The anger and frustration sparked by the Longmeadow School Committee’s controversial 4-3 vote against renewing the contract of the current Superintendent of Schools (which I previously wrote about HERE and HERE) flared up again this week with the public release of an email sent to the Chair of the School Committee from a town resident that some supporters of the embattled Superintendent see as evidence of bad faith on the part of the School Committee Chair.
The email, unearthed by organized supporters of the Superintendent via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, actually provided thoughtful and well-intended advice to the Chair (whose integrity and sincerity is beyond reproach) about how to present to the public her position on the issue of the Superintendent’s contract renewal. The email’s author, along with his wife, have been publicly trying to start a conversation about serious issues related to our schools for quite a while now. Their concerns are shared by many Longmeadow parents, including my wife and me. Their efforts to shine a light on issues long under-examined in our school district deserve to be taken seriously and deserve to be part of the School Committee’s thinking about how to improve our schools. Nothing they have done or said to date has been inappropriate or nefarious. The email to the School Committee Chair is NOT evidence of any legal or ethical lapse on the part of the sender or the recipient. Efforts to portray this email as inappropriate or nefarious are baseless and counter-productive.
My own efforts to understand the School Committee majority’s reasons for the non-renewal decision left me perplexed. My examination of the public record and my discussions with teachers and administrators revealed similar confusion on the part of arguably the most important stake holders in the decision. Prior to reading the recently released email I had not considered the broader issues raised publicly by the author and his wife to be material to the case against the renewal of the Superintendent’s contract. Since reading the email, I have noticed that, whether or not the two are meaningfully connected, supporters of the School Committee’s non-renewal vote with whom I have spoken do seem to share the email writer’s general views and broad concerns about the schools. In the School Committee critiques of the Superintendent, however, these issues and concerns have not been prominent. The focus has been on the Superintendent’s perceived failure to work collegially and productively with the School Committee. No clear connection, in my view, was ever made by the School Committee’s majority members between the Superintendent’s perceived shortcomings and an effort to address the broad concerns about the culture of Longmeadow schools that the author of the recently unearthed email and his wife have been voicing very publicly and transparently since at least last spring. This lack of clarity has undoubtedly helped fuel the irrational belief among some frustrated supporters of the Superintendent that the email is evidence of malfeasance.
In fact, the present controversy has nothing to do with the email author’s views regarding the district’s challenges and everything to do with the method and manner by which the School Committee majority sought to replace the Superintendent. The thoughtful and well-intended advice contained in the controversial email is, nonetheless, instructive. It is definitely not evidence of wrong doing but it does reflect a popular misunderstanding of the School Committee’s proper role and function that is undoubtedly shared by the four School Committee members who voted against the Superintendent’s contract renewal.
What don’t the email’s author and the four members of the School Committee’s majority understand about the proper role and function of the School Committee?
The emailed advice and the rhetoric of the School Committee majority suggest a fundamental misunderstanding of the difference between the roles and functions of private sector boards of directors and those of publicly elected boards like the Longmeadow School Committee. The flat refusal of the School Committee majority to compromise with the Superintendent’s supporters makes much more sense in this context. Honest misunderstanding, not nefarious conspiracy, has exacerbated the present impasse.
The position of a corporate CEO is not entirely different from that of a School District Superintendent. Referring to such public officials as CEOs is common and in and of itself useful enough. Unfortunately, the differences between these two types of chief executives are far greater than the similarities. Efforts to administer public organizations like private organizations frequently produce dysfunction. Usually, this is a mistake made by professional public managers themselves who, failing to appreciate the type of political sensitivity and skill required of public administrators, unintentionally alienate key stake holders whose willing and enthusiastic cooperation is required for success. For school superintendents that fall into this trap, alienated constituencies often include teachers, school administrators, and/or parent groups. In the present case, however, the only constituency the Superintendent has clearly alienated (which is not to imply the absence of disaffected teachers, administrators, or parents) is the School Committee’s majority. Ironically, these four elected politicians seem to be particularly upset that the Superintendent is behaving politically.
What could the School Committee majority have done to avoid the present impasse?
They could have taken the time necessary to clearly and carefully build their case against the Superintendent and present it to the stakeholders whose trust and willing cooperation they need to move forward effectively. In a for-profit corporation, CEOs can usually be replaced without sparking an employee and/or stock holder revolt. Efforts to move private organizations in new directions, or to remedy perceived deficiencies, often begin with “fresh leadership.” This can also be done in public organizations, as long as the logic of the change has sufficient buy in (read political support) from the primary constituencies of the official or body making the change.
Why must public school boards earn the trust and even enthusiastic consent of those they are supposed to be leading?
A school district’s administrators, teachers, and parent groups are not at will employees or self-interested customers. They are well-informed and well-organized participants in the operation of the schools who have strong opinions about how to perform their functions as well as perfectly legal and legitimate power to influence the decisions of elected leaders before, during, and after elections. This is the reality that elected boards must deal with, regardless of whether or not they approve of it, because if they operate as if they alone are the “deciders” they will quickly jeopardize their ability to lead effectively. Sadly, this is what appears to be happening in Longmeadow.
If the Superintendent’s treatment of the School Committee renders the Committee unable to move the district in the desired direction, then the Committee absolutely should either repair this relationship or do what is necessary to replace the Superintendent. The latter is probably exactly what the four members of the School Committee who voted to part ways with the current Superintendent believe they have done. They gave him his first negative performance evaluation in May, 2018, told him to make specific improvements before their next evaluation, which – at his request – would be done in November, 2018. In November, four members of the School Committee judged his performance to be insufficiently improved and voted to explicitly decline to renew his contract, which expires in July, 2019.
Roughly six months elapsed between the Superintendent’s first negative School Committee performance evaluation and the School Committee’s 4-3 vote not to renew his contract. During that six months, no clear efforts to persuade key stake holders that the Superintendent needs to go appear to have been made by members of the School Committee. In fact, the Superintendent’s administrative team made several unsuccessful attempts to secure a meeting between the administrative team and the School Committee in order to weigh in on the School Committee’s negative assessment of the Superintendent’s performance. This meeting was not agreed to by the School Committee until AFTER the 4-3 vote against renewing his contract. The dissatisfaction of teachers and administrators with the dismissal of a very popular Superintendent had to be well understood by the four members of the School Committee majority long before the vote. Clearly, they did not perceive a need to obtain any buy in, or political support, from the town’s paid education professionals prior to ending the Superintendent’s tenure.
The School Committee majority indisputably failed to persuade the district’s administrators, teachers, and hundreds of active and attentive parents of the wisdom of their belief that the Superintendent needed to be replaced. The determined and vocal opponents of the non-renewal decision have persistently demanded reconsideration of and/or compromise on the non-renewal decision to no avail. The ill-conceived and potentially dangerous proposals some of these frustrated opponents will be putting before a Special Town Meeting on January 17th speak loudly and clearly to the School Committee’s failure to even try to cultivate political support for their decision to replace the Superintendent.
Not only did the four School Committee members who voted against renewing the Superintendent’s contract override the passionately and clearly expressed opinions of the aforementioned stake holders/constituencies, they also chose not to compromise at all with the three elected members of the their own committee who vigorously opposed the non-renewal and who explicitly tried to broker a compromise on the issue. I my opinion, this was a particularly destructive mistake, not because I think super majorities are required on all controversial matters that closely divide the Committee, but because on the matter of replacing a Longmeadow School Superintendent that does not want to be replaced and who has very significant support from very influential stake holders, super majority committee support is both politically prudent and legally required.
When the School Committee Chair intones that the decision of a simple majority of the Committee on this matter is final and binding on everyone, including her three dissenting colleagues, she is not just displaying political imprudence, she is making a clear factual mistake Section 6-6(b) of the Town Charter makes clear that in order to hire a new Superintendent FIVE of the seven members of the School Committee must agree. The apparent assumption that the four members who chose not to renew the Superintendent’s contract had the necessary power to “move on” with the hiring of a new Superintendent without a fifth School Committee vote was clearly and simply wrong.
As I have explained above, the argument that parents, administrators, and teachers have to accept the decision and “move on” is a bad one, but the idea that one or all of the three dissenting School Committee members have to “move on” and vote for a new Superintendent that they do not wish to hire is manifestly absurd, especially while the Superintendent they want remains on the job. It’s important to note here that the four members of the School Committee majority do have the legal authority to fire the Superintendent before his contract expires, as opposed to merely voting not to renew his contract. If they were to exercise this option, however, the long-term political damage and potential legal exposure it would cause would almost certainly bring us from bad to worse. So far at least, they seem to understand the dangers of simply firing the Superintendent.
What could the School Committee do now to help alleviate the tension and animosity sparked by the present impasse?
A credible and persuasive case for a simple non-renewal of the Superintendent’s contract, one that would satisfy or mollify enough of his present supporters, is very likely impossible at this point. The lack of compromise with the Superintendent’s defenders up to this point has effectively crippled the present School Committee majority’s credibility on this matter. Only meaningful concessions by the School Committee majority can begin to repair that credibility. Since the fateful 4-3 vote last November, I have repeatedly counseled compromise with an eye toward restoring trust between the School Committee and its frustrated and dispirited constituencies. Had the committee discussed and passed School Committee Member Armand Wray’s motion for a brief contract extension to further attempt to resolve the dispute, we would be in a much less difficult position today.
At this point, I recommend that the School Committee take the following action designed to reduce tension and animosity and to render unnecessary the ill-advised petitions on the warrant for the upcoming special town meeting (petitions brought forward by frustrated supporters of the current Superintendent who felt this was their only viable recourse): The School Committee should immediately declare that no search for a new Superintendent will commence until after the regularly scheduled town election in June.
This would render moot the STM petition to transfer FY2018 money from the School Committee’s authority to the Select Board’s and reduce the urgency and logic of the extremely ill-advised STM proposal to amend the Town Charter to add recall elections. The potential unintended negative consequences of adding recall elections to the Town Charter are considerable and avoidable. The School Committee majority’s position on this issue can be effectively and authoritatively ratified or vetoed by the voters in this year’s regularly scheduled School Committee elections in June. The intent of the budget transfer petition is to prevent the School Committee majority from spending funds to hire a new Superintendent before the town’s voters have had an opportunity to weigh in. Suspending the search would explicitly short-circuit the logic of that proposal.
The four members of the School Committee majority have defended the need for an immediate search, despite their lack of enough votes to actually hire a new Superintendent, by claiming that failing to do so could seriously jeopardize the management of the schools going forward by leaving the Superintendent position vacant. This argument is not a strong one. Further damage to the relationship between the current Superintendent’s supporters and the School Committee portends far worse going forward than would a brief vacancy in the Office of the Superintendent. Substantive policy debate regarding either the Superintendent position or the direction of the schools going forward is essentially impossible right now. Too many bridges have been burned. Only the intervention of the town’s voters at a regularly scheduled – and regularly administered -annual town election can now begin to restore the necessary trust and create the necessary space for reasoned discourse and credible decision-making about the future of Longmeadow’s schools and School Committee.
The argument by the School Committee majority that a Superintendent vacancy would be too debilitating could also be rendered moot by extending the Superintendent’s contract by enough time to ensure the timeliness of a new search. I am not recommending this option (any longer), however, because I am now convinced that this would no longer be enough to get us past this political stalemate. At this point, it may only reduce the clarity of the stakes in this year’s regularly scheduled School Committee elections. Both sides in this controversy now need as clear and unambiguous a signal as possible from the town’s voters in order to move forward with confidence and credibility. Only an effective suspension of the present conflict that preserves the urgency and the high stakes of this spring’s annual town elections for both sides will work at this point.
Failure to understand and appreciate the importance of politics to effective public policy making AND public administration got us into this increasingly ugly morass, which is why it will take corrective action by the School Committee and the political disinfectant of a town-wide popular election to get us out of it.
So, explain the vote….at the Town Meeting. What are your thoughts on how to vote as not to cause more confusion and upset?
I will be voting against amending the Charter to create a recall provision. It is a dangerous invitation to divisive political gamesmanship.
Dear Jerold Duquette,
Your letter offers some useful clarity where there has been little previously offered. Unfortunately, you fail to provide specific details of the letter to which you refer in the beginning of your position paper. Because I have no knowledge of the content of this letter, I can make no comment in that regard. I am also unaware of the concerns you and your wife may personally have with the current operation of the school system or the apparently similar concerns of the husband and wife who wrote the letter to which you referred. However, as a taxpayer, a strong advocate for excellence in higher education and, an active and engaged participant in our schools for an extended period of nearly two decades, I would welcome a factual representation of your concerns with appropriate public discussion. Without such, it is neither possible to weigh your assessment of where our system currently falls short of your expectations nor is it possible to determine whether that assessment merits consideration.
As you stated, the public to whom the SC reports has not received substantive information that supports the 4 to 3 vote in favor of non-renewal of the superintendent’s contract. Your evaluation of the net result of that failure to inform is accurate. Unfortunately, absent cooperative engagement and discussion on the part of the SC, the public is relegated to “crisis management” to resolve a situation that they are unwilling to abide. Their only recourse is extraordinary counter-measures which has resulted in the warrant articles presented for the January 17 Special Town Meeting.
I commend the effort of all those who have, by necessity, worked feverishly to de-fuel the runaway Superintendent “search” train and their attempt to mandate constituent accountability for elected officials. Taxpayers have every right to guard tax dollars and demand answers when the community faces both unfunded and/or underfunded needs that deserve equal access to limited dollars. Further, the gap between the will of four school committee members and the will of the voting populace is “grossly” disproportionate and needs to be addressed.
One could argue that the two January 17 warrant articles may be potential “slippery slopes” in conflict with the best interests of the Town in the long term. However, I can support a recall vote because the number of votes required to affect a recall is substantial. Therefore, such a vote can not be easily achieved without a very strong mandate; such as we have at present. Furthermore, the ability to recall an elected official sends a strong message to all those who are so seated, that they are obligated to work with their constituents in finding common ground rather than willfully acting in direct opposition to the public will. Conversely, I can not support the transfer of $2,000,000 from the SC budget to a separate fund; the release of which will be governed by a Select Board vote. This is a serious misstep and a future liability for our schools.
In conclusion, I feel whatever positive steps that favor Marty O’Shea’s superintendency and can achieved in the near future will not diminish the heat on this topic between now and June. I do not agree with any recommendation to “hang back” until that time. I contend that the electorate will act to make changes in the make-up of the SC as terms expire, whether this spring or beyond. I think voters and those in opposition to non-renewal of the Superintendent’s contract should continue to support their position and undertake whatever action is available to them to thwart non-renewal and/or potentially costly and ill-advised search expenditures. It is our right to continue to apply pressure and take action that supports our perception of the situation until such time as that perception may be changed.
Fran,
Thank you for the thoughtful feedback.
J