The Star Tribune took a look at the Ottley era at SPA in Eva Herscowitz’s page-one story “Claims of retaliation, suppression and secrecy fuel turmoil at St. Paul Academy.” Luis Ottley is the head of school at St. Paul Academy. In the school year just passed, the enrollment contract introduced a provision empowering Ottley to dismiss students based on the conduct of parents. Herscowitz briefly summarized her story in the Instagram video below (posted here).
Among other things, Herscowitz’s story takes up the case of parent Matt Bauer and his two sons, the oldest of whom just matriculated at the Naval Academy after graduation last month. Ottley had threatened to dismiss both of Bauer’s sons on account of no wrong attributable to them. Rather, dismissal would have been attributable solely to the offense Ottley took to Bauer’s opposition to Ottley. That’s not the way Ottley puts it, but it’s obviously the case.
Ottley’s threat to dismiss Bauer’s sons was held over the older son’s head through his graduation last month. The school has now dismissed Bauer’s younger son on account of Bauer’s opposition to Ottley and Bauer has sued the school seeking his son’s readmission. The Daily Mail covered this sorry saga in late June. Ottley has disgraced the school well beyond the confines of the Twin Cities.
Ottley didn’t talk either to the Star Tribune or to the Daily Mail for their stories. He has communicated by email in messages sent to parents and the wider school community including alumni (of whom I am one). Ottley asserts: “As we have previously shared, we don’t make decisions like these lightly and, in fact, we are not aware of any other family having been asked to leave the school based solely on a parent’s actions in the last two decades.”
As is apparent from Herscowitz’s video, however, the enrollment contract provision under which Ottley has acted to threaten parents is new. It was only introduced in the 2025-2026 contract. No other family has been “asked to leave the school” — for students of rhetoric, that’s a euphemism — because the contract provision that Ottley wields as his sword is only one year old. It’s the Ottley protection provision.
Regardless of the legal claims in the Bauer lawsuit, the facts underlying it are outrageous. Ottley is a tyrant. Matt Bauer has done nothing wrong.
To me Ottley’s dishonesy is most striking. Ottley refers to “the last two decades” in his statement. He may as well have said, “We are not aware of any other family having been asked to leave the school based solely on a parent’s actions since the founding of the school in 1900.” As I say, the enrollment contract provision under which Ottley has acted dates to 2025.
Ottley’s treatment of the Bauer case as a one-off is equally dishonest. Ottley’s arbitrary exercise of power can be seen in the case of the parent suspected of “leaking” the “ICE protocol” circulated by the school for this year’s Winter Dance to Liz Collin of Alpha News. I told his story in “At SPA, ordeal by Ottley.”
This parent didn’t do anything wrong either and yet he has been treated like the perpetrator of a gross breach of national security. Despite Ottley’s characteriztion of the dismissal of Bauer’s younger son as an aberration in the message quoted above, Ottley threatened this parent’s two children with dismissal from the school under the new enrollment contract provision on account of the parent’s suspected behavior. Ottley proceeded to impose humiliating discipline on the parent.
And the contract provision obviously has an intimidating effect on other parents who oppose Ottley’s leadership of the school. That’s what it’s all about. “The last two decades” are not the appropriate frame of reference for these stories. They are strictly stories of the Ottley era.
