Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe Now
The superintendent of Hamilton Southeastern Schools resigned on Wednesday.
The HSE Board of School Trustees approved a resolution during a 7 a.m. special board meeting to accept a resignation agreement submitted by HSE Superintendent Yvonne Stokes. The school board also approved a resolution appointing HSE Assistant Superintendent Matt Kegley as interim superintendent.
Stokes resigned about nine months before the end of a three-year contract she signed in July 2021.
The school board and district leadership will begin a search for a permanent superintendent within the next several months, according to a news release. A reason for Stokes’ resignation was not provided.
Hamilton Southeastern Schools is one of the largest school districts in the state, with 23 schools and nearly 22,000 students in Fishers and Noblesville.
“I am grateful to HSE and the Fishers and Noblesville communities for my time here,” Stokes said in written remarks. “The opportunity to serve as superintendent was one I never took lightly. As this shift in leadership commences, I am committed to supporting the district and feel confident that our staff, students and families will be in capable hands. The future is bright for HSE.”
Stokes resigned about nine months before the end of a three-year contract she signed in July 2021.
Her resignation comes after months of divisive debate over political topics following the election last year of four new conservative school board members who hold a majority on the seven-member board.
The new school board drew protest earlier this year when it voted to remove language about microaggressions from the student handbook and when it ended a contract for a student mental health survey with Boston-based Panorama Education.
“HSE’s core focus will continue to be on achieving academic excellence, preparing our students for pathways into higher education, careers, and life and strengthening district leadership to enable them to emulate these same principles,” HSE school board President Dawn Lang said in written remarks. “We have a strong foundation to build upon and are looking forward to a bright future for our district and community.”
Kegley joined HSE Schools in 2006 as an assistant principal at Hamilton Southeastern High School. He became assistant superintendent in January 2021.
“The last few years have presented several challenges for our school community,” Kegley said in written remarks. “However, with challenge comes the opportunity to learn and grow. I’m humbled by HSE’s trust in me to lead in this interim period and am looking forward to having open conversations with our board, administration, staff, students and families to identify a path that will bring us all together.”
Please enable JavaScript to view this content.
If you’re a family, whose kids are enrolled in the HSE schools, you should be asking some questions. There’s a “story” with all of this — superintendent’s decision to resign (a MONTH into the school year), board’s acceptance and an interim superintendent who’s ready to go — and the way it’s been packaged is way too convenient. The fact is, I’d bet that the 3 members, who were elected as a “slate”, decided they were going to go shopping for a new superintendent before they were even elected (and told people they were going to do that), and being a 7-member board, they were able to convince the others to go along with the decision. Regardless, it’s not a good look.
You’re probably right. Which begs the question: why did 3 members (or is it 4?) get elected on a slate and what was their campaign? Why did they embolden the electorate?
I don’t think those who embrace the woke religion ever expected the rest of us to reject it so wholeheartedly.
David, we will never get the full story because they always hide behind “We can’t disclose “personnel issues.” Pretty much though it seems board wanted to go in a different direction than what the superintendent wanted to go and with the recent election it showed that voters wanted to go in new direction also.
Lauren – it was “make fishers great again”
I wish I was making this up – but their first act was to ban books…
All my friends in HSE have already gone private a month into the school year now
Thanks Frankie! It sounds like Fishers was slipping into the mediocracy that comes with self-pity and capitulating to who use their perceived victimhood to cudgel others. (Yes, I mean mediocracy.) Glad there were people there to rescue it. Sounds like their campaigns were quite popular.
Where are you taking your “friends in HSE” so they can still get the wokeness you clearly crave? An Episcopal school? Jesuit? Most private schools have surged in popularity because they are a perceived shield from the mindvirus, whether that’s accurate or not.
It’s awfully funny how private bookstores often have a display of “banned” books at the front, yet they don’t see the irony. None of them have “On Beyond Zebra” by Dr. Seuss, because it is among the few that has genuinely been banned. The notion that a school library should offer every book available at the Indianapolis Public Library main branch is not only ridiculous, it’s impossible. Schools curate content. A school library offers books that are relevant and appropriate for kids–otherwise it eliminates the purpose of a school library. What are these schools supposed to offer: the Kama Sutra? Don’t worry Frankie, that’s a rhetorical question.
I can fully get behind the opposition to removing books from the shelves of a municipal library. They aren’t tailored to a single age cohort and should offer reading material at all levels. But that’s the point: as long as these books are available through something other than the black market (and all of them, except for 4 Dr. Seuss books, can be delivered to your front door in 72 hours via Amazon Prime), then they aren’t “banned”.
By the way, there’s no such thing as equality–never been achieved anywhere, never will be, but petulant children still shriek for it because their brains haven’t fully evolved. And the irony, of course, is that because the woke are so utterly deluded, the most woke places in the US actually have inequality on par with Brazil.
“The new school board drew protest earlier this year when it voted to remove language about microaggressions from the student handbook”
LOL–far more people are opposed to the introduction of this self-indulgent garbage than the removal of it. But that would require the ideologues who we used to call “journalists” to report things honestly, wouldn’t it?
This Superintendent was so polarizing that she managed to spur the elections of four conservative board members after she’d only served half her term. Evidence enough that people didn’t like what she and her comrades on the board were doing.
Microaggressions aren’t just terrible pedagogy for young minds. They encourage a culture of fear, of intellectual/emotional fragility, of walking on eggshells among personnel of all ranks, and they stifle creative thinking. But that was probably the point.
+1
Lauren B.
+2
Well said.
I heard she even said the word “equality” once or twice.
Immediate grounds for expulsion under the new red state of HSE school board
@Lauren B., can we be friends?
I know several people who worked with Stokes in the other districts she destroyed. I received several “good luck with that” and “I’m praying for your community” messages when she was named superintendent. That says something when others were so happy to see her go.
I love the ridiculous comments in the other forums about this. “Look at her resume! She has multiple degrees!” “Fishers is racist!” I don’t what color your skin is, and I don’t care how many degrees one has. The person who graduated with the lowest GPA in medical school is still called “Doctor,” it doesn’t mean they are good at their job. Those multiple diplomas did not make her qualified to lead the district. I hope there is an extensive discussion about the work history of the next superintendent, because her work history and mess making of other districts was clearly ignored by the former board. I hope someone comes into this position who focuses on the children and their EDUCATION so that they can go on to become productive and respected members of society.
I am happy she is out before she caused any more damage.
Thanks for the message Laura. In many professions, at this point, you’re almost better off hiring someone who has no degrees. Expertise does not impart absolute moral authority, and experts are just as susceptible to corruption.