Letter To The Editor: Schools Sweeping Coach Issue Under The Rug

I attended the school committee meeting on April 26 and spoke during the public comment period. It was very disappointing. It is obvious that the school committee wants to sweep this under the rug and “move on”, even though the school administration has dragged coach Perry’s reputation through the mud and completely violated his privacy rights by leaking the incendiary personnel file memo to the newspapers. When the leaker, Dr. Berman, suggested that he was apologizing and we should all try and move on, the meeting erupted in disbelief, and I was thrown out. (After another Perry supporter was thrown out by armed police). Now yard signs are going up all over town supporting Mr. Perry and our coaches. People have thanked me downtown for publicly challenging this witch hunt. The incompetence and poor judgement of Dr. Berman and the AD are diminishing the reputation of the schools and the town.

We cannot let this witch hunt destroy a good man. My daughter, Elsie loved Mr Perry as a fifth grade teacher. My son, Luke played on his middle school team where for two years coach Perry bent over backwards to help an Hispanic boy, new to town, adjust, make friends, and get ready to thrive in high school. But the Berman witch hunt brands Mr Perry a racist! Both my children sent him emails of support.

So, here’s a suggestion to begin the healing. The memo that Berman leaked to the press accuses coach Perry of racist tendencies, advocating locker room violence, and using profanity based on an "investigation" that interviewed "witnesses." This is frightening. They publish a guilty verdict, but provide no real details about the investigation itself. Therefore I propose that the committee require Berman to provide the following:

• Explain what type of forensic investigation training the investigators have had that qualifies them to run an impartial investigation where a coaches reputation and career are at stake.
• Publish the texts of the questions posed and the answers given by each witness. There are rumors flying around town that the racial insensitivity conclusions were based on coach’s comments about horror movies and physics classes. If that is true, this is insane.
• What specific form of locker room violence did the witnesses accuse the coach of advocating? Did any locker room violence occur? We need exact quotes. (When my son, Matt played volleyball at AHS, the volleyball team didn’t even have a locker room! Does this year's team have one?)
• Did the investigators eliminate witnesses who were biased against coach Perry because they didn’t make the team or were resentful about the limited playing time or disciplinary action?
• Was coach Perry or his legal or union representatives allowed to be present during the witness questioning?
• Were they allowed to challenge the witnesses or present their own witnesses?
• What steps did the investigators take to prevent the witnesses from colluding with each other to synchronize their testimony. Publish the date and time of each witness interview.
• Did the investigators know about the rumor that students had been conspiring during the year on social media to "take down Coach Perry." Did they investigate the rumor? Did they accept testimony from students who participated in the conspiracy?

Berman and the committee cannot refuse the above because of privacy concerns. They already grossly violated coach Perry’s privacy. (Berman’s actions were also illegal and put the tax payers at risk of a large legal payout!) The least they can do is shine the light of day on the internal process of this witch hunt, so that the rest of the town can draw their own conclusions about its validity.

One final goodwill gesture would go a long way towards healing: Dr. Berman should release his phone records for Friday and Saturday. He needs to prove that he did NOT know he sent Coach Perry’s personnel memo to the Eagle Tribune until after the Saturday edition publishing deadline.

Sam Washburn

Andover, MA

Patch file photo.