by Thaddeus Flint
At the September Berlin School Board meeting, the Board, or part of the Board, made it rather clear that the possible removal of some Board members, the three who continue to vote against the Capital Project bond flotation, was being explored. What was not clear, however, was how the Board might go about that. [private]The District’s lawyer, Beth Bourassa, of Whiteman, Osterman & Hanna, was brought in to publicly explain the legality of the measure. Bourassa said it was possible. The residents could do it themselves if they wanted to, she said. All they had to do was file a complaint with the Education Commissioner. The complaint would, however, be unlikely to remedy the frustrations of the citizens in the short term, explained Bourassa, as the Education Commissioner takes his time in making decisions; sometimes years. Citizens would be more successful at the polls come May in removing a Board member or members they felt were not performing the tasks they had been tasked to do.
The School Board itself could, however, do the job a bit faster, pointed out Bourassa.
How?
Bourassa would not tell how publicly. “There is a mechanism,” is all she would divulge.
According to the general counsel of the New York State School Board Association (NYSSBA), Jay Worona, this is true. If a Board member “violated the standards of the law,” said Worona, “they could be removed.” However, “It doesn’t happen all that often,” he added.
In most cases, according to Worona, the School Board would pretty much follow the same procedure that Bourassa had told the residents would take forever – filing a complaint with the Commissioner. The reason for this is that any Board Members removed would most likely “file an appeal with the Commissioner,” explained Worona, and so the complaint would end up on the Commissioner’s desk awaiting his decision anyway.
Worona did not want to make any predictions as to whether an attempted removal by the Berlin School Board would be successful without first hearing the exact reasons the Board would cite in their case. He did say, though, that school board members “voting their concerns, however irritating that may be…they cannot be removed for that.” A larger reason must exist.
And this is where the District would need to be careful. When Board Member John Nash asked who would be paying the legal fees to defend him from his fellow Board members, Bourassa had replied that he would. This is true but only if Nash was removed and his appeal to the Commissioner was turned down. If Nash was the winner in the end, the District would have to reimburse his legal fees. Add to that the legal fees of Alan Webster Jr., Bev Stewart and, of course, Whiteman, Osterman & Hanna, and the final bill for an embarrassing loss could be enormous.
NYSSBA does support the possibility of Board member removal in extreme cases. “School board members are elected by their local communities, and the responsibility to determine their suitability for office should fall on the members of the community that elected them,” the Association writes. However, NYSSBA adds, “Board member removal procedures rarely result in improvements to either school district governance or student achievement.”[/private]