Escalation of commitment—school board style

Board extends Grover’s contract despite community pushback and low staff morale

Psychologists call it escalation of commitment—sticking with a bad decision simply because you’ve already invested too much to turn back. The Cedar Rapids Community School District Board of Education demonstrated it perfectly when it unanimously voted to extend Superintendent Dr. Tawana Grover’s contract by three years.

All but one of the current members were on the school board when Grover was unanimously hired in 2023. Having made the initial decision to hire Grover, it should be no surprise that the school board would double down and extend her contract. The real problem is not this escalation of commitment; the real problem was that the school board hired Grover in the first place!

Before coming to Cedar Rapids, Grover was the Superintendent in Grand Island, Nebraska. The first red flag about Grover should have been that she resigned her position at Grand Island in the middle of the school year. When the Grand Island school board accepted her resignation, they took the unusual step of paying out her salary and benefits for the remainder of the year, as well as her salary without benefits for one additional year. It was a pretty sweet deal! Grover’s salary at Grand Island was around $294,000 annually, and her initial salary in Cedar Rapids was $305,000.

So, why did Grover resign as superintendent in Grand Island? Like so many other leaders, Grover faced controversy over the district’s pandemic response. However, based on newspaper and radio reporting from Grand Island, the incident that ultimately led to her resignation was the firing of a soccer coach. Jeremy Jensen was a former mayor of Grand Island and boys’ soccer coach at Grand Island Senior High.

Jensen was fired after sharing some student responses to a survey question on his Facebook. The question was:

If you could change anything about your school, what would you change?

I will not engage in a discussion about whether the information shared was in some way protected or even whether the firing was justified. What I will share is that Jensen formed a political action committee and successfully got three new candidates elected to the school board. So, regardless of my opinion, a significant portion of the Grand Island community felt the need for a change. Grover announced her resignation shortly after the new board members were elected.

According to KFXL TV, the local Fox affiliate, some board members claimed that Grover had been the victim of misogyny, racism, and bullying. To be fair, I suspect that I will be accused of misogyny, racism, and bullying for my criticism of Grover.

So, the Cedar Rapids school board’s first mistake was to hire Grover, even with the controversies about her tenure at Grand Island. The school board’s second mistake was to ignore the controversies surrounding Grover’s leadership in Cedar Rapids.

In 2023, voters rejected a bond issue (initiated before Grover took over) that would have replaced local middle schools with a larger new middle school on the edge of town. It was clear that voters wanted to keep their local schools.

In 2024, voters renewed the district’s Physical Plant and Equipment Levy (PPEL). We were told that the PPEL levy was to keep our kids ‘warm, safe, and dry.’ However, once they received the money, the district used a portion of it to purchase the land for the middle school that the community doesn’t want.

Late last year, under Grover’s leadership, the school district attempted to roll out the Freshman Academy and Career Pathways. These programs would have dramatically changed the high school curriculum in Cedar Rapids. The school district planned to roll out these changes for the upcoming 2025-2026 school year. This would have had a huge impact on this fall’s incoming freshman class. Parents and community members attended informational meetings, but the school district did not have answers to many important questions. The plans were presented as a done deal, even though the school district had not gotten buy-in from parents or staff. Ultimately, there was enough pushback that the plan will not go into effect this year.

About a year and a half after Grover took over in Cedar Rapids, the school district sent out a staff morale survey. According to Iowa News Now, 47% of teachers at Kennedy, 46.3% of teachers at Washington, and 27.3% of teachers at Jefferson had considered leaving the district. The article also cites an anonymous teacher describing a culture of fear among staff. Grover’s leadership style, both at Grand Island and in Cedar Rapids, seems to be “my way or the highway!”

It is time for a change. Cedar Rapids deserves a superintendent who is willing to listen to the community. A leader who can build consensus and address the issues facing our schools.

The real question is, how do we make a change? Well, looking at how Grand Island managed to get rid of Grover, their method seems like the best plan. There are three school board seats up for election this fall. The change starts at the ballot box. We need to elect new board members. Maybe Grover will resign; if not, the $1,000,000 or so we’d have to pay to buy out her contract would be totally worth it.

I know it sounds harsh, but don’t worry about Dr. Grover. Coming from a small district like Grand Island to Cedar Rapids, she has demonstrated a remarkable ability to fail upwards.