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Dayton public again rescinds offer to fill AD job

UPDATE @ 10:10 p.m. (June 14): Dayton Public Schools has rescinded — for a second time — an offer to fill the district's AD job, board President Dr. Adil Baguirov confirmed following an executive board session tonight.

He identified Mark Baker and Torrance Hill as the most prominent finalists for athletic director of the district.

Baker is a Dunbar High School alum and high school All-American basketball player who also starred at Ohio State University. He previously was boys head basketball coach at Trotwood-Madison. This spring, he resigned after three seasons at Middletown.

Hill, a Central State grad, is a former women’s basketball coach and assistant AD at Wilberforce. He also was an assistant AD for the Washington, D.C., Public School System and has been AD at Archbishop Carroll High in D.C. since 2013.

Baguirov would not identify who was made which offer and did not rule out either candidate. The board expects to vote next week, he said.

The turbulence came as an unusual twist of a normally rigid hiring process that Baguirov said was outdated. The first recension was followed by a group of concerned citizens who questioned the board’s action. That coincided with DPS issuing a statement Monday night admitting it had “unfairly administered” interviews following the initial job posting.

The school board indicated it was made aware of an issue after initially offering the job. DPS officials did not say when each offer was rescinded.

“We have revamped the (hiring) process,” Baguirov said. “We hope to be able to resolve this as soon as possible. It shouldn’t have happened in the first place, but it did. In a way it’s actually better for the district because we know about the problems and we fixed it.”

FIRST REPORT (June 13)

The Dayton school board has made a new offer to a candidate to fill the vacant athletic director’s position after the board rescinded a previous offer.

The district issued a statement clarifying the move to rescind the first offer in response to community inquiries. Spokeswoman Jill Moberley said the proper procedure was not followed correctly in the first offer and the board elected to rescind it to ensure there was “an equal opportunity” in the hiring process.

Moberley said the board is no longer accepting applications for the position pending acceptance of the new offer.

Dayton Public Schools statement:

“Interviews for the finalist candidates following the original posting were found to be unfairly administered. The Board was not made aware of the issue until after an offer had been made to a candidate. In order to protect the integrity of the Board’s equal opportunity hiring practices, the decision was made to rescind the offer and re-post the position, ensuring that the hiring process was administered fairly and in accordance with all relevant federal and state standards.”

No other details accompanied the statement. We are attempting to reach district spokeswoman Jill Moberley to answer questions about the statement.

District Athletics Director Jonas Smith on March 4 announced his resignation, effective this summer.

Both Smith and board President Adil Baguirov said the resignation was not tied to an internal audit earlier this year that determined $14,312, gate receipts from five DPS home football games, was missing.

Two employees were identified as being “primarily responsible” for the missing money. Baguirov did not identify them by name. The auditor has said the athletic department was “very cooperative” during the audit.

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