About two dozen townspeople showed up at the Bromfield library on Nov. 8 to hear a presentation on the roles and responsibilities of school committees in Massachusetts, presented by Glenn Koocher, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees [MASC]. The Harvard School Committee asked Koocher to speak in the aftermath of the vote to censure the board at the fall Town Meeting last month. The petition for censure accused the board of, among other things, giving Superintendent Tom Jefferson a favorable evaluation and extending his contract, before the results of an alleged state Ethics Commission inquiry were known.
The School Committee has argued that state law gives it rather limited powers, and state confidentiality laws in particular would prevent the board from conducting any sort of full-scale investigation into alleged wrongdoing by Jefferson. Board members have said they believe it is up to the Ethics Commission to decide whether Jefferson acted wrongly in approving a special education placement for a former school board member’s child, or in his treatment of a non-union employee who has charged that the superintendent unfairly demoted her after accusing her of leaking word about the placement.
In his presentation, Koocher echoed the School Committee’s defense of its actions, stressing that school boards have a very limited role in day-to-day management of schools in this state. He explained that the powers of Massachusetts school committees were sharply curtailed under the education reform law of 1993. A school board now has only five duties, he said. First, it hires and evaluates the superintendent, who acts as the chief executive officer for the district. Secondly, it can advise the superintendent when he or she hires certain other employees, such as an assistant superintendent, business manager, or special education director. The board’s third role is to set school district policies. Fourth, it establishes the school budget, and fifth, it reviews school improvement plans crafted by the individual school councils.
Koocher also explained that there are extremely strict confidentiality laws governing both personnel and students. When school board member Stu Sklar asked him if a school committee member could look at any student or employee records, Koocher replied with an emphatic “No.” This was especially true with records of special education students, he noted. “God help anyone from the schools that doesn’t keep the confidentiality of a special education student—the Attorney General will stalk you, and you’ll be very sorry,” he said. Anyone from the schools who releases a special education student’s name in public is breaking the law, according to Koocher.
If employees or townspeople have complaints they bring to the school board, the board should listen respectfully, said Koocher, but it will often have to tell them the board has no role in resolving the matter. The board generally should refer the matter to the superintendent, whose job it is to resolve the matter, he told the meeting.
This statement did not appear to sit well with former school board member Linda Moore, who was in the audience. She pointed out that Koocher was at the meeting because there are specific issues facing the town. She argued that if a non-union employee has a grievance with the superintendent, and the only other recourse open to the employee is to get relief from the courts, then, “We have to wait to be sued! We risk a big settlement,” if the board doesn’t try to solve the problem, she said.
Another audience member, Bruce Leicher, asked if the board would have the right to step in and try to resolve such a case. Koocher replied that the school board has a right to say that it’s not appropriate for the board to hear it.
“The board can only look at whether its policy was followed,” he said.
Several audience members then noted that that question is at the crux of the complaints against this school committee, that in fact, the board is accused of being lax in investigating whether the superintendent followed its policies properly. Koocher replied that there often are “significant differences of opinion” on whether a policy was followed. He told the meeting that a school board has to use its judgment in carrying out its duties, and that it need not follow public opinion.
When school board member Virginia Justicz asked Koocher how a board would conduct such an investigation without “trampling on confidentiality rules,” Koocher said if an investigation is appropriate, a school committee could bring in legal counsel to investigate.
