Spring 2024 Newsletter
This is a story about Martellius Moore. Yet, this is not a story about Martellius Moore. I will let you know up front that I believe in Martellius Moore. I am on team Martellius. I believe in his legal guardian, his Grandma Carol Reynolds.
Log Entries: DRW College Prep 23-24 Semester 2
Moore, Martellius
1/16/2024 DRW Principal Tina Ellis:
Mailed Expulsion Letter to Parent on 1/16/24. “Due to Martellius Moore breaching a community agreement within our Noble Community Pact, the school will recommend expulsion from Noble Schools”.
1/16/2024 Edgar Rodriguez Jr. DRW Staff
“Spoke with grandma who stated she received email for hearing and will be on there; and that Student will be coming to school to get work done. She did say “don’t give up on him.” ADOC stated our staff is more than willing to work with the student and see them succeed, all we ask if for student to meet staff and work on fulfilling expectation.”
I met Martellius when he was probably around 7 or 8 years old. I was his basketball coach at Breakthrough Urban Ministries in East Garfield Park on the West Side of Chicago. I would coach Martellius for the next 5 years or so until COVID wiped out our season. Martellius is now 15 years old and is supposed to be a freshman in High School. But he hasn’t been in class, in any meaningful form, since 12/7/23 when a large altercation involving 14 boys broke out in the lunchroom at DRW College Prep, a Noble school. Martellius was suspended from 12/7/23 to 12/20/23.
In the 1/16/2024 letter sent by Tina Ellis to Grandma Carol, it stated that the altercation involved 12 boys. Of the 12 or 14 participants in the altercation, two wound up being expelled. Martellius and his older half-brother.
In a letter dated 1/28/2024 from Noble Schools CEO Constance Jones
“I have adopted the Hearing Office’s findings, recommendations and rationale and as such the final determination is that Martellius will be expelled for two years.”
Log Entries DRW College Prep; Tina Ellis, Principal
1/28/24
“Spoke to grandma. Informed that Martellius was expelled from Noble for the next 2 years. She wants to appeal the decision. I told her I would mail her the necessary information.”
Grandma Carol says that nothing was mailed to her. Nothing in the log entries indicate that anything regarding the appeal was mailed. Nothing in the letter from CEO Jones on 1/28/24 mentioned anything about the appeal process.
Leader. Charismatic. Smart. Athletic. Popular. Those 5 words come to mind when I think about Martellius. On the basketball floor he played with an intensity that would make Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant proud. Winning mattered. He cared. He was beloved by his teammates. Besides basketball he played for the Garfield Park Gators. He played Middle Linebacker and Half Back. I am told that he is an awesome football player.
Letter dated 2/06/2024 Dr. Cynthia Treadwell Executive Director. Office of Social and Emotional Learning.
“The Department of Student Adjudication was notified on 02/05/2024 that your child, Martellius Moore, was expelled by School for committing the offense of participating in a large or disorderly group of students using force to cause injury to a person or property, or persisting in severe disruption after being directed to cease by school personnel or Police, which is A NON-EXPELLABLE OFFENSE ACCORDING TO THE CHICAGO PUBLIC SCHOOL SCHOOLS CODE OF CONDUCT.”
Gangs. Guns. Drugs. Crime. Violence. When I make my quarterly “Just One Dash” deliveries to Grandma Carol there would literally be four young men standing on the corner. This was usually around 10 AM on a Saturday. It doesn’t take long to find trouble if you want to find it. It is even that much easier when you are suspended from school on 12/7/23, expelled from school on 1/28/24 and still are not in school as of this writing on 3/2/24.
Shortly after the expulsion, Martellius’ dad, who lives in Waukegan offered Martellius the opportunity to come live with him and enroll at Zion-Benton. When they tried to enroll, Zion-Benton turned them away. Even though CPS wasn’t upholding Noble’s expulsion, Zion-Benton told them they were going to. They made this decision without even meeting Martellius in person.
On 2/8/2024 I reached out via email to DRW Principal Tina Ellis hoping there could be a way to revoke Martellius’ expulsion and let him withdraw from DRW instead. In this way, he could move into his dad’s house, and would be allowed to enroll at Zion-Benton. I ended by stating that “at the end of the day, I would hope that getting a student educated has to be a priority for everyone. Martellius is falling further and further behind. If we can discuss a new letter that would be most appreciated.” My email was not returned.
Log Entry 11/30/2023 Edgar Rodriguez Jr, DRW Staff
“Spoke with Grandma….Goals that we agreed upon…..An email will be put together to reach out to teachers connecting them to Grandma to see how grades can be raised up.”
Nothing was sent and no one reached out to Grandma Carol until 12/7/2023 informing her of the suspension.
By rule, because CPS did not recognize the suspension, Martellius is allowed to enroll at his “neighborhood” school, which is Orr High School. Among other things, Orr is known for a 2018 Documentary produced by Dwyane Wade and fellow Chicago native Chance the Rapper called “Shot in the Dark”. It told the inspirational story of the star of Orr’s basketball team making a 3-pointer with three seconds left to send Orr to the 3A Final Four. A week earlier the player was shot in his leg at a party.
Grandma Carol does not want Martellius to go to Orr. She thinks he will get shot. Martellius does not want to go to Orr. He thinks he will get shot. The principal of the school Martellius graduated 8th grade from told me that if he goes to Orr he will get shot. Apparently, where Orr is located, it has three different gangs in overlapping territories. Remember, Martellius hasn’t been in school for months and it is not hard to find trouble when gangs, guns, drugs and violence are a way of life.
I tried calling Orr Principal Dr. Shanele Andrews twice to discuss a safety plan if indeed Orr was Martellius’ only option. I was told by multiple people within CPS that Martellius could not request a “Safety Transfer” unless an incident occurred after he enrolled and attended Orr. At that point a “Safety Transfer” could be requested. I emailed Dr. Andrews on 2/12/24 and again on 2/23/24 expressing mine and Martellius families concern about his safety should he attend Orr. Grandma Carol was copied on the emails. My emails weren’t returned. I could not get through to Dr. Andrews on the phone.
This past Thursday I toured ASPIRA High School in Chicago with Martellius and Grandma Carol. It is a little over 3 miles away from where they live. I was incredibly impressed by our tour guide, Assistant Principal Leonard Kenebrew. He grew up in a household of 11 kids. He earned a scholarship to play football at Indiana University. He was kind, respectful, thoughtful. He reminded me of Morgan Freeman’s character in the great movie “Lean on Me”. Because ASPIRA is not a CPS school or a Noble school, Martellius could be able to go there. There is some paperwork to be filled out. There are logistics of how Martellius would be able to get to school, but Mr. Kenebrew did not judge but opened his school to Grandma Carol and Martellius.
Since the expulsion, I have been in regular contact with Grandma Carol and Martellius trying to get him back in school. Before our tour, I had not seen Martellius in a while. The last couple of times I did JOD deliveries to Grandma Carol he hadn’t been home. I was taken aback by how Martellius appeared. Tired. Soft spoken. Quiet. Withdrawn.
Martellius wants to go back to school. He has texted me to check out Steinmetz HS. Legal Prep. Michelle Clarke. Marshall. Al Raby. Wells High School. Intrinsic High School. But right now, because of the CPS “neighborhood” rule, he can only go to Orr within CPS.
Through the Noble website, I have requested a meeting with Noble President Mike Madden and/or CEO Constance Jones. I have not heard back.
###
I have tried to connect with them on LinkedIn. I have not heard back. On 2/8/24, I messaged CEO Jones on Facebook. I have not heard back.
I created “Just One Dash” in large part due to some of the conditions I knew my players were coming from. When Martellius finally gets back to school, I have a game plan in place to get him any type of educational assistance that he will need to get back on track. At JOD, we strive to work with our families to assist them educationally and vocationally.
This has been a hard few years for Martellius. Life has been tough for him since COVID. There have been things that have happened that I didn’t get into here. But these things have caused anger to build up inside him. Traumatic events for a teenager. DRW was Martellius’ third high school of his freshman year. His family decided to take him out of the first two schools he attended. He had been involved in fights there too. I see that as someone calling out for help. I never had a problem with Martellius fighting either in practice or in games.
I am on team Martellius. I want Martellius to get back involved in sports. He is absolutely gifted enough where his athletic abilities could lead him to an opportunity to get into college. Martellius is a smart kid. If he applies himself, he can achieve good grades. The sky is the limit for him.
Most importantly, I want him back in school. I also want answers from DRW and Noble about how things were handled. Why, out of 12 or 14 kids involved in the school fight, were only two students expelled? Why were they not given information on how to appeal against the expulsion? To me it just seems like they just want Martellius and his grandma to go away. Why won’t Orr address our safety concerns? Unfortunately, there are a lot of questions and no answers coming from the educators who you would hope would want to provide answers. All we are hearing is crickets.
###
On March 4th, Noble President Mike Madden did call me back and we had a discussion. He told me there is no appeal process. This contradicts what DRW Principal Tina Ellis wrote down in the DRW log when she told Grandma Carol she would mail her the information about the appeal process. Grandma Carol had told her she wanted to appeal the decision. Mr. Madden wasn’t sure why Miss Ellis would have said that to Grandma Carol.
To be fair to Mr. Madden, he was not aware of Martellus’ case, nor had he met Martellius. He claimed there was a due process that occurs and that they trust their process. He emphasized the expulsion was not going to be overturned- even if letting Martellus withdraw would clear a path for him to move in with his dad and register at Zion-Benton. He said that expulsions are a last resort and very few Noble students get expelled. Apparently as President of Noble Schools, he is not involved in the expulsion process. He did not know if the Zoom hearing in which Grandma Carol and Martellius were present was recorded and if it was, could it be made available to the family.
Martellius was only at DRW for a couple of months before he was expelled. After reviewing details of the expulsion, Chicago Public Schools acknowledged that in their view, what occurred with Martellius was a non-expellable offense. We do know that 12 or 14 students participated in the altercation and that only two students were expelled- Martellius and his half-brother.
I maintain that is hard to believe a school could make such a serious judgement on a young man in two months. Nothing in his DRW log, which is 8 pages long, indicated that any effort was made to understand Martellius. The only entry that remotely seemed like there had been was the email on 11/30/2023 where a plan was going to emailed to Grandma Carol to help get his grades up. This email was never sent.