Dallas Dance
Baltimore County Schools Superintendent S. Dallas Dance, who resigned unexpectedly last week, is on the mind of many who are working to fill the vacant position of superintendent in Richmond, Va., according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Richmond’s superintendent, Dana Bedden, and the school board reached a “mutual decision” that Bedden would leave at the end of June, which is also when Dance’s resignation is effective.
Dance attended high school and college in the Richmond area, and his young son lives there.
Dance declined to comment for this story.
Dallas Dance should be tried for treason against BCPS. His entire tenure has been an ethical and moral debacle on a level that crosses a line of sanity. Our schools are WORSE off than before his arrival. And that says much given Joe Hairston before. Any rational person who doesn’t see the absurdity of the Dance Demolition only needs to read some of these comments. Good riddance to incompetence.
While I am not disappointed that Baltimore County and Dr. Dance will be parting ways, it is interesting to note the various reasons given (or statements made) surrounding his resignation, none of which have to do with another job being lined up, nor one where the current superintendent there would be FIRED to make way for Dr. Dance’s entry into a new position. Did they really fire that Richmond Superintendent and make his last day the same day as that of Dr. Dance? Yes, yes they did. Statements made and reasons given for Dr. Dance’s resignation: That he can no longer sustain the 18 hour days and that they are taxing. Dr. Dance’s new contract permitted 200 days off over the 4 year contract, likely increased to allow for more travel and paid speaking engagements without the added scrutiny from the board or stakeholders. Additionally, Dr. Dance held multiple positions within organizations (presidents of boards, advisor for an ed tech online publication, consultant for companies, etc). He traveled frequently across the country to speak and advise and consult and also served as a member of Joseph Shawn’s transition team at Nashville Public Schools. He did consulting on the side, and traveled the country peddling STAT, doing keynote speeches AND teaching two year-round virtual courses for the University of Richmond, during his entire employment with BCPS. Perhaps those 18 hour days would have been ameliorated by reducing the amount of extracurricular activities Dr. Dance participated in — none of which benefited… Read more »
Fantastic points and well written! And this comment speaks to the superintendent’s actual actions as reason for concern. The writer also calls out the partly disingenuous excuses given for leaving BCPS. If Dr. Dance focused solely on his role as manager and leader of the school district, a full-time commitment as state law requires, those days would not have been nearly so long.
These issues also have nothing to do with race, as has been recently claimed by the superintendent, as a community focus whatsoever. We have been proud to have inclusive and diverse leadership.
The hoax has been centered on the high costs and questionable results of overpriced $1,400 laptops and multi-million dollar software contacts, a Rob-Peter-to-Pay-Pearson endeavor, which has pulled away money from many, many equity needs, including sufficient counselors, safe classroom environments, small class sizes, highly certified teachers, sufficient books and classroom materials, more effective tech options, and educational opportunities in field trips, etc. etc.
Words and actions make the person. Honesty and responsibility for those words and actions do as well.
Could not have said it better.
Insightful and absolutely accurate! Disingenuous indeed. Richmond Public Schools are in horrible shape — in part because of the mess inherited by Dr. Bedden, but also in LARGE part due to his inability to lead and willful disregard of the egregious state of the district he was paid…and paid WELL to oversee. He was dismissive in addressing civil and human rights violations, content with the enormous achievement gap and complicit in covering up the negligent actions of his staff. We will be seeking license revocation so he will not be permitted to be a disservice to children elsewhere. If Dance is indeed the new Superintendent selection, I hope he is aware that accountability will not be optional!
That will depend on your BOE. The majority of BCPS’s BOE has not held Dance accountable for anything. In fact, after his FIRST (of three) ethics violations (the one for moonlighting with SUPES Academy), Dance received a RAISE at the exact time the BOE was supposed to make changes to his contract that would reflect his self imposed consequence. (When the Baltimore Sun revealed that Dance was connected to the SUPES Academy debacle, and he was found guilty of an ethics violation for it, the Board Chair at the time, Larry Schmidt, Esq., stated that the BOE would allow Dance to come up with his own “cure” to resolve the ethics issue. Dance chose his consequence: that he would “no longer do any consulting work.” But, when the BOE went to make that change to the contract, they gave Dance a RAISE that wasn’t even commensurate with teacher raise percentage increases! In other words, much more! THEN, fast forward to a few years later, in 2016, Dance was AGAIN found to be in violation of his contract with BCPS and received TWO additional ethics violations: one for not disclosing the existence of a Consulting LLC that he set up in 2012 (Deliberate Excellence, LLC), and also that he failed to disclose his adjunct professor job income, another side job in which he had been teaching two year-round courses, concurrent to his his employment with BCPS. So, not only did he receive two additional ethics violations, but some of the very… Read more »
Well stated and thank you for the insight!
He is my former student and we ALL here in RVA continue to be proud of him. I’m certain he will be fine …. as will RPS.