Over the objection of the school board, the Pittsfield select board formed a committee Tuesday to study the potential cost savings of sending the town’s high school students to a different district.
The unanimous vote was taken directly in front of the school board’s chairman less than a week after the superintendent of schools wrote a sharply worded letter to the select board suggesting that it “makes common sense to most people” that the select board should leave educational issues to the school board.
Superintendent John Freeman wrote that the select board’s “apparent ignorance of this separation of authority” was evidenced by a questionnaire available at town hall that wondered whether the town should form “an impartial committee” to study the question of tuition as a means to decrease taxes.
He wrote that the select board’s consideration of school issues was a “confused and ill-advised overreach of authority.”
Select board members and four residents who were allowed to speak from the audience said they were offended by the tone of the letter.
Among them was Brandon Giuda, a Chichester attorney and graduate of Pittsfield High School. He said Freeman’s interpretation of the law was “dead wrong.”
He said the high school’s poor reputation and high dropout rate are dragging down property values and the superintendent is disinclined to recommend closing the high school.
“The superintendent, as good meaning as he is, is not going to go that direction because if there’s a big, deep-seated problem, it would reflect negatively on his job,” Giuda said.
“I think the letter was arrogant, out of line and incorrect. As an attorney, I’m telling you this is part of your job and I encourage you to do it,” he said.
Anderson said he was convinced that the select board had the authority to form a study committee. Select board Chairman Larry Konopka said he hoped the school board and select board would each send a representative to the committee, but school board Chairman Mike Wolfe said he was unsure whether his board would agree.
Wolfe said he took “great offense” to the implication that school officials couldn’t study the issue with impartiality.
“Because you want the dollar first, that makes you impartial? And I’m not impartial because I put the kids first?” he asked of Anderson.
Anderson said someone in Freeman’s position “just by definition can’t be impartial” because “he’s got a dog in the fight.”
Wolfe said before the select board meeting Tuesday that he’d only heard from one resident about the idea of sending the high school students to a different district.
Konopka said when he was running for a seat on the select board he was repeatedly asked about the high school. He said he told a dozen people to go to the school board, but instead “they keep coming back, they keep coming back, they don’t go to the school board.”
The school board members invited anyone who wishes to comment on the idea of sending students to a different high school to their meeting Thursday. Konopka said he was planning on attending until he was offended by the letter.
“When I got this, I was going this Thursday night to your school board function,” he said. “I ain’t going this Thursday. Not with that letter. . . . I’m sorry, but you called me ignorant.”
Konopka said he hopes the two boards can work together in the future, and Wolfe said he took full responsibility for the letter.
Freeman said he apologized because “it was not intended to offend you. It was intended to clarify the school board’s position.” Konopka responded: “You know my phone number.”
(Nick Reid can be reached at 369-3325, nreid@cmonitor.com.)