School board holds first in-person meeting since 2020; main item planned for executive session

June 16, 2021 | By Lisa Scagliotti

UPDATE: The board met for approximately an hour in executive session on June 16 to hear from the Harwood principals and superintendent about the coach termination case. An action item on the agenda for the June 23 meeting is to review the decision to investigate the matter.

The Harwood Unified Union School Board has changed plans for its special meeting at 6 p.m. this evening to discuss the hockey coach termination case from earlier this year. 

The meeting has been switched from an online video conference to the board’s first in-person meeting in more than a year. The shift comes after Gov. Phil Scott this week dropped all remaining COVID-19 public health restrictions on gatherings and meetings given that state Department of Health data show more than 80% of the population eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine has received at least one dose. 

With that step back to normalcy, Vermont Secretary of State Jim Condos issued a statement this week saying that modifications to the state’s Open Meetings Law that allowed for all-remote meetings and electronic meeting notices were lifted as well. 

That means that public bodies such as school boards, select boards, etc. now must go back to the usual Open Meetings procedures such as having a physical meeting location where public participation can occur. Meeting notices must be physically posted in public locations. 

Going forward, members of the bodies may still attend remotely and Condos encourages local government to continue remote access for the public.  

In a memo Monday to local officials, Condos said: “The text of the open meeting law does not explicitly require permitting the public to attend and participate from remote locations. Nonetheless, we at the Secretary of State’s office urge public bodies to find means to continue including the voices of members of the public who have limitations that may preclude physical attendance. Supporting the right of all members of the public to express their opinions on matters considered is one path to accountability.”

Many local officials have said they will continue to allow for the public to attend remotely. That option caught on during the COVID-19 pandemic and in many cases led to increased public participation. The Waterbury Select Board, for example, has added technology to the Steele Meeting Room in the municipal offices that will allow hybrid meetings going forward where board members and the public could attend either in person or via video connection. 

School Board Chair Torrey Smith said the HUUSD School Board would like to offer a similar arrangement but they need to work with IT staff at Harwood Union High School to get the setup in place. Given the Secretary of State’s instructions this week to resume in-person meetings, tonight’s meeting was switched to be held in the high school library starting at 6 p.m., she said. 

Special meeting added into the schedule 

Tonight’s meeting, however, is not a regular meeting with a full agenda. It was called as a special meeting to accommodate schedules for key people who need to attend. 

The board usually meets on the second and fourth Wednesdays of each month. On May 26, the board voted to hold an executive session with Harwood Union High School administrators to discuss the handling of the February termination of boys hockey coach Jacob Grout. They may reconsider plans to hire an investigator to assist with its review of the matter. 

The board was not able to have that session with the high school administrators at its regular meeting on June 9 which was also senior awards night ahead of Harwood’s graduation last week. 

In a note with the agenda for this week’s meeting, Smith explained that the administrators also would not be available for the board’s next regular meeting on June 23. That date is expected to be the board’s last meeting time before its summer recess; it will resume meetings as the new school year begins. 

Smith also noted that several board members are unavailable to attend tonight. As a result, the board would not take any action tonight, she said. 

“We are organizing the [June 16] meeting purely as an executive session; any action items that might come as a result of the executive session will be taken up at the following regularly-scheduled meeting on [June 23],” she said. 

The revised agenda for tonight includes 15 minutes for public comment with the remainder of the agenda in closed session. Anyone interested in commenting would need to do so in person, Smith said. Alternately, the public is always able to email the board using the email address cen-huusdboard@huusd.org, she noted. 

The purpose of tonight’s meeting is for the board to discuss with Harwood Union High School administrators the handling of the disciplinary action taken against former boys hockey coach Grout who was terminated in February. 

Former boys hockey Coach Jacob Grout. File photo courtesy The Times-Argus.

Grout sent an electronic message to the players on the hockey team before their first game that prompted a complaint to school officials from a parent. The message contained multiple instances of profanity. 

Grout acknowledged the message and has made public statements saying he regretted sending it. A Harwood graduate and coach from 2019 until this year, Grout led the team to the 2020 state championship and was poised to begin this year’s season in February, delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Upon his dismissal Assistant Coach Shawn Thompson was promoted to head coach. The step prompted a strong public reaction with more than 1,300 people signing an online petition calling for Grout to be sanctioned but returned to his position. 

Grout appealed the decision by school administrators to fire him to Superintendent Brigid Nease and later to the school board. The board has met in executive session several times in the past several months about the matter but it has not met with those directly involved.

The board on April 28 voted 7-6 to hire an outside investigator to do those interviews and produce a report for the board to review the facts in the case. However, following that decision, all 14 of the district’s top administrators -- principals from each school and other district-wide officials -- signed onto a letter to the board urging it to drop plans for an investigation and to let the decision by the administrators to terminate the coach stand. The board responded by voting 8-3 with three abstaining to reconsider the action taken in the Grout case to date. 

When the administrative team made its request, no investigator had been hired yet. The board has put that step on hold given that it voted at the end of May to hold this executive session with just the school administrators on the matter now. 

The board had refrained from hearing from any one party in the matter previously saying it needed to remain impartial should it need to make a decision in the matter.

Executive session discussion looks to change course

Tonight’s meeting with just school administrators may signal that the board is leaning toward changing course. 

In explaining the option to just meet with administrators in preparation for the May 26 meeting, board leaders Smith and Vice Chair Tim Jones explained to members that the executive session discussion would be worthwhile “only if there is a reasonable chance of a different outcome.” 

They encouraged members who still felt strongly about the independent investigation to vote against an executive session with administrators and said if board members were willing to take a different approach, they should support the confidential meeting.  “If you think that there is a decent or excellent chance that, after hearing more about what actually happened (in executive session), you might very well be comfortable taking no further investigative action, then we would urge you to vote ‘yes’ on this question,” they explained to the group. 

The board voted 7-5 in favor of tonight’s executive session with Smith and Jones abstaining. 

Ahead of tonight’s meeting, the board has received at least one formal challenge to its plan. Moretown resident and lawyer Neil Nussbaum emailed the board and local news outlets with a memo arguing that the matter should be discussed in open session. Because Grout is no longer a district employee nor has he requested any confidentiality in the matter that has been made public, Vermont Open Meeting Law requirements for executive session are not met, Nussbaum wrote. 

“I urge the Board to discuss Agenda Topic #4 in open session, where the discussion clearly belongs. With more than 1,300 petitioners expressing their interest in this issue, it is a subject of tremendous public interest, and it should therefore be discussed in an open session,” he said. 

The meeting begins at 6 p.m. in the Harwood Union High School Library. Mad River TV planned to record it and post the recording on its website within a day or so.