The Galesburg School Board may be done, for all intents and purposes, with Derrek Blackwell.
The board Monday night voted to approve what was termed a “resignation agreement” with Blackwell, a now-former Silver Streaks head football coach and school safety and security officer. The vote on Blackwell’s future was tabled after a special meeting last week, until this meeting.
The vote was 4-1, with member Rod Scherpe voting against the agreement, member Pamela Bess-Tabb abstaining, and member Rodney Phelps absent.
Terms of the resignation weren’t disclosed, but those details are expected to be revealed soon.
“You don’t have to deal with him any more; but I’m very much here, and you’ll deal with me,” said Lisa Williams Hall, Blackwell’s mother, to the school board. “He didn’t give up, and he’s not willfully resigning. He’s being forced to resign. Not only that, he’s not giving up on the kids.”
Board secretary Maury Lyon said there wasn’t anything forced about Blackwell’s resignation.
“There was an agreement made on this, and no one was forced to sign anything to resign,” said Lyon. “Everything was agreed upon. I’m sorry that it was misrepresented to the general public.”
It all started after Blackwell was arrested in April following an alleged altercation with a woman inside his home.
Jim Jacobs, an author and retired District 205 teacher, told the school board Monday Blackwell was getting a raw deal.
“I remember a number of people down through the years — some, maybe, recently, the last 20 years, two decades — who committed infractions, some of them illegal, and they got a second chance,” said Jacobs. “Derrek Blackwell is getting no second chance.”
Blackwell has been in a diversion program ever since his April arrest, and denied to Galesburg Police assaulting anyone, but admitted to a loud argument that night. Blackwell told WGIL’s Jay Redfern Monday night he will comment further after receiving “what (he) was promised” in the resignation agreement.
