Principals to school board: Halt firing investigation
May 14, 2021 | By Lisa ScagliottiThe case involving the firing of Harwood Union High School’s boys hockey coach in February has gone into overtime after 14 administrators in the district asked the school board to halt its investigation of the matter.
Administrators from Harwood Union schools joined the School Board meeting video conference May 12 to share a statement from the entire admin team. Screenshot.
Principals from all of the district’s eight schools as well as district administrators who handle finances, special education, and curriculum signed a letter to the Harwood Unified Union School Board asking the board to reconsider its April 28 decision to hire an independent investigator to look into the termination of former hockey coach Jacob Grout. (See letter below)
Read aloud by several of the principals during the online video conference board meeting Wednesday evening, the letter states: “We do not believe an investigation of this nature will bring closure or healing to this topic, but will instead prolong the issue at significant expense to our taxpayers. An investigation of this nature not only signals a lack of faith in the administration, but draws district resources, in the form of time and money, from other important work before us.”
Grout coached the boys hockey team in the 2019-20 season when the team won the Division II state championship. He returned this year and was poised to start the season in February after it was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He was removed from his position, however, following a complaint from a parent regarding a text message Grout wrote to the team players. The message used a number of expletives and called out players and parents for questioning coaching decisions.
The complaint was made to the Harwood Union athletic director and the high school’s co-principals who made the call to remove Grout as coach before the season’s first puck dropped.
Grout, who admitted that the message showed poor judgment, appealed to district Superintendent Brigid Nease who stood by the administrators’ decision. He later appealed to the School Board to review the matter.
Former Harwood Boys Hockey Coach Jacob Grout. Times-Argus photo.
The School Board heard directly from community members and received a petition with nearly 1,400 signatures asking that the matter be reviewed, asserting that the punishment was extreme for the offense.
The School Board has met in executive session several times to discuss legal advice from the district’s lawyer, but it so far has not met with the parties involved.
At its April 28 meeting, the board decided to hire an investigator to interview all parties and report back to the board so it might review how the situation was handled. The investigation was framed as an impartial option for the board to pursue rather than airing the details in a public meeting.
The administrators’ letter called the move overreach by the school board. “We believe that the board is overstepping their role and responsibility in this situation. Intervening in this issue overreaches into the clear and legally defined responsibility of the administration,” the letter states.
Although Harwood Union Co-Principals Laurie Greenberg and Meg McDonough signed the letter, they did not read from it. Principals from the district’s two middle schools along with Thatcher Brook Primary School and Waitsfield Elementary School principals read the text.
The principals pointed out that the board is not required to take up Grout’s appeal and that doing so would set a precedent “by stepping into the realm of employee supervision.”
Although a cost has not been publicly discussed for the investigation, the administrators asked: “Will the board now be willing to pay $20,000 to $30,000 for the independent investigation of disciplinary action of any at-will employee? How will you justify which cases you will investigate and which you will not?”
Policies to address complaints
In the structure of the school district, voters elect school board members by town; the school board hires and supervises the superintendent who, in turn, is tasked with hiring and overseeing the team of administrators including individual school principals and managers of district functions such as finances and curriculum.
On its website, the school district has several policies regarding handling complaints: Policy D10 refers to Public Complaints About Personnel and Policy C7 addresses General Complaints. Both lay out steps for resolutions “in a timely manner” and both describe a sequence of steps to follow starting with bringing a written complaint to the individuals “most directly responsible for oversight of the area of concern.” If the complainant is not satisfied, the policies describe proceeding next to building principals, and then to the superintendent. A final step, as Grout exercised, is to appeal to the School Board.
The General Complaints policy states: “If the Board decides to hear the request of the complainant, it shall invite all parties involved to attend a meeting for purposes of presenting facts, making further explanations, and clarifying the issue. The Board shall conduct such meetings in a fair and just manner and shall render a decision.”
At the April 28 meeting, School Board Chair Torrey Smith and Vice Chair Tim Jones recommended that the board acknowledge that principals in Grout’s case - and in turn the superintendent - acted within their authority to terminate the coach and to consider the matter closed. The administrators on Wednesday asked the board to revisit and adopt that recommendation.
The decision on how to discipline an employee is best made by administrators, they said in their letter, and board scrutiny of any decision regarding employee discipline “undermines trust in our administration and in our schools.”
The administrators offered to review the protocols around discipline to satisfy concerns of the board members. “If you, instead, do not trust that we are making sound decisions in the supervision of employees, we believe a much larger issue needs to be addressed,” they said.
The plea to the board closes by it to abandon the investigation, hear an explanation of protocols used, and to consider the matter closed.
“We ask you to overturn your decision and thereby reflect to our community, and to those you intend to recruit as future leaders and educators in our schools, that you are a board who will support your school administrative leaders and uphold the high expectations our children deserve,” the administrative team wrote.
Reached after the board meeting Wednesday, Grout said he was not watching the meeting as he was not expecting his case to be discussed. The matter was not on the meeting agenda specifically and was instead brought up under an administrative team update.
Grout commented that although weeks have now passed, he still would like to understand why the decision was made to fire him. “Not the statement ‘we were within our rights to do so,’” he said. “I want an actual explanation into their thinking.”
‘Trapped’ between the public and administrators
The topic took up about 45 minutes of the School Board’s meeting with a fair amount of discussion around procedure and how to proceed. Some board members including Jeremy Tretiak of Waitsfield suggested returning to the initial recommendation to not take up Grout’s appeal and declare the case closed. The majority however wasn’t ready to let it go.
Moretown representative Lisa Mason said she thought the board owed the community a better response. “There seems to be a big break in communication and trust around what happened,” she said. “If an investigation isn’t the right move, what is a way to bring some closure without just saying nothing can be said? That doesn’t feel like the right answer for our community either.”
Christine Sullivan of Waitsfield disagreed. “I don’t feel that same way. I know 1,500 people signed the petition, but they weren’t all from our community and sometimes people in the community don’t know the whole story.”
Before the board opted for an investigation, Waterbury’s Marlena Fishman previously suggested inviting all parties to meet in public with the board. “I wanted to create an opportunity for voices to be heard,” she said. “I’m wondering now how to be able to do that and have it not come to [an] investigation.”
Warren board member Jonathan Clough said that to remain impartial, he purposely has been avoiding reading news reports of the matter -- and he wasn’t comfortable saying the case was closed. “I’m not going to be able to vote tonight that this is over,” he said.
At the April meeting, Theresa Membrino of Fayston supported the investigation saying the district’s reputation was on the line and it could be “an opportunity to clear the air” in the face of public outcry.
“I actually think the investigation is a defense of our administrative team, so I’m a little surprised and a little disappointed” in the request to drop it, she said. “I think it's an opportunity for the admin team to prove they did it all right.”
Ultimately, the board voted 8-3 to revisit the topic at its next regular meeting on May 26; two members abstained and the chair did not vote.
Following the vote, Warren member Jonathan Young addressed the administrative team saying he bristles at a costly investigation but, “saying there is nothing to talk about was not the right answer.”
He said he hoped there could still be opportunity to hear from everyone involved. “The reputation of the admin team has been hurt by this already,” Young said, recalling a decision in 2015 when a well-liked school staffer in Warren was dismissed without a public explanation. “There was massive uproar,” he said, with repercussions still. “I don’t like what it did to our town and our relationship with the [school] district.”
Young, who was just elected to the board in March, said he felt “trapped” between the community’s demands for the board to weigh in, and the administrators telling the board to stay out of the matter.
“If there are lessons to be learned on either side of the coin, let’s learn ’em. Let’s make better policies so that we don’t come across this again,” he said.
Superintendent Nease declined to comment on the matter given that it is not resolved. “I will not be making comments, answering questions, or sharing remarks with the public due to the pending investigation and any possible legal action,” she said in an email to Waterbury Roundabout.
Editor’s note: This statement was read at the May 12 HUUSD School Board meeting.
HUUSD administrators’ statement to the School Board
May 12, 2021
Dear HUUSD Board:
We, the administrators of the HUUSD, respectfully request the board reconsider their recent decision to contract an independent investigation of the termination of an at-will employee. We do not believe an investigation of this nature will bring closure or healing to this topic, but will instead prolong the issue at significant expense to our taxpayers. An investigation of this nature not only signals a lack of faith in the administration, but draws district resources, in the form of time and money, from other important work before us.
We value the democratic process and public discourse. We appreciate the framework that district policies and work agreements provide. We believe that the board is overstepping their role and responsibility in this situation. Intervening in this issue overreaches into the clear and legally defined responsibility of the administration. We ask that you consider the resolution previously suggested to you by your board leadership, Torrey Smith and Tim Jones, perhaps in the process identifying any further information you might need from administration. This resolution identified that the principals, athletic director and superintendent operated within their statutory authority regarding at-will employees. We believe that we are not only the parties charged with making decisions regarding employee discipline, but that as the people licensed, trained and experienced in doing this work, we are the best people to be making these decisions.
The board is not bound to take up this matter and arguably, in doing so, opens itself to future risk by stepping into the realm of employee supervision. Will the board now be willing to pay $20,000 to $30,000 for the independent investigation of disciplinary action of any at-will employee? How will you justify which cases you will investigate and which you will not? How does adding this responsibility, which does not fall under the Vermont statute defined responsibilities of a school board, impact your capacity to engage in what is your clearly defined work: establishing a district vision, adopting policy, partnering with the superintendent, budget development & oversight, progress monitoring, and ensuring effective/ethical board operations? (see Vermont School Boards Association). We offer that questioning a decision regarding the employment of an at-will employee, or any employee for that matter, does not support our standing in the community, but rather undermines trust in our administration and in our schools. It undermines our district’s commitment to holding high expectations for all staff and maintaining accountability for those expectations. If you believe that we have not followed proper protocols, please allow us to share what our protocols are. If you, instead, do not trust that we are making sound decisions in the supervision of employees, we believe a much larger issue needs to be addressed.
A majority of the HUUSD administrative team hold multiple roles as we serve our community schools. We are community members, taxpayers and parents of current, graduated, and future school-age students. We are deeply committed to the health and success of our schools on many levels. Collectively, our years of experience working in the district is rare in a state where the average principal tenure is less than five years. We are dedicated to the vibrancy of our district. We ask for your support for the building-level principals to engage in the defined work of leading our respective staff members to provide vigorous, innovative, and student-centered educational experiences in a welcoming and inclusive environment. We ask you to overturn your decision and thereby reflect to our community, and to those you intend to recruit as future leaders and educators in our schools, that you are a board who will support your school administrative leaders and uphold the high expectations our children deserve. We ask that you provide an opportunity for our admin team to publicly share our processes of employee discipline with at-will and contracted staff, and to then determine the Board’s involvement with this specific matter to be closed.
Respectfully,
Michelle Baker, Director of Finance & Operations
Mandy Couturier, Moretown School Principal
Tom Drake, Crossett Brook Middle School Principal
Josh Estes, Crossett Brook Middle School Assistant Principal
Denise Goodnow, Thatcher Brook Primary School Principal
Laurie Greenberg, Co-Principal Harwood Middle/High School
Celia Guggemos, Fayston Elementary School Principal
Stephanie Hudak, Director of Student Support Services
Kaiya Korb, Waitsfield School Principal
Sam Krotinger, Warren School Principal
Shannon Lessley, Director of Curric. & Technology
Meg McDonough, Co-Principal Harwood Middle/High School
Duane Pierson, Harwood Middle School Administrator
Sarah Schoolcraft, Thatcher Brook Primary School Assistant Principal