Frustrated parents voiced their disappointment to the Pembroke School Board on Tuesday that they weren’t informed when Pembroke Academy’s dean of students was arrested at the high school and charged with heroin possession in mid-February.
During a public comment period days after news outlets publicized the arrest, the handful of people who spoke up said the school’s administration should have given parents the public facts about what happened at the time.
“Five to six weeks ago, the story was about Ms. (Rekha) Luther (the dean of students) and her struggle with addiction. A month and a half later, the story is no longer about her. It’s about why an entire school district and the parents were kept in the dark,” said James Decker, an Epsom father of two girls at Pembroke Academy.
A Hooksett man whose daughter attends the high school, David Pearl, said communications from the administration are typically frequent, so he was “shocked” when he saw in the news that Luther had been charged with possession of heroin and steroids on school grounds Feb. 17.
The first communication from the district on the subject, sent Monday by Superintendent Patty Sherman, contradicted itself, Pearl said. He said he received the letter “explaining the arrest, and two lines down explaining that the arrest couldn’t be announced because of privacy laws and so forth.”
“If that is true, how is the arrest announced yesterday in a letter with the person’s name, position and date of arrest? If in fact that is nonpublic knowledge . . . it remains that indefinitely,” the former member of Hooksett’s school board said.
The officials on the Pembroke board mostly didn’t respond to questions asked during the 20-minute public comment period, except for brief matters of fact. Chairman Tom Serafin explained: “It’s not a dialogue. This isn’t a public hearing. It’s a board meeting, and this is a citizen’s comments portion of the agenda.”
Pearl pointed out that the board could make a motion to discuss the subject at any time. Serafin looked to see if anyone would.
“The pleasure of the board?” he asked, leading into a 20-second silence.
School Board member Janna Culberson suggested they could potentially discuss “why they’re not comfortable discussing it tonight,” but no one made a motion.
Serafin said the board “has work to do” and will address the comments at an unspecified time in the future. The board needs to “assess the best way to respond,” he said.
The board formally accepted Luther’s resignation at the end of its meeting Tuesday, after a 50-minute nonpublic session. The 36-year-old Manchester woman, who will appear in Hooksett’s district court Monday for a probable cause hearing, had previously submitted her resignation effective March 22.
The district’s legal counsel is Dean Eggert, an attorney for the Manchester law firm Wadleigh, Starr & Peters. He said in a phone interview Tuesday that it’s a “general practice” of school districts not to comment on personnel matters.
Eggert, who said he advises nearly 40 school districts, said if a board member makes a comment that could be construed as “adverse” to a public employee, that person can be seen in the courts as unable to make an unbiased determination about the employee they’ve commented on.
Therefore, he said, “we advise boards and administration members not to make comments regarding an employee’s conduct – or, for that matter, misconduct – publicly.”
Eggert also said that the Monitor’s requests to review Luther’s resume and letter of resignation – both of which were denied Tuesday – would violate exemptions in the state’s right-to-know law, unless their distribution was authorized by Luther.
Certain records about Luther’s pay, however, were obtained by the Monitor on Tuesday.
Between Feb. 17 and March 22, the dates when Luther was arrested and resigned, she earned more than $8,000 from the district.
After her arrest, Luther remained on paid administrative leave until her resignation went into effect March 22, Sherman said in an interview after the board meeting.
Luther was scheduled to earn $73,000 over 205 work days during the 2015-16 school year, amounting to a salary of $356 a day.
The school boards from each town in SAU 53 will gather at Pembroke Academy at 6 p.m. Thursday for a joint meeting.
(Nick Reid can be reached at 369-3325, nreid@cmonitor.com or on Twitter at @NickBReid.)