'Our Community Has Been Traumatized': Danvers School Committee

DANVERS, MA — Nearly 24 hours after a 90-minute executive session ended with no action taken on a public proposal to place Superintendent Lisa Dana on administrative leave amid accusations of racist behavior and homophobic hazing within the hockey program, the Danvers School Committee Tuesday night released a collective statement allowing that "our community has been traumatized," but adding that there is no change in Dana's status as superintendent and reaffirming there are certain aspects of the hockey investigation it cannot and will not publicly discuss.

"We all agree on the importance of moving forward together and to ensure the district lives our values," said the statement provided to Patch.

Recently elected School Committee member Robin Doherty made a motion at the start of last week's school committee meeting — which was open to the public — that Dana be placed on leave "while the School Committee can ascertain the best path moving forward." Alice Campbell, also elected this spring, seconded the motion, which caused School Committee Chair Eric Crane to send that meeting briefly into a closed executive session.

He returned to explain that Doherty's motion was made "out of order" and would be considered at the executive session one week later.

The collective statement released Tuesday said that no motion was made at the subsequent executive session — which is closed to the public — and thus no vote was taken.

Both the Danvers Teachers Association and parents speaking during public comment at last week's meeting slammed district officials for a lack of transparency with staff and the community about investigations into the abuse accusations over the past 18 months, which include players shouting racial slurs and locker room hazing rituals involving a sex toy, before those accusations were revealed in a Boston Globe front-page story last week.

While the School Committee said "we regret that our communications to the public upon conclusion of the investigations fell short in terms of emphasizing the seriousness of what occurred and the district's response," the statement largely doubled down on the contention that the administration took appropriate disciplinary action against those involved based on the results of the investigation, and that privacy obligations prevent the district from discussing the explicit details of the accusations or any discipline when it comes to both students and staff, including former coaches.

"We have reflected upon the events of the past year, including the conflict between the public's desire for as much transparency as possible in everything we do and our obligation to uphold the legal rights to individual privacy of our students and staff," the statement said, "which require that certain information remain confidential in order to meet these legal obligations.

"We cannot make public any consequential action taken with regard to employees or students. As such matters fall squarely within statutory privacy law, it is not appropriate to comment further on these."

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The statement did note that the district's two newer committee members — Campbell and Doherty — "have added an eye-opening perspective on the crucial need for transparency and our collective efforts going forward."

The statement also commended the player who has now made the abuse accusations anonymously to multiple media outlets.

"We applaud the young person who courageously came forward to shine a light on what is alleged to have occurred and hope he knows that his actions will lead to change," the school committee said.

State Attorney General Maura Healey said, in an apparent reference to the Danvers hockey charges, this week: "The hate, bigotry, trauma we're seeing in high school sports makes me so sad — and angry. It's a commentary on our times and what adults are modeling. It's not OK."

Healey's office said the attorney general will seek "more information" on the situation. State Sen. Joan Lovely (D-Salem) posted on social media on Tuesday she would support a thorough state investigation into the "despicable behavior" within the program in 2019-2020.

"We have all learned that as a school district we must redouble our efforts to do all that we can from an educational standpoint to establish a culture where our students and our staff know that acts of racism, homophobia, antisemitism, bully or conduct which in any way defines people other than by their character simply has no place in our schools," the school committee's statement concluded. "Issues such as we face in our schools are community issues as well. We hope and believe that the citizens of Danvers are committed to addressing issues of racism, homophobia, antisemitism, or religious differences in a way that leads us to a better place.

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)

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