Public should be heard, not herded

It’s been nearly a year since the Berne-Knox-Westerlo School Board dismissed its popular boys’ basketball coach, Andy Wright.  We have nothing but praise for the new coach who stepped up to lead a team that had many members who were passionately attached to Coach Wright and were hurt and confused by his departure.

We have this week gained some insight into how the decision was made. We received an inch-thick sheaf of papers, obtained by Wright through a Freedom Of Information Law request. The vast majority were emails exchanged among school board members and the then-interim superintendent, Lonnie Palmer.  He’s since been replaced with another year-long interim superintendent.

The papers revealed, time and time again, that the elected representatives of the people — school board members —neither wanted to engage with nor inform the public; rather, the public was to be “managed,” and communicated with through the expertise of public-relations specialists. The papers also reveal that the district did not follow its own chain of command. And, sadly, the papers show a district that is unable or unwilling to work with and improve its staff.

Last Oct. 9, Palmer wrote the school board members that he had told Wright he would not be sending his name to the board for the annual re-appointment; Wright had coached varsity for a decade. Palmer reports that Wright asked “the exact reasons for this decision. I told him it was time for a change.”

This is the same reason the public was given, which is no reason at all.

“I reminded him that he was a young man with much of his career ahead of him and he should be careful not to do or say anything that might cause him long term career damage,” wrote Palmer. The threat to keep him quiet did not work.

Crowds packed the school’s auditorium, asking for reasons; people wrote to our paper in published letters to the editor, and they e-mailed the board. In response, they got the same boilerplate response from the board’s president, Joan Adriance: “Thank you for your email to the BKW Board of Education. We appreciate you contacting us to share your thoughts and concerns, however, we are unable to respond or comment on personnel matters.”

That line was given to board members in Palmer’s Oct. 9 email. He wrote, “Engaging in back in forth will convince the unbiased observers that we are uncertain of our position and feel the need to explain it.” (On the contrary, back-and-forth discussion is what informs wise board decisions. Last month, for example, the Guilderland school board listened to citizens opposed to closing an elementary school and decided to reject a consultant’s scenarios while seeking a solution to falling enrollment and excess building space.)

Palmer concluded, “Please help me to the quickest and most professional resolution of this issue by smiling and saying you can’t discuss personnel issues.”

As we’ve written in this space many times, most recently last Nov. 14, nowhere does state law name “personnel” as a topic to be avoided in public. Robert Freeman, director of the New York State Committee on Open Government, calls it the “Personnel Myth,” adding that, if people repeat things enough times, they come to believe them. “The law says a board may enter into executive session. The board is absolutely free to discuss the issue in public,” Freeman told us.

We wrote that editorial after publishing a letter from Palmer on Oct. 31 that stated, “In accordance with the New York Personal Privacy Protection Law, the board has a longstanding practice of not discussing personnel matters in public.” That law did not apply to Wright’s situation; it applies only to state agencies and records maintained by state agencies.

We were stonewalled for months by school leaders as we tried to get answers, to understand the situation so we could explain it to the community. The emails contain references on how to handle one of our reporters.

Giving a reason, which Wright repeatedly begged for, would have spared the players ostracized by teammates who thought they had complained about Wright. “I’m asking you as a school administrator,” the mother of a targeted player wrote the high school principal, Brian Corey, on Oct. 21, “please tell Mr. Wright the reasons for this change....” to quell rumors it is because of players’ complaints.

One school board member, Vasilios Lefkaditis, argued that giving the coach the reason was the right thing to do. “I understand that we don’t ‘have to’ give him a reason but I don’t operate that way and I think if the board does it’s in poor taste,” he wrote. “A man deserves to know why his services are no longer being utilized.”

The stack of papers revealed no outright reason. We had already printed a two-year-old plan, listing points Wright was asked to improve. He was told he had met the mark. His coach performance reports with 36 listed characteristics, to be evaluated on a scale of 1 (for excellent) to 5 (for poor), were almost all 1s. There were a couple of 2s, for promptness and appearance, and one 3 over the years for relationships with opposing teams/officials.

One reason is hinted at in an Oct. 8 email from Lefkaditis who says of dismissing Wright, “This decision fits right in with Lonnie’s plan to change the culture of the district. BKW needs to be shaken up and revitalized.” Lefkaditis goes on about the district’s declining enrollment, “we’re in a free fall....”

While we appreciate Palmer’s leadership at budget time, in settling the employees’ long overdue contract, and in securing more academic services, we’ve long admired the culture of BKW, a close-knit school community where genuine caring helps students progress. We covered a report done by Cornell a decade ago that showed school enrollment would decline rapidly; the reasons, though, didn’t have to do with “culture” but with changing demographics — smaller families, fewer people farming.

Firing a coach is not a good way to revitalize.

The papers also make reference to four anonymous respondents to a survey on extracurricular activities who “were very critical of Andy Wright, labeling him as disrespectful, demeaning and arrogant,” Palmer reported to the board on Oct. 8. “They also criticized his excessive playing time for certain athletes and too much emphasis for the scoring record of one player.” Palmer said the survey had 25 to 30 respondents.

Those comments echo complaints that Adriance had written about Wright in a three-page letter to the former superintendent, with a handwritten note on top to  “Lonnie,” saying, “I think it’s time for a change.” Adriance wrote she was “frustrated and concerned about Coach Wright’s behavior and coaching strategy...many comments have been made about this season not being about competing to win games, but instead about Garrett Pitcher scoring 1000 career points so that his name would join his grandfather’s on the banner in the gym.” She also asserts, “We lost closely contested games because the focus has been on Garrett reaching his personal goal.”

She wrote, too, that, because of Wright’s behavior, the BKW basketball program “is often the laughing stock of our community and our conference. That is shameful.” She described his behavior, saying, “I have watched him argue, pout and demean players when they come out of the game.” She also asserts, “His favoritism is no secret to anyone watching. Finally, she maintains that parents of players “are afraid to speak up because they fear retribution from him toward their children.”

Where is the chain of command here? Aren’t educators — and yes, coaches are important educators — supposed to be supervised by administrators, in this case an athletic director and high school principal? If parents have complaints, shouldn’t they be handled and answered at that level? Why would one person’s opinions carry such clout?

The athletic director at the time, Thomas Galvin, resigned in the wake of Wright’s dismissal. An email he sent to the school board members on Oct. 22 after the huge public outcry in favor of keeping Wright, says, “As I said tonight, I am a ‘solution guy.’ I would hope you will take my advice and give Andy a one year trial as coach. Allow Mr. Palmer, Mr. Corey and Mr. Kies [a dean at the time] to observe and evaluate him as a coach. If they do not feel Andy has done an adequate job, then we will support their decisions.”

That was a last-ditch effort to right a system that was terribly out of kilter, where a school board member was calling the shots rather than letting the school professionals do their jobs.

Palmer, in his Oct. 9 email telling the board Wright was losing his coaching job, wrote, “I feel bad because Andy is a likeable young man who could have been successful as a coach with the right leadership, which he didn’t get early in his career.

Punishing a peon for a system that doesn’t allow for improvement of staff is no way to solve the problem.

Lefkaditis wrote on Oct. 31, “As for standing strong, I’m still not sure what all this was for because I don’t know if it’s sustainable.” He wrote it could be “a big black eye for nothing,” urging, “Without systemic policies/procedures and sustainability the district will slip right back into the groove.”

The district would be wise to openly look at what went wrong — involving the public in the discussion — if it wants to move forward. Continuing to stonewall or pretending it didn’t happen won’t solve the problems.

Adriance, wrote admiringly of a girls’ soccer coach who lost her job because of “personal politics” but “accepted, with grace and silence, what had happened, even though she and many others felt that she was treated unjustly.” Adriance goes on, telling her fellow board members, “In fact, her silence was so absolute that some of you may not even know that it happened.”

Accepting a wrong silently is not a virtue. To rout out “personal politics,” they must first be exposed.

Palmer wrote to the board on Oct. 28, after a crowd turned out in support of Wright, the “mob mentality” was indicative of Wright’s response in fighting for his job. Palmer wrote, “he loses perspective on what is the best thing for the kids, for the district and even for himself...Keeping your cool and thinking rationally under pressure is a big part of being a successful coach.”

We believe Wright was, and still is, a successful coach. Could he have been better with some tutoring? Sure; we all can improve.

But was he wrong to seek a reason for his dismissal? No. The district was wrong for not being open.

And, in the end, what is the best lesson for kids? To quietly leave as if nothing had happened? Or to fight for an explanation and maybe improve the system along the way?

— Melissa Hale-Spencer

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