See You In Court! CABE Monthly Column
“See You In Court!” is written by Thomas Mooney and appears in the CABE Journal, a publication of the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education.
Nellie Newby was elected to the Nutmeg Board of Education last November, and she spent the better part of the year rarely speaking at Board meetings and simply observing the operations of the Nutmeg Public Schools. However, things changed when Polly Parent addressed the Board at public comment last month to complain about Tom Teacher. Polly’s son had just completed sixth grade at Median Middle School, and Polly told the Board members that her son was poorly prepared for seventh grade because Tom Teacher, his language arts teacher, did not grade and return homework to students all year.
Polly’s comments upset and intrigued Nellie, who leaned forward and asked Pamela to elaborate. “Did you complain? How could that go on all year?
“Oh, I did! I met with Tom Teacher, and he told me that he was busy and he would get to it, but he never did,” Polly responded. “After waiting a month, I complained to the Principal, and he told me that he would take care of it. Again, he never did. I even wrote an email to Mr. Superintendent with my concerns, but he never responded.”
Nellie turned to Mr. Superintendent and asked him whether he had ignored Polly’s letter, but he demurred, stating that he received many emails and could not remember. Nellie then turned back to thank Pamela for her courage and promised to follow up on her concerns.
The Board meeting went on, but Nellie remained focused on Polly’s complaint. When she got home, she sent a group text to the entire Board imploring them to take action. Veteran Board member Bob Bombast texted back with the following: “Board members shouldn’t get involved in administrative matters! Supervising teachers is the Superintendent’s job, not ours. STAY IN YOUR LANE!”
Nellie was undeterred, and she next set her sights on Mr. Superintendent. Nellie texted Mr. Superintendent and demanded to know whether he had ignored Polly’s email. Mr. Superintendent texted back that he had responded to Polly, but he hadn’t been able to talk about Polly and her son during public comment because of confidentiality rules.
Now Nellie was really frustrated and texted back, “If you responded, tell me what you said.” Mr. Superintendent responded to Nellie by text saying that he was not comfortable talking about personnel matters by text and that she should give him a call. But Polly persisted and texted back that she wanted action and that Tom Teacher should be fired for his dereliction.
As it turns out, Tom Teacher had been on a performance improvement plan during the past year, and he had not been successful. Mr. Superintendent had reached out to the Nutmeg Union of Teachers (NUTS) for assistance in negotiating a separation agreement with Tom. Bruno, the NUTS representative, presented a proposed agreement from Mr. Superintendent to Tom, but Tom wasn’t interested. Accordingly, Mr. Superintendent initiated proceedings to terminate Tom’s employment, coincidentally, right after receiving Nellie’s text.
On Tom’s behalf, Bruno asked for a hearing in accordance with the statute, and he also made a request of Mr. Superintendent under the Freedom of Information Act for all communications with any person, electronic or otherwise, that Mr. Superintendent had about Tom Teacher during the last year.
Will Mr. Superintendent be required to produce Nellie’s texts, and will those texts be a problem?
