Dallas Observer columnist Jim Schutze responds to investigation of Superintendent Mike Miles
Jim Schutze (Elizabeth M. Claffey/Staff Photographer)
An independent investigation of Dallas ISD Superintendent Mike Miles suggests that Miles leaked an administrator’s resignation letter critical of trustees to the media.
In the report by former U.S. Attorney Paul Coggins, it states that former operations chief Kevin Smelker turned in his resignation letter to Miles on June 20. The letter praised Miles and harshly criticized his bosses. The report found that communications consultant Lisa LeMaster and Miles helped write it.
Later that day, according to the report, Miles told DISD spokesman Jon Dahlander about his intention to release the letter to the media. Dahlander advised him against it and suggested he only give it to board president Eric Cowan.
The next day, between 7:14 a.m. and 8:03 a.m., Miles talked to Dallas Observer columnist Jim Schutze three times and exchanged a text message. Three minutes after Miles and Schutze last talked, Miles called Smelker. And later that morning, Miles and LeMaster spoke at length.
Coggins report suggests that the result of those conversations came the following week. On June 27, Schutze wrote an article titled “Who’s to blame for all those top defections at DISD? Not Mike Miles.” Schutze talked to Smelker, who criticized some trustees for forcing top administrators to leave. A few days later, in a longer story in the printed version of Observer, Schutze quoted from the resignation letter and blamed trustee Elizabeth Jones in particular for making administrators resign.
A few weeks ago, I heard that Schutze’s name had come up in the Coggins’ investigation and that his June 27 article was a focus of it. I called Schutze. He didn’t call