Dallas ISD trustee Bernadette Nutall (far right) views election result updates with supporters DeMetris Sampson, Tracy Horton and Nutall's husband, Derrick Nutall, during a campaign watch party in May 2012. (DMN Staff Photo)
I blogged Oct. 13 about the problems at Dade Middle School in South Dallas, focusing on what Supt. Mike Miles saw on the campus the previous week that led him to switch out the principal, two assistant principals and 10 teachers. Miles has said he made the changes because “there was very little teaching going on” at Dade. Based on other reports, that description appears to be an understatement.
But Miles’ necessary overhaul at Dade has been overshadowed by a clash that occurred between him and school board member Bernadette Nutall on the first morning after the new leadership was in place. Here’s how I referenced that disagreement in my initial blog post:
I wasn’t there for the Nutall episode, so maybe the exchange happened just as she described it to [DMN reporter Matthew Haag]. Sure sounds like a lot of drama.
The school board spent three hours last night behind closed doors in discussion about the incident. Given how opposed Nutall has been to many of Supt. Miles’ strategies, I have difficulty completely buying her story that she was going to the campus simply to support the new leadership. I’m more inclined to see it as colleague Rudy Bush did. He described it like this: Dade was “already a powder keg. Nutall decides it’s time to be a spark. That’s not how our system of government is supposed to work.”
Then there was this anti-Miles ugliness, done anonymously.
But another part of the Dade story emerged yesterday, the video of Nutall’s removal from campus. It answered my implied question about whether the scene was actually as dramatic as Nutall described: It was, and it looks bad.
I had imagined two security guys gesturing and rudely hustling her out the door. But the video illustrates something much more aggressive, something that feels more akin to manhandling. Nutall is right in her description:
“They proceeded to lift me up and take me out the door. They picked me up and took me out of the school.”
I’d love to know exactly what transpired during the conversation between Nutall and the security guards before that moment that they virtually pushed her out of the building. But nothing justified this unusually aggressive and unnecessary escort.
For now, I just want to be on the record that, in fact, the final scene in the overall disagreement was as dramatic as Nutall described.
Very disappointing. And so unnecessary. Miles was within his rights to have DISD police insist she leave. But he should have assured it was handled in a respectful way. Even if that meant officers standing in that foyer and talking to her until the end of the school day.
Seems like both sides owe the other an apology here.