Stan Fields

Faculty concerned with new president’s lack of college-level experience

The Morton College board voted Jan. 21 to hire as its president a Berwyn elementary school superintendent, in spite of a September faculty letter protesting the candidate had no college-level experience.

Dr. Stanley Fields was appointed president of the college after a months-long search.

“I am humbled and excited by this appointment,” Fields said at the meeting. “I look forward to doing my part to take Morton College to even greater heights in academic success.”

But Morton College faculty complained in September in a public letter that Fields had no experience at the college level. The letter accused the board of downgrading the qualifications of candidates and warned that the school might be flagged by the Higher Learning Commission during their 2016 accreditation review.

“The faculty find the consideration of a grade-school superintendent … unqualified,” the letter said.

After Thursday’s vote, Morton Faculty Assembly President Steven Ginley commented in an email: “I remain concerned about Dr. Fields’ lack of college level administrative experience. But as the board’s chosen president I am obliged to give him every opportunity to prove himself to be a great college president.”

Fields has been superintendent of Berwyn South District 100 since 2009 where he’s been a polarizing figure in the elementary district. He’s blamed in Berwyn for leading two unsuccessful 2014 referenda, which were voted down by more than 70 percent of voters. He has also been criticized for his cozy relationship with Apple, a vendor of student iPads and televisions to the district.

At the District 100 board meeting Jan. 20 to discuss Fields’ accepting the Morton college position, some public commenters were critical of Fields.

“[We ask the board] collect all Dr. Fields’ technology devices and immediately delete his access to the system and to the doors of the schools,” said community member Amy Nieves. “This not saying he is not to be trusted, but this is done with large corporations on a daily basis.”

But Fields also has his fans, including D100 board president Robert Pauly.

“Stan Fields was a change-agent and a visionary,” Pauly said. “I have a tremendous amount of respect for the man.

“Stan delivered maximum educational bang for the buck,” Pauly said in an email.

Pauly praised Fields for activating the community by creating a D100 think tank, DACEE (District Advisory Committee for Educational Excellence), where volunteers researched best educational practices. Pauly credits Fields for expanded preschool, full-day kindergarten, lower class sizes and “a reduction in administrative spending of $1.2 million.”

But former D100 board member Anthony Harris said he was “very disappointed” in the tenure of Fields, whom Harris voted to hire in 2009.

“[The district has] more administrators and more and more teachers now, but our test score results are worse than North Berwyn [District 98] which spends less money,” Harris said.

Fields leaves the district with a deficit of more than $2.1 million, compared with North Berwyn District 98, which has a fund reserve of more than $1 million according to annual financial reports submitted to the Illinois State Board of Education.

At Morton College, Fields will also find a school district in financial crisis. The college has a deficit of more than $5 million, said outgoing Interim President Muddassir Siddiqi at the January board meeting. Siddiqi said the college has committed to cutting the budget without harming programs for students.

In 2011, Fields was profiled in a Chicago Tribune article as an example of the state’s “Superintendent merry-go-round” where exiting school chiefs receive “hefty parting gifts.” Before being hired by Berwyn, Fields hopped between three high school districts in eight years.

Facing firing after less than a year in 2008 by Proviso Township High School District 209, Fields quit with a $100,000 severance package. Before that, he was let go from Mundelein High School District 120 with more than $34,000 in unused vacation pay. Fields was principal of Morton West High School in 2000 and Assistant Superintendent for Business at J. Sterling Morton District 201 in 2002.

In Berwyn, Fields became widely known in 2014 when the district floated a referendum for a jumbo $51.5 million bond-issue for construction on all the district’s schools. On the same ballot, voters were urged to vote to increase the district’s limiting tax rate. Voters overwhelmingly voted down both referenda.

“Stan took the brunt of our referendum failure, and that was unfair,” Pauly wrote in an email. “Despite that every nickel was needed — to accommodate a 33 percent larger student body, to fix decrepit, old buildings, to service our debt, to offer more to needy students, compensate teachers more competitively and to plug a $2.1 million budget deficit cut caused by state funding cuts, bottom line, the ask was too much,” he said.

In 2014, taxpayers complained at a school board meeting that Fields, whose base salary is $204,000, was charging almost daily lattes and lunches to the district, based on receipts obtained by the Freedom of Information Act. They also said Fields had paid more than $700 for school employees to attend a leadership seminar at his church and had charged the district for multiple $79 leadership videos.

Fields also is known for his longtime relationship with Berwyn attorney Michael Del Galdo of Del Galdo Law Group, Morton College’s law firm. In 2007, Fields was superintendent of Proviso District 209 when the district voted to hire Michael Del Galdo’s firm Del Galdo and Giglio. In 2014, District 100 booted longtime attorneys Klein, Thorpe and Jenkins and hired Del Galdo Law group. In the April, 2015, school board elections, Del Galdo’s firm supported candidates on the Education First for Berwyn D100 ticket and paid for four-color sign and brochure printing.

Michael Del Galdo did not respond to emailed and phone requests for comment.

Fields also has been criticized for the elementary district’s technology roll-out, which was based on a 1:1 device program for all D100 students. The district initially purchased Dell computers in 2009, but then scrapped them in favor of Apple iPads and later televisions.

Fields accepted several paid trips for himself and teachers to fly to Cupertino, Calif. to visit Apple headquarters. Receipts showed Fields charged long-term parking for those trips to the district. District 100 purchased more than $700,000 worth of Apple televisions in December, 2015.

Pauly defended Fields, the district’s technology initiative and the Apple relationship.

“Low income and children need more, and through technology, we are able to provide every child with a custom learning plan, and extend the school day, week and year,” Pauly said. The district is part of the Apple Distinguished Program, Pauly said. “We are using devices on the highest level, and the fact we use them so well and are a low-income district has made us the darlings of Apple,” he said.

At Morton College, Fields will supervise the education of some of the students who started in District 100. The college, at 3801 S. Central Ave. in Cicero, primarily serves students from Berwyn and Cicero.

Morton College is among the smallest community colleges in the state. It has around 60 full-time faculty and around 7,400 students, according to the Illinois Board of Community Colleges website. The school is listed as a “Hispanic Serving Institution” as a member of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU).

“I am excited about this new chapter for Morton College,” said Board of Trustees President Anthony Martinucci in a statement on the Morton College website. “I know [Fields] will make an excellent leader for Morton College.”

— Morton College hires Fields as college president —