Embattled Marblehead School Committee Public 'Conversation' Date Set

MARBLEHEAD, MA — The Marblehead School Committee will host a public forum — which Chair Sarah Fox called a "conversation" — on Thursday night to allow members of the public to ask questions following an open "lack of confidence" letter sent to the Committee and signed by hundreds of town residents.

The Marblehead League of Women Voters had offered to moderate the forum but Mimi Hollister Gardner on Monday proposed postponing it to March to allow for a moderator from outside the town to be present and to give the public more time to gain notice of the meeting and formulate questions.

But the School Committee members unanimously elected to go forth with the forum on their own now set for Thursday at 7 p.m. at Marblehead High School in both an in-person and hybrid format.

"There is some inherent risk — risk might be too strong a word — but a challenge in doing this," School Committee member Jennifer Schaeffner said. "But I think it's worth it. We said we were going to do it. I think we can handle it. We're used to the public comment. There may be some difficult public comment to hear but if there is a question in there we can answer the question if it's in our purview to do that. I think we will be able to handle it."

"It's really no different than what we sit through every week," Fox said. "We have some members (of the public) who berate us every week."

The "lack of confidence" letter expressed concerns about how the Committee will address $2.3 million in cuts facing the district for the next fiscal year, its "hiring, firing and management" of the superintendent position, and Committee members' conduct during open meetings.

Attorney Elizabeth Valerio cautioned the School Committee that a recently decided Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court case ruling means that while members can choose what to answer from the public, they cannot tell those speaking what they can or cannot ask about, even if it is discourteous.

"You can request respectful conduct but you can't insist on it," Valerio said. "You certainly cannot shut somebody down who is using language that you don't like. It is going to be the School Committee's (open) meeting. You can call it 'conversation' but it's basically public comment where you respond."

Topics that will be covered could include the upcoming superintendent search — which will be for an interim superintendent for the second straight year — the budget and some policy considerations.

One topic that does not appear up for discussion is the reasons behind the "separation agreement" with former John Buckey after the School Committee launched a process this spring that pointed toward an ouster with term remaining on his contract.

Residents have expressed frustration that the reasons behind what many considered a forced resignation were never publicly revealed. But because of a "non-disparagement agreement" as part of the separation agreement, Committee members cautioned that those answers will not be forthcoming at Thursday's forum — or any other time as long as the agreement remains in place.

"A lot of the dissatisfaction with the School Committee has been on topics we can't discuss," School Committee member Brian Ota said. "They keep bringing up certain topics and we can't discuss them. I think in this forum it would not be a bad idea to get that question asked again and for us to say, 'I'm sorry, we can't answer that because it's a personnel issue or something outside of our purview.' Because I think a lot of people think we're hiding behind things and I don't know how many times we can say 'We can't talk about this' but it needs to be done in a public forum so we can get the public to understand we're not hiding anything. We just cannot legally discuss them because of restrictions.

"Until we keep getting that out in the public as often as we can, we'll keep getting blamed for not discussing termination, or things going on with School Committee members, or whatever."

School Committee member Alison Taylor said that while she was "100 percent against" the non-disparagement agreement, that it was signed does bind the School Committee from violating it.

"We have shared that in public meetings countless times that, unfortunately, we can't (discuss it)," she said. "We've shared as much of our executive session minutes as we possibly can from that perspective."

Fox said that she intends this to be the first of multiple public forums to discuss issues under the direction of the School Committee and that she will work with the League of Women Voters to find a date for a moderated discussion in the near future.

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