Foster's Opinion Piece June 17th

It's time for OR School Board to explain itself

Friday, June 17, 2011

Oyster River School District residents should feel like one of boxer Mike Tyson's sparring partners, complete with an ear bitten off, after Wednesday night's announcement that the School Board has bought out the last year of Superintendent Howard Colter's contract.

The action, which appears to have come out of nowhere, climaxes an abusive few months for district residents. First it was the board's surprise decision to reject Colter's nominee as the new high school principal. This was followed by a series of lackluster and, to date, failed attempts to explain why. Next the board couldn't even agree on the makeup of a new selection committee, and finally in apparent desperation, opting to hire an interim principal.

Now Colter is shown the door under mysterious circumstances, and at a cost some estimate to be $300,000 by the time an interim replacement comes on board.

The issues here are so myriad it is hard to know where to begin. But let's start with the decision to buy out Colter's contact.

How did the board come to this decision before Thursday's night's meeting?

How the board got to its decision to part company with Colter raises serious questions and has already spawned accusations of clandestine meetings.

As reported Thursday, word was that last Friday the School Board was already interviewing candidates for an interim superintendent.

Interestingly, while board Chair Henry Brackett denied the allegation he readily admitted that he was talking to individuals on "what type of things we should do in this type of situation."

Is the Oyster River Community expected to believe, by inference, that Brackett was working independently of any communication with other board members? And who were these unnamed individuals Brackett was talking to?

This brings us to New Hampshire's Right-to-Know Law. Ever since all hell broke loose the Oyster River School Board has hidden behind the personnel exception to the law. Its members have refused at every step of the way to provide adequate explanation to district residents. The board as a whole has operated in the shadows of the law, if not outside of it.

With the decision to bid Colter farewell, the time is long overdue for the School Board to come out from the shadows. Chairman Brackett needs to call a meeting for the purpose of being open and honest with residents of the Oyster River School District.

State personnel laws don't prevent the board from admitting it disagrees with Colter over how the district should be run. Nowhere is the board prevented from discussing what all this is about and what it will cost taxpayers.

All the secrecy surrounding recent actions by the board only leads to speculation there is really more going on here, something that might embarrass the board or others.

For the record, there have been no accusations of wrongdoing and no indications that any laws have been broken by anyone other than the School Board with its perceived abuse of the Right-to-Know Law.

But that is all the more reason to clear the air and focus the discussion on the problems confronting the school district. It is the only way the district can move forward and again put the emphasis on providing students with a quality education.