Community Corner
Can a School Board Fire an Employee Without Naming Him or Her in Open Session?
Obviously, there are a lot of nuances in a case like this. What do you think?
The action took place one school district to the north, but the implication might be of interest to folks in Batavia, especially considering the flap that followed sanctions this past year against John Dryden in School District 101.
The rhetorical, philosophical and somewhat flippant question that comes to mind after Geneva School District 304's action Tuesday night is this:
If a fired School District employee's name is read aloud in open session and nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound?
What Happened Tuesday Night
On Tuesday night, the Geneva Board of Education complied with a late-September opinion by the office of Attorney General Lisa Madigan that it had, in fact, violated the Open Meetings Act by identifying a dismissed employee only as "Employee A" when dismissal had been recommended on June 24.
After a brief executive session Tuesday night, School Board President Mark Grosso reconvened the meeting without sitting down. The board stood in a circle while Grosso made a motion that confirmed that the board had dismissed "Terrie Harrington due to performance concerns." The motion passed unanimously in a roll call vote by the seven-member board.
With that action, the board had complied with the opinion of the Attorney General's Office. But by that time, the cameras had been turned off and no one was left in the audience, save one old Patch editor.
Background
According to a July article in the Chronicle, Harrington was one of three dismissed School District employees since 2010 whose names were not read aloud in open session of previous meetings.
Harrington was a kindergarten instructional assistant at Heartland Elementary School who had been an employee for 17 years, with an hourly wage of $13.42 in the 2012-13 school year. He had earned a total of $13,758 that year, according to the Chronicle.
The other two employees were:
- Deborah Regelbrugge, a preschool special education assistant, who had been with the district more than six years and earned $12,518 in the 2012-13 school year.
- Daniel Benjamin, a maintenance worker at Geneva Middle School South, who was with the district for nine years and whose salary was $47,419.
Harrington and Regelbrugge were identified in open session only as “Employee A” and Benjamin was referred to as “a specific employee” in open session, according to the Chronicle.
The Chronicle filed a motion with Lisa Madigan's Office saying the Open Meetings Act was violated and the Attorney General's Office opinion was rendered on Tuesday, Sept. 24.
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For the record, the Harrington's name was no secret by the time it was read aloud on Tuesday.
School District 304 had released Harrington's name to the Chronicle, as well as the salary information and length of service of all three dismissed employees in question, and the Chronicle had published the information in July.
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Why the Action Might Be a Concern
If a School Board can dismiss an employee without saying why and does not name the employee in open session, it's possible and even likely that the public won't know about it.
Certainly, parents might be interested in the reason an employee is dismissed.
If a School Board goes into closed session, then returns to open session and to read a name when no one is in the audience, it would be easy for the information to go unnoticed.
In the case of Batavia's Dryden, could the School District 101 Board have made a dismissal or reprimand and identified him only as "Employee A" in open session?
Can any board avoid scrutiny by holding an executive session until the meeting room is empty before returning to make its "public" vote?
On the Other Hand ...
Much of the information about dismissals, including names of the employees, are included in meeting minutes, which are available to the public. Even executive session minutes are released over time.
Geneva's Board of Education might have had a reason to withhold the names from the public that it cannot discuss or other circumstances that aren't apparent. Clearly, the board was following the advice of its legal counsel.
Perhaps board members simply didn't want to embarrass an employee by naming him or her. As some Patch readers have commented in the past, dismissed employees in the private sector typically are not named, in order to protect their privacy.
Obviously, there are a lot of nuances in a case like this. What do you think?
