Second Concord School Employee Found Not To Be Credentialed

CONCORD, NH — Despite being in the business administrator's position for more than seven years with the Concord School District, Jack Dunn is not credentialed with the New Hampshire Department of Education to be working in the position. Dunn is the second district office employee to be found not to be credentialed in four days after Patch revealed Sunday that Donna Palley, the former assistant superintendent who was named acting superintendent last week, was found to not be certified for either position despite eight years in the position and needing to be credentialed in 2014. Palley was named to the position after School Superintendent Terri Forsten and Concord High School Tom Sica were placed on leave by School Board President Jennifer Patterson, in the wake of an internal investigation of the district's actions concerning the Primo "Howie" Leung teacher-student rape allegations.

Dunn's lack of certification was discovered Wednesday after an audit by Patch of every member of the SAU 8 Administrative Council on the NH DOE website. The council is made up of district office employees, directors, principals, and assistant principals. All members of the council, with the exception of Dunn and Palley, were found to be in compliance with the NH DOE.

Grant Bosse, the communications director for the New Hampshire Department of Education, confirmed that Dunn was not credentialed and said he came into the department this week to start the process of being credentialed.

Dunn did not reply to an email requesting comment about his lack of certification.

Neither Larry Prince, the human resources administrator for SAU 8, nor Patterson, returned requests for comment about why administration employees for the district are not having their credentials checked or how checks could lapse for so many years.

According to state education rules, which are the policymaking authority of laws and regulations approved the Legislature and signed by the governor, there is no three-year grace period for business administrators to become credentialed as there is for assistant superintendents and superintendents. Business administrator positions are listed as a critical need in the state, as are other education positions, so they can work into the position if they had certain experiences before being hired. It appears that Dunn did not have any of these experiences before being hired. At the same time, after more than seven years on the job, an administrator would have needed to have earned the endorsement by now.

Business administrators, before being hired, are required to have a number of past employment experiences and competencies that run five pages long on the education rule certification documents. They include the completion of a state board of education approved program at the bachelor's and master's degree level, business management experience, professional development, leadership references, knowledge of school district functions including HR, facilities, pupil transportation, food services, and other school administration.

Educators have had to be credentialed in the state for more than a century.

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At The Time, An 'Inside Job' Hire

Dunn first ran for an at-large Concord Board of Education seat in 2008, about a year or two after moving to Concord with his family. He served for three years and ran for re-election in 2011. Dunn was easily re-elected to a second term.

But in the middle of the first year of his second term, in late May 2012, Dunn abruptly resigned, citing "personal and professional reasons."

About a week later, Dunn was nominated to be the business administrator for the district, with a starting salary of $105,000, about $5,000 more than was budgeted for the position and more money than the previous business administrator and treasurer, Michele Croteau, earned even though she was in the job for around seven years.

At the time of the nomination, Dunn was not certified for the job and had no previous experience as a treasurer or administrator for a school district or municipality, all requirements of the job, shocking many in the Concord community at the time.

Documents requested from the school district after the interview process stated that Dunn was the vice president of operations and finance at Long Island Pipe Supply in Salem even though his LinkedIn account at the time identified himself as an "operations manager" and a filing online said he was a comptroller for the company and it only had two employees. His previous experience included IT, training, and consulting.

According to Prince, 17 people applied for the job including 15 from New Hampshire and two from out of state. An interview committee of then-Superintendent Chris Rath, Palley, Prince, Kass Ardinger, the school board president at the time, Matt Cashman, the director of facilities and planning for the district, and others met once to discuss the resumes of applicants and Dunn was chosen.

Investigation Reveals It Was A 'Dunn Deal'

During the course of many weeks after his nomination and hire, Patch made right-to-know requests for documents and emails, and interviewed a number of people connected to the school district about the matter.

Many of the requests for documents were denied under the personnel protection provision. Rath called the requests "an invasion of privacy" despite the fact that Dunn was an elected school board member and a public figure at the time he was applying for the job. Many of the documents were also not accessible due to being "preliminary drafts," "documents not in their final form," or not available due to the school board not being in a quorum at the time of meetings and non-meetings, a common way public officials in New Hampshire hide information from the public and the press.

Other documents that were released found that Dunn was kept in the loop about the process and hiring after Croteau first announced her resignation in March 2012 and he inquired about the position, including updates from Rath. Dunn also kept Rath up-to-date with his progress, including his plan to enroll in the school business administrator certificate program at Southern New Hampshire University a few weeks after Croteau gave her notice.

The first advertisement for the job by the district lowered the requirements and standards for the position compared to an ad published seven years before, according to a comparison of the advertisements by Patch. Rath then lowered the requirements even more, requesting Prince eliminate all governmental and IRS knowledge requests of applications, state education requirements, as well as the Master's degree and CPA preferences, as well as other items.

After Dunn was hired, Patch reached out to every business administrator employed in the state of New Hampshire and asked if they had applied for the position and about their qualifications, on condition of anonymity. A number of administrators replied and stated that they had between nine and 30 years of experience with different levels of education and certifications. At least one applicant, who knew other applicants, calling themselves a close knit group, said there were a lot of "heavy hitters" that applied while other applicants were surprised that someone without any school business experience or qualifications would be hired by such a large district as SAU 8.

During interviews with Rath in 2012, she stated she never checked Dunn's past employment history, no firm was hired to do a background check on any of the applicants, and references weren't checked despite the fact that the job required the responsibility of controlling the finances for a $80 million government organization.

Most school board members knew and approved of the decision to hire Dunn, as he made the rounds to discuss taking over the position. Two board members, however, Barbara Higgins and Nick Metalious, who is no longer on the board, were not told that their colleague was being considered for the job and were shocked to find out that they were kept out of the loop afterwards.

At the time, Ardinger said she limited communications about Dunn and the position to board members with unique experience regarding government employment practices, something Higgins was quite familiar with, being a teacher for nearly 25 years.

Concord NH Patch won a second place Champion of Right-to-Know Award from the New Hampshire Press Association in 2013 for its investigation of the Dunn hiring.

Since coming onto the board in 2012, Dunn has made a number of improvements with the position, including better packets and graphics for the public and the press as well as more in-depth financial information during budget season. He has been praised by a number of past school board members as being "very knowledgeable" and "a rock star," according to past interviews.

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Editor's note: This post has been corrected to show that the position of business administrator is on the critical shortage list which allows alternative pathways to credentialing.

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