The Akron School Board placed Superintendent Michael Robinson on leave after an investigation found bullying and retaliation allegations credible.

A judge permanently swatted down Ohio's law requiring parental permission for children to use social media and gaming sites.

And Cleveland has a new bright spot.

A light show on Public Square Ideas is next.

Hello and welcome to IDEAS.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Akron Public School Superintendent Michael Robinson was placed on paid administrative leave this week after an investigation by a law firm hired by the school board found that he created a toxic and fearful working environment ridiculing staff.

Senate Bill one seeks to combat what supporters say is liberal bias on college campuses.

The architect of the bill told a City Club audience yesterday that it creates more opportunities for balance, debate and conversation in the classroom.

But opponents, including unions opposed to the law's ban on faculty strikes, are lining up to repeal it.

A federal judge permanently struck down an Ohio law that mandated parental permission for children younger than 16 to have social media accounts.

Saying he understood the intent, but the law was just too vague.

And destination Cleveland is lighting up public square.

Joining me for the roundtable this week in studio from Ideastream Public Media, local government reporter Abbie Marshall, and education reporter Connor Morris from Columbus State House News bureau chief Karen Kasler.

Let's get ready to roundtable.

The board of the Akron Public Schools placed Superintendent Michael Robinson on paid administrative leave this week after an independent investigation found credible allegations of abusive behavior and bullying of staff.

The board held a special meeting this week.

After receiving the report, Robinson signed a five year contract with Akron Public Schools in the summer of 2023.

He's now on leave pending board action.

Connor, you've covered this thoroughly.

You had a chance to go through a copy of the report, and many of the allegations against Robinson involved his treatment of senior staff and especially the communications team.

This was not just a situation where it said, Hey, I wish you would redirect or I think you could improve what you're doing.

What he was doing was, according to the investigation, very demeaning.

Yeah, he was allegedly berating folks in these these these meetings with these senior staff.

They called them like a weekly think tank meeting and shouting, yelling, threatening folks jobs very regularly.

Allegedly, the communications director, Mark Williamson, he actually was one of the earlier folks who went on record after he quit with allegations against the superintendent.

And there's a repeating kind of pattern here of yelling at folks allegedly so loud that folks in other rooms, even on other floors, allegedly could hear him allegedly berating folks.

And so, yeah, Williamson was was one of those earlier folks that as well as a board member, Renee Mullen, our as well.

She had a meeting with him where he allegedly yelled at her and that she alleged that he bullied her.

Essentially, the quote in there was something like, you'll reap what you sow.

Yes.

He in the investigation, he did tell the investigators directly that the superintendent, that is that he felt he was anointed, that he was called to this religiously, called to this job.

And he had said to Molinaro that she and her children will reap what she sows, allegedly after she had kind of blown the whistle on this bullying behavior.

This is something we've heard about in dribs and drabs since he became the superintendent.

And there was you know, sometimes you think, well, maybe that's just somebody that doesn't like a new direction.

But as it continued to build, we see by the investigation, they interviewed 16 people.

They're not named in the investigation, but in each case, they said these things were corroborated by others, then found them to be credible.

So that's basically a point.

The reaction from Robinson is basically, I've got high standards and people don't like being held accountable.

He said that he's got a very direct communication and leadership style, and the investigators found through the interview with him that he really didn't recognize that that style, his the way he approached the job.

Was anything wrong.

He had said that, you know, he sets high expectations for himself and the staff.

And he said he believed that EPA staff are just not used to meeting high expectations was kind of his argument.

And he also stated he's not a retaliatory person.

He said there were multiple occasions where he could have fired folks but didn't, even though he frequently was threatening to fire folks.

And the investigator said that inherently is retaliatory in itself.

I think what's interesting is you might have people my age and older listen to this and say, well, that's that's because there might be young people who don't like to be criticized or people who don't like the kind of feedback that sometimes is necessary.

They essentially they just need nothing but positive feedback.

That's one line of thinking in terms of how someone's management style would be.

This wasn't that this was literally threatening your job and saying, I could fire you and berating people in a way that I don't think anyone who listened to it, regardless of their generation or their thinking, would would have.

And what does that sound?

Does anyone hear that?

Yeah.

Okay.

It's not me anyway.

Yeah, the difference there is this isn't a minor grade of something.

And we should note these folks in the senior administration level here, they've been in high or in public education for a long time.

Some of these folks were at the district for a long time.

Williamson Mark Gleason was at the district for a long time as well.

And so it doesn't really seem like there's kind of that at play.

It is interesting, though, to kind of hear that it's coming from and it's not just 16 folks that they interviewed.

They're also witnesses they interviewed as well.

So folks that were corroborating that even outside of these interviews.

And it's important to note that the folks were kept confidential in the report.

The investigators know who these folks are.

They just remove their names, essentially.

So it's not just filtering out to them as it kind of was for a while through anonymous sources.

And I should add as well, the AP to the Akron Beacon Journal, to their credit, they had a great investigative report just a week ago where, you know, they interviewed two dozen folks who had alleged similar behavior and also granted them anonymity.

Yes.

Reason for that.

You see in the report some claim that those that did speak up were retaliated against.

But also interesting and concerning is that the human resources team there was aware of all of this.

It would seem that human resources is not something someone that sort of carries out what the CEO's thoughts are, but someone who's abiding by proper work rules and is the the neutral party.

But in this case, apparently they knew about it and didn't act.

That's what the the witnesses had reported, that they really felt like they had no recourse essentially to these when they tried to complain about these things or they were worried if they did complain, the hard part would not do anything with it.

They would just tell Robinson, you know, and then they would get in further trouble.

And actually, interestingly enough as well, the folks that were working with Robinson for a while, they left the job in November or December of last year.

So they had their own issues with the superintendent as well, allegedly got a question from Jason.

He says, Were there any complaints from his previous position in Louisiana?

Will that be looked into?

That's a really good point.

And we are looking into it.

We I haven't heard anything yet.

You know, we're going to try and see if we could track down some folks, though, to see what they say.

Also, there were some allegations about his referral, referring to students with the term ghetto there, there ghetto and that was pointed out in investigations being credible as well.

Yeah.

He had even told investigators he admitted to using the words like ghetto when describing the behavior of children, but not calling a specific child ghetto, quote unquote.

There.

Other witnesses did allege that Robinson had referred to a female student as a heifer and referred to kids as thugs were imply that they were criminals and in several cases, allegedly.

Robinson Also, in addition to saying basically he was trying to coach subordinates and this was his management style, said that he believed there was a concerted effort by the media and the teachers union to push out to the public negative stories about him, that this was all basically the result of some conspiracy.

He said that this is part of a playbook that was used against the former superintendent as well, Christine Fowler Mack, who resigned after just about a year and a half on the job.

And she had a pretty contentious relationship with the union as well.

The union said that she wasn't doing enough to address student misbehavior in the classroom.

And also the board didn't have a great relationship with Fowler Mack, either.

They had a really harsh performance review.

They said she was allegedly insubordinate in her position.

So and I've talked to a couple of board members now, the So Dianna Autry, as well as the board president, Carla Jackson, who had said, you know, there is a pattern here of anonymous complaints being levied against these upper level staff and there's not really much recourse.

They're saying the district probably does need a policy on anonymous complaints and how they handle them and how they address them.

However, the board state Autry was the lone no votes on suspending the superintendents.

The board president voted yes.

You know, we should suspend him.

And the president did say, you know, I do believe the report.

I just talked to her yesterday.

She said, I do believe that this is a pattern here.

It's disturbing.

You know, we made the right call in placing him on leave.

It is important, though, when there are anonymous complaints to have a process to be able to to legitimize those, to be able to confirm them, because it's pretty easy to get a group of people anonymously to say things about someone when they don't like their policies.

That's why you hire an outside investigator.

Exactly.

And even in journalism, you know, we really try to not use anonymous sources as much as possible to to preserve that trust.

You know, with the public of course, different situation here.

Right.

But and I was going to add as well that the investigation again, this was outside law firm.

They paid folks to do this.

And, you know, a number of interviews flooded into it.

Last point on this, he's suspended now.

But then what happens is the board is going to take action.

Have they announced what kind of process they may follow?

They are going to meet on April 28th for a kind of final decision on his status, quote unquote, not entirely clear what that looks like, but could be a vote on potentially to terminate him.

So we'll just have to wait and see.

Union groups are pushing for a repeal of Senate Bill one which combats what its supporters claim is a liberal bias on college campuses by banning most diversity programs.

The bill also bans faculty strikes and requires tenure review for professors.

It's set to take effect in June.

Opponents want to put a repeal measure on the ballot in November.

The architect of the bill, Senator Jerry Serino of Kirtland, laid out the case for the legislation to a packed City Club of Cleveland Forum yesterday as several dozen protesters gathered on the Euclid Avenue sidewalk outside Carron.

The move is not a surprise.

You mention and move being that labor is looking to get a repeal here.

You mentioned when the bill pass specifically the idea that faculty unions cannot strike.

Right.

And in fact, unions, including the Ohio Education Association, have said that they felt Senate Bill one was the most aggressive attack on organized labor since Senate Bill five from 2011, which was the law that sought to limit collective bargaining rights for police and teachers and other public sector unions.

So they've been very concerned about this for a while.

I think there's been a thought that Senate bill one would be challenged both in court potentially on some of its provisions, but also that unions would do exactly what they started doing last weekend.

It was the union representing faculty at Youngstown State University that started this process of gathering 1000 signatures to put this into the forward movement to get it toward the ballot.

This is the first step, and there's a lot of signature gathering to go before it could potentially be on the ballot.

But they have until the early part of July to get this done, to get it on to the November ballot.

So it's a short timeline and a lot of signatures to gather the early part of July to get the 250,000 signatures you need.

Yeah, they need to gather thousand signatures right now to start the process, get it before the attorney general and have all that looked at the ballot board, those sorts of things, before they get permission to go ahead and gather around 250,000 more signatures.

It's interesting because what the unions are saying is this is, you know, anti-labor and anti professor.

What Jerry Serino said yesterday at the City Club of Cleveland, Connor, is that he doesn't want students to be used as pawns with the faculty, that they want to strike because they want better benefits.

They've got students that have paid for an entire semester of education who are now going to be robbed of that education because it's going to be interrupted by a labor action.

That's basically his argument.

Yeah, he said that the unions still have the power to negotiate, but this kind of next level of negotiation, you know, unions argue that this is a really important part of their their ability to negotiate a fair contract is if they feel like they need to strike, they should be able to strike.

And Serena said, well, you can't do that now.

We've seen protests across the state and yesterday outside the city club.

Abbie, you were talking to a number of the people there.

I saw them.

They were, you know, very enthusiastic.

They had their signs.

They were wanting to be heard, although the way the city club is is structured, I think once inside the the speaking area, I don't think they could hear the protest very loudly.

But Serino referred to the protesters a number of times, in fact, one time with kind of a almost a Reaganesque funny line, I thought, where he said they have the right to protest.

They don't have the right to spell my name wrong, which they did in a couple of occasions.

But you talk to those folks beyond that joking matter, what was their concern?

Yeah, I mean, most of the opposition as as we've been talking about is to SB one.

People are concerned that, you know, students and staff might leave the state, they might not come to Ohio for higher education, and that would mean you know, a loss of economic opportunities not just for universities but also for a future job force in Ohio.

And that was something that he talked about even in his speech where he he said that some of the people that came to testify against the bill, he'll help him.

He'll help them pack essentially.

And Connor and I were saying that there was kind of an audible from from the audience saying those people that testified, I'll help you pack.

But he said, basically, though, people are going to be leaving the state as a result of this.

He thinks it's going to make things better.

I have heard from people that said, you know, we have the means, especially in the cases of some of these private schools, to go somewhere else.

And they will, especially if they're not from Ohio.

Why would they come to Ohio if if this is something that they are morally against?

So I think that that's the concern of some of the folks that were protesting outside.

And his pitch really was that the overwhelming liberal bias on college campuses is harming students ability to graduate ready for the workforce, which I don't really know where the evidence is on that front.

And he's saying that this is good for the workforce in Ohio because, you know, they're going to be better prepared.

Another note to a really newsworthy nugget out of this speech was that he said he wants to try to tie colleges, appropriations, their funding to compliance with SB one so you don't get your money if you don't comply with SB one, which sounds a lot like what's happening, Karen, at the federal level.

Yeah.

Serino has actually said that before in that that that's the real force.

I mean, when you talk about enforcement that the legislature has, that's the power that he feels that the legislature has in terms of making sure that the provisions of Senate Bill One are followed.

One of the things that's interesting about the federal what's going on at the federal level with A.D programs and that sort of thing is now you actually have some universities doing what Harvard is doing and pushing back.

You have a coalition of Big Ten universities that are starting to talk about pushing back as an alliance together.

Ohio State not part of that, but others.

I think Rutgers is part of that.

To come together and try as a group to push back against things that they see are threatening to free speech on campus and diversity programing and that sort of thing.

I think one of the best things about having a forum like that and having people on our show when they'll agree to be on it is because then you can at least hear their thinking in their reasoning.

And I was enlightened by a lot of what Jerry Serino said because you hadn't heard these kinds of things.

He criticized media for not covering it.

You noted in your question to him, Abby, that maybe that's because they that he's not returning our phone calls, but a couple of points that he brought up.

One is without any evidence, I think he he said 95% of liberals are 95% of professors on college campuses are liberals.

I don't know where he gets that number, but but he says that's an issue.

He also said, how is it possible for a bill that calls colorblindness to be racist?

I don't understand that one.

And that's because people are saying that this A.D. is a racist issue.

But it was interesting, I think the City Club crowd, I didn't hear a little bit of grumbling, but I didn't hear I think people were like, okay, let's hear what his point of view is, even if we still disagree with it.

Right.

And I think that that's what's really great about the city Club and why I've always enjoyed programing at the City Club, because you have people that are really interested in free speech and a discourse of different opinions.

And that's why I thought it was yesterday was kind of like the perfect City Club type day because you had someone inside that maybe that kind of crowd wouldn't normally mesh with.

But then you also had, you know, the freedom of protest outside.

So you really got all all sides of opinions on this matter.

The shrinking of Cleveland City Council from 17 seats to 15 means at least one council member versus Councilmember Battle in the new ward.

Five.

Ward Five's Richard Starr versus Ward 12.

Rebecca maurer, whose Ward 12 was sliced into multiple pieces, leaving her home in the newly drawn Ward five.

The two incumbents will face off in a September primary for the new Ward five.

Let's talk about what Ward five will encompass and how this put the two of them against each other.

Yes.

So the current iteration of Ward five is central Kinsman, Midtown, parts of downtown and Slavic Village.

But the redistricting process, as I've talked about many times on this show, it reduces the number of wards from 17 to 15.

So someone's going to have to lose their job, right?

And one of the criticisms from Morris throughout this process is that it felt she felt that she was politically targeted in this process as her ward was one of the the biggest casualties of this redistricting process in her home address in Slavic Village, that little sliver is drawn into the new ward.

So that basically meant that she could run in.

You know, Cleveland doesn't have a rule that you have to run in whatever ward you live in.

So she had options of other places she could represent, but she decided, no, I'm going to run in ward five where my home is.

And that will put her up against Richard Starr, who has already said he's going to run for reelection.

And she made that announcement this week.

And we've seen them kind of butt heads in a number of ways.

I mean, she has been very vocal.

She was a critic of the new ward maps.

She was a critic of a number of other issues.

You wrote a story once in which you were quoting Richard Starr, who was basically insinuating that she's stirring the pot.

So this should be as far as local politics, politics go, high intrigue.

Yeah, this is definitely the race that I will be watching really closely as it is our first race where we have incumbents up against each other.

There is one other race where we might see incumbents up against each other, and that would be a new Ward ten.

Microlensing has pulled petitions to possibly run there.

Anthony Hairston also lives there, so it'll be interesting to see if that matchup happens as well.

But it is a pretty crowded race because, as I said, there's less wards, more or fewer seats and more candidates to flood the field a little bit.

And Mike Palazzo has some experience.

I think he's been on council for 103 years, so he is a long time.

I think he knows how to handle campaigns.

We'll see how that one goes to A federal judge this week permanently struck down an Ohio law that would require children younger than 16 to get parental consent before joining social media and gaming sites.

social media, parental Notification Act passed in the state budget in 2023.

It was sidelined by a legal challenge by net choice just days before it was to go into effect in January of last year.

Karen, let's talk about Judge Algernon Marbury of the U.S. Southern District Court.

He gave the state credit for trying to protect kids, but said this particular approach was too vague.

Yeah, he said it was actually troublingly vague.

And so I think that it's interesting to note that as these there's laws like this all across the country, Ohio is just one of them.

And net choice, which is this group that represents Internet, social media and Internet providers and that sort of thing, has as been challenging each of these laws.

And they keep winning in court.

And there was a law, a very similar law in Arkansas, that was struck down as well, along with other laws that are a different part, the process.

And so this is this is a challenge because social media sites like with First Amendment rights, they're the argument is that they're kind of like letters to the editor or publishers of a series of essays by different authors.

And so this is according to the judge, really a vague situation here that he says that is is right now not something that the state can maintain.

And he permanently struck down the law.

And the state, though, isn't done.

It may what may it do.

There's a time limit.

But what is the thinking about doing?

Yeah, it's a 30 day time limit.

And Attorney General Dave Yost has said to my Statehouse newspaper colleague Sarah Donaldson, that he is looking at the options.

It seems likely that this would go forward, but it might not.

So they've got to decide in the next 30 days.

Cleveland City Council voted this week to clamp down on smoke and vape shops, which they say crowd out other businesses and represent a safety and health threat.

There are about 600 smoke or vape shops in Cleveland so there's now some pretty severe restrictions compared to what there was before.

What are they adding?

Yeah, so there there are a couple of things that this these ordinances do.

They prohibit new smoke shops from opening closer than two miles from an existing store.

It limits the advertising to 25% coverage of exterior windows.

When you drive by and see those big window advertisements, they're limiting to 25% coverage instead of having those all plastered everywhere.

It sets an age limit on the sale of tobacco and vaping products and prohibits the sale of marijuana in those shops.

It was there already an age limit.

Yeah.

Cleveland to Cleveland was one of the early adopters of the 21, but they're kind of just doubling down with some of these existing ordinance and just refreshing some of the language to make sure that they are stricter on what they are trying to accomplish right now, which has been a big goal of health department and doctor Dave Margolis, the Cleveland's director of public health.

All right.

We're The national champion Ohio State Buckeyes football team visited the White House on Monday to celebrate their title.

During the ceremony.

Vice President J.D.

Vance, an OSU grad, went to lift the trophy, but it's separated into two pieces to be fair, the trophy is built in two sections, so it didn't actually break, but it was definitely a fumble by the alumnus.

It looked it looked Carron like J.D.

Vance made good fun of himself on that.

Yeah, I think he said on X later that he didn't want anyone else to ever have the trophy.

So he broke, which, which is a funny response.

It looked a little awkward.

And certainly that video made the rounds pretty, pretty quickly.

I feel for the guy.

There's a million of these things you think about when I remember when George Bush tried to walk out the door of a of a room or is I think it was a press conference or whatever the issue was.

And he very ceremoniously went and the door was locked and didn't know what to do.

You know, he kind of turned around and stood there.

But that and and breaking a trophy and those kinds of things, when the cameras are on you all the time, that's got to be tough.

Yeah.

And I mean, this was a group of huge football players behind them and everything and laughing and laughing.

Yes, exactly.

I mean, it looked a little awkward.

You got a you got to confess to that.

Yeah, I think my family would say that was a total.

Mike McIntyre thing to pick up the trophy and break it kind of to be like the Charlie Brown Christmas tree, Like he picks it up and it just falls over.

Exactly.

this week.

Destination Cleveland debuted an after dark light show on public square illuminate CLE.

The show features music and narration timed to the lights will celebrate Cleveland's history in special events.

If you're downtown, you can see it at the top of every hour, starting at 8:00 through 11.

As the sun sets later, the shows will move a little later, 9:00, then 10:00 start during peak summer hours.

It's not a long show, but I hear kind of fun.

Yeah, and this is really exciting because I did a story last year on the Terminal Tower and how those lights are decided and they kind of teased at this.

So it is cool that even when the show isn't happening, the lights will be kind of mirroring what's going on in Terminal Tower.

I think the idea is to make it a lighted and safe place for people to be at nighttime.

Being downtown, it's nighttime in the summer is great.

Yeah, And entertaining, too.

Monday on the Sound of Ideas on W KSU.

It's been a year since the city handed management of the West Side market to a nonprofit.

We'll check in with the new managers about how plans are coming along.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thank you so much for watching.

And stay safe.