climbing the social ladder is not more important than the welfare of our children. It took being named in a lawsuit for the death of a child for David Koo to resign as LSC Board Chair. Granted, we are told Koo is only resigning “to dedicate his time to his many other civic and professional commitments” after receiving the prestigious Marshall B. Front Award for distinguished Trustee service given to him by the LSC Board. Yes, your eyes do not deceive you – the freaking Marshall B. Front Award for distinguished Trustee! Please hold our Pinot while we toss our worthless Nobel into the marble fireplace.
We are holding the mirror up. Can you stand to look at your reflection? If you can, you do not comprehend the issues or the problem. What do you know about NAIS? What do you know about NAIS’s strategic plan? What do you know about Independent X Headmaster’s past? What do you know about Independent X School’s finances? What do you actually know? We the parents are not the enemy. We are trying to save Independent X School. Why do you insist on blindly supporting Independent X Headmaster in the face of an illiberal purge? Do you really think all of us – including us Democrats, are racist homophobes? If so, get ready to put your annual fund money where your hubris is. Maybe take a minute to check your portfolio first – we hear the market hasn’t been so hot.
Rye Country Day Board: In an email to parents, you represented, “A committee of trustees has been scrutinizing the details of this tragic case and has not found evidence that would support the aggressive claims against Mr. Dunn or that would raise safety concerns for the RCDS community.” What did you scrutinize? How did you investigate these claims? Did you ask why the students who bullied Nate Bronstein were not even suspended for one day? If they received favorable treatment because they were children of trustees? If Randall Dunn is fine with students calling another the N word? Why did you state Nate Bronstein was a “tenth grade student at the Francis Parker School in Chicago this past January” when he transferred to LSC under Randall Dunn’s watch and intended on graduating from LSC? Have you no shame? Even in death, you are claiming Nate Bronstein did not belong at LSC? The very reason he was bullied into an early grave? Is this how you treat a child? Is this how you would want your own child treated? Do unto others as you would have them do unto you?
Why are you protecting the reputation of an out-of-state headmaster over the life of a child? Stop blaming the victim and take responsibility. Did you even google anyone at LSC? Did you analyze one 990? If there is nothing to hide, why did Randall Dunn insist on employees signing ironclad NDAs? Did you read the results of the Bain audit? Do you even know what that is? What exactly did your due diligence consist of? Do you care more about appearances than the wisdom of taking a pause? But yes, by all means monitor “the situation,” vilify heartbroken parents who lost their son, and smear the innocent memory of a child. You are on your way to ending up like St. Matthew’s – with a headmaster who has to be forced out after an exodus of families, a fractured community, and annual giving participation sunk so low that foundations will not make their formerly automatic gifts because no one took the time to do a simple background check. Or do you want to wait until Rye faces its own unimaginable tragedy? Will you care then? What if it is your child? Will Randall Dunn be held accountable then?
Only Be Strong And Courageous
These people are not just destructive, they are hateful. When we say these people, we mean everyone supporting the NAIS cartel – those who work at NAIS, NAIS headmasters who come from out-of-state to be headmaster at Independent X School, trustees who serve NAIS headmasters over the children and the school institutions. NAIS headmasters rule Independent X School as their own fiefdoms. They threaten any of us who speak up. They threaten to expel our innocent children while shielding and exalting the children of their guardian trustees. They threaten whatever they can so we stay quiet. Because they know. We have the truth on our side.
Parents have the power. With the heads of NAIS and NAES cowering and striking out in fear, the market and rising cost of capital will make ideological dogma go to the back burner in favor of structural rebuilding and strengthening.
We are not taking our feet off the pedal.
Shits & Giggles Corner
Kudos, Spence parents! With the end of the fiscal year in one week and only 83% parent participation, will Planned Parenthood pick up Alexis McGill Johnson’s share of the annual fund deficit?
College matriculation lists for the Class of 2022 are out. But did Independent X School hide this year’s matriculation list from you? Top-ranked St. Mark’s (TX) 2022 matriculation looks so depressingly subpar, we’re surprised they published it on their external website.
Stand Up
Not too long since Asians became the new Jews, Jews are once again the new Jews. With the spotlight on discrimination against Asians in admissions, it looks like Independent X School and Independent X University thought they could sneak a bite of admissions discrimination against Jews, again. Meanwhile, Independent X School has ramped up its swastika training. Let’s study world religions and vote on whether the swastika is a sign of hate or peace. Totally appropriate for third graders. Do you identify more with the flag of the Third Reich or the Confederacy? Totally normal discussion question for a sixth-grade retreat. These questions are not confined to progressive Fieldston – aka “Ethical” Culture Fieldston School. As more people, like brave Horace Mann graduate Ryan Finlay and former Brentwood parent Jerome Eisenberg, expose illiberal DEI dicta, including the rampant anti-Semitism in Independent X School’s new “inclusive” agenda, Independent X School will commence Operation Cause the Problem, Fix the Problem. New instances of purported anti-Semitism in the student body coming your way (if they haven’t already been “uncovered”)!
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