See You In Court – October 2026

With the start of the school year, Bob Bombast, veteran member of the Nutmeg Board of Education, invited parents and employees to email him with their various complaints so that he could do his “constituent service.”  After receiving the first email, Bob decided to act.

In the email, a parent complained to Bob about her son’s fourth grade teacher and the principal.  She explained that her son’s new teacher took roll on the first day of school and had the students introduce themselves.  When it was her son’s turn, the teacher remarked, “Wow, you are a scrawny one.  Don’t your parents feed you?”  Understandably, her son came home upset because he was already self-conscious about his slight frame.

Bob was surprised when he read further.  The parent went on to say that she promptly called Peter Principal to complain, who expressed appropriate concern and promised to take care of it.  However, sadly, the teacher made the situation worse.  At the end of the next school day, she took the student aside and spoke with him privately.  The teacher told the student that she was sorry that he could not take a joke, and she promised not to make any more jokes about him so that he would not “go home and cry to mommy again.”

Bob was outraged to hear this, and he told the parent that he would take care of it.  With that, Bob asked Ms. Chairperson to add a new item to the agenda for the next Board meeting – “discussion and possible action on a parent complaint,” which she did.

Mr. Superintendent invited Peter Principal to attend the meeting that followed.  When the Board reached the agenda item involving this complaint, Ms. Chairperson called for a motion to convene in executive session, and when it passed, she invited Mr. Superintendent and Peter Principal to join the Board in executive session.

Bob started the discussion with a hostile question: “Mr. Principal, what on earth is going on at your school?”  Peter responded that he thought he handled the issue appropriately and that he should not be blamed for the teacher’s exacerbating the situation with her ill-advised follow-up conversation with the student.

Bob continued with his harsh tone.  “Why didn’t you place the teacher on administrative leave to investigate her first comment?” he demanded.  Peter looked at Mr. Superintendent and asked if he should have union representation, but Bob interrupted.  “We are just trying to get the facts here.  If the Board decides to impose discipline, we will give you all the union representation you could want.  Now please just answer my question!”

Peter told Bob that there was nothing to investigate.  He explained that the teacher admitted to making the comment when he met with her, and that he had acted appropriately by directing her to be more sensitive with her students.

“Well,” Bob responded, “we saw how well that turned out!  Mr. Superintendent, it is clear to me that this teacher must be fired.  When are you going to follow through?”

Mr. Superintendent told Bob that he should stand down because the supervision of staff is his responsibility, not the Board’s.  Moreover, he said, Board members should not be making judgments about teachers because they must remain impartial in case they must later consider a recommendation for termination.  

Was Bob out of line here?

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Yes.  Despite his many years serving on the Nutmeg Board of Education, Bob’s actions were inconsistent with the responsibilities of board of education members.

We start with Bob’s “constituent service.”  Board members have an important legislative role in enacting policies to regulate the affairs of the school district and in adopting and overseeing the budget each year.  On occasion, board members will also have a judicial responsibility, as described below.  However, by statute the superintendent serves as the chief executive officer of the board of education, and operational concerns are therefore the superintendent’s responsibility.

Here, the parent had a legitimate concern, and she may well have reached out to Bob or another Board member with her complaint irrespective of Bob’s constituent service.  When residents reach out to board members with complaints, a desire to help is understandable, given the commitment board members have to public service.  However, board members should respond by educating the person reaching out about the chain of command and the responsibility that the school administration has for operational concerns.

In their oversight role, board members have the right and responsibility to ask questions about district operations.  However, the tone Bob set with his questions gave the discussion a disciplinary tone.  Peter Principal’s question whether he should have union representation was therefore understandable.  By contrast, Bob’s response was inappropriate.

When an employer investigates a concern by questioning a union employee, that employee has the right to union representation if in answering the questions the employee reasonably fears for his or her job security.  Given the nature of Bob’s questions, that was the case here.  Accordingly, Bob’s response to Peter Principal was problematic.  If an employer fails to pause an interview to provide union representation to a union employee upon request in such a situation, the employer is precluded from taking disciplinary action later based on anything that the employee says in response to such questions.

We also note that Ms. Chairperson invited both Mr. Superintendent and Peter Principal into the executive session.  That action was necessary because the Freedom of Information Commission has ruled that boards of education must invite their superintendents into executive session (as well as any other person whose opinion or testimony is requested).  

In addition, the discussion raised a question as to the rights of both Peter Principal and the teacher under the FOIA.  Boards of education may discuss the performance of public officers and employees in executive session provided that the person discussed is advised in advance of his or her right to require that the discussion as to him or her be held in open session.  While this executive session started appropriately as a discussion of a student matter privileged to executive session, one may ask whether and when it became a discussion of employee performance, which would trigger the right of the employee to request open session.

Finally, board members should be aware of a change in the law that affects their judicial responsibility.  When board members act as judges in holding school accommodation or student expulsion hearings, they must be impartial. Accordingly, they should not comment publicly on such matters and should only consider the evidence they receive at such hearings.

That restriction previously applied to tenure hearings because boards of education had the final say in whether a tenured teacher’s employment would be terminated.  However, the Teacher Tenure Act was amended this year, and now board members have no role in the process.  Thus, the duty to refrain from commenting on matters involving tenured teachers no longer applies to board members (while of course commonsense restraint still does).