Parent complaint adds to charges against Kenwood HS principal Elizabeth Kirby
A complaint has been filed at CPS concerning the November 8, 2011, Parent Advisory Council (PAC) election at Kenwood Academy High School. Clarinda Deveaux, a parent, former Vice Chairman and Acting Chair of the PAC, has filed a complaint stating that a violation of the rules of the election and fraud by Principal Elizabeth Kirby skewed the election results.
According to Deveaux, the election had been carried out and Clarinda Deveaux had won when principal Elizabeth Kirby “violated the rules by asking to do the count over, even though not one of the 34 parents challenged the count."
According to the complaint, Kirby asked Diatha James to change the rules by asking for another election with Kirby also voting. During this time, two parents left and two came. One parent came a little late, but wanted to vote for Deveaux but was not allowed to vote. The other voted although she did not sign in.
Patricia Hamilton, a parent and an advocate, described the election this way: “The Principal took over the election. There was a candidate that she wanted to win. A person came in late and was allowed to vote because she wanted to vote for the Principal’s candidate while another late person who wanted to vote for Ms. Deveaux was not allowed to vote. The Principal’s behavior was very unprofessional. You don’t expect a Principal to get so involved in a parent group’s election”.
Deveaux also charged in a letter to Mayor Rahm Emanuel (November 22, 2011 ) that “Kirby has been caught embezzling federal funds from the Parents’ budget; these funds were specially earmarked for parental use. Ms. Kirby wanted me to finalize the budget based on her assessment of figures, but her figures did not agree with what Central Office had stated. Thus, they knew that the discrepancy was due to her taking money out of the parents’ budget and spending it. When I discovered the discrepancy, I decided that I would not pass the budget based on her distorted figures. Consequently, she decided out of vindictiveness to sabotage my re-election. Ms. Kirby was clearly out of order for trying to control my spending decisions; the parents are the ones who actually have the power to control the parental budget. Clearly she violated the No Child Left Behind bylaws and she violated the rules of the election by being deceptive and committing fraud.”
The CPS Investigating department which investigates employee misconduct is looking into this issue.
Substance called Elizabeth Kirby several times in the past three days. We left a message (asking her to give her account of the PAC election) with her secretary and were told that she would return our calls. She has not done so. In the vent that she responds, we will publish her response here.
