Nearly a year after long-simmering equity issues at William Jones College Prep erupted with a student sit-in and prompted the removal of then-Principal Joseph Powers, the Local School Council voted to hire a new principal Wednesday.
Kerry Dolan, an assistant principal at Gwendolyn Brooks College Prep in Roseland for the past six years, will lead the South Loop high school of nearly 2,000 students starting this month.
Before joining Brooks, Dolan completed a one-year residency at Noble Elementary School as part of a principal development program and previously taught French in Chicago Public Schools. Nine LSC members voted in favor of extending Dolan a four-year contract, with one member abstaining.
“I’m eager to join a community where I can provide some stability in a space that has not been so stable, and consistency in a place that has not been so consistent, and support for a community that has largely not felt adequately supported,” Dolan said at a candidate forum last week.
“I am looking forward to being a thought partner and a resource and a support and being somebody who unites people and doesn’t divide them and works to bring the Jones community together,” she said of the CPS high school.
Dolan’s predecessor was removed from his post in November while under investigation for failing to act when a student wore an apparent Nazi uniform in a school costume contest on Halloween. The incident had sparked a protest in which students called for change in the school culture, saying its administration had failed to properly address long-standing discrimination issues. CPS CEO Pedro Martinez appointed Arthur Slater, a retired CPS principal, to take over as temporary administrator-in-charge. Powers retired in June.
Controversy at the selective enrollment school hasn’t been limited to Powers’ 13-year tenure, however, with allegations involving the improper physical restraint of students emerging in recent months.
Among systemic violations of physical restraint policy
More Top Picks Best Boat Accessories For Enthusiasts
that the Illinois State Board of Education found in investigating CPS, State Superintendent of Education Tony Sanders flagged an hourlong incident at Jones in an April letter to Martinez, ordering the district to train its staff, among other corrective actions. In March, the CPS Office of Student Protections also investigated an alleged prone restraint, which is prohibited by state law.A vision for Jones
The LSC interviewed three candidates twice out of a pool of nine and narrowed its selection to Dolan before holding a candidate forum last week.
“With only one candidate that achieved alignment of the LSC after the second round interviews, we are moving forward with one candidate rather than create further division among an already fractured community,” said Kelly Lish, who holds one of five parent seats on the 15-person council.
Dolan said she’ll prioritize a listening tour to help heal divisions and find more opportunities to increase Advanced Placement classes, dual enrollment and dual credit classes while developing a “robust” program to support students who might be struggling.
“Selective enrollment schools are going to continue to receive more and more students who have (Individualized Education Programs) and more students who are identified as English learners. Our job as a school is to meet all of those students where they are, and to provide the support that they need to be successful here at Jones,” she said at the candidate forum.
“My vision for Jones is really to ensure that every teacher and student here feels supported that they are viewed and embraced in the community as the whole people that they are,” Dolan said. “That we’re not just looking at our students as test scores, that we’re not just looking at our teachers as people who produce those test scores.”
The incoming principal said she also aims to recruit and retain a diverse student body and staff, including assistant principals with STEM or career and technical education skills to complement her background in language instruction, and staff members with experience in school safety and athletics.
According to CPS enrollment data, the Jones student body is about a third white, a third Latino, 19% Asian and 12% Black. Just over 40% of Jones students are economically disadvantaged. Nine percent of students are diverse learners and 3 percent are English learners.
‘Someone in the building in charge’
During public comment at the meeting, a community member criticized the candidate selection process and suggested Dolan’s experience as an assistant principal of a smaller school with lower average test scores wasn’t a match for Jones.
“It appears a decision is being made based not on standards to make Jones a better school, but one whose main objective is to avoid controversy,” he said. “It appears you’re setting up the new principal to fail, which will further divide the school and, in the process, hurt Jones’ reputation.”
Former LSC President Cassie Creswell said that while she’s dismayed the current council didn’t put forward a more extensive shortlist of candidates, new leadership is long overdue.
In February 2022, months before the Nazi costume controversy, Creswell was one of three parent members on the council, along with now-Ald. Leni Manaa-Hoppenworth, 48th, who implored Martinez to dismiss Powers.
In a letter to Martinez and CPS Inspector General Will Fletcher, the three parents alleged that Powers took “extended vacations” while school was in session, mishandled reports of sexual misconduct, mismanaged school finances and failed to tackle systemic discrimination issues. The LSC voted the following month to request the start of dismissal proceedings, which Martinez rejected, citing insufficient evidence.
Had CPS leadership listened to the LSC at the time, Creswell said, “We would have been much further along on this journey, and the school would not have been in the mess it was because of the incident around Halloween last year — that was frankly, unfortunately, not really anything new.”
In March 2021, school officials notified police after antisemitic, racist and homophobic messages were shared with Jones students on a non-CPS-authorized server of the group-chatting app Discord.
“Hopefully, they’ll at least have a leader at the top of the school who takes these issues seriously,” she said. For the rest of her daughter’s last year at Jones, though, Creswell said she’s relieved to simply have “someone in the building in charge.”
“It’s just not a good situation to have a school without leadership,” she said.
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story indicated that former Jones Principal Joseph Powers resigned in November. CPS removed Powers from his role in November and he retired in June.