The father of a Pembroke Academy student gave the school board two options at its meeting Tuesday: let him read his letter during public comment or arrest him.
Choosing to do neither, Pembroke school board members adjourned the meeting and left the high school’s library about 7:15 p.m. with most of the agenda unaddressed.
A plainclothes Pembroke police officer was present at the start of the meeting, and a sergeant was called in during a brief recess. The officers didn’t arrest David Pearl, a persistent critic of the board, and stayed long afterward to talk with him.
Pearl and Tom Serafin, the board’s chairman, had an apparent disagreement as to whether Pearl’s letter qualified as a criticism of the superintendent.
Serafin said the board has a policy that it will not tolerate criticism of individual employees during its public comment session.
Pearl said his letter contains no criticisms. It’s an email exchange between him and Superintendent Patty Sherman. In it, he asks questions and Sherman gives him answers.
Serafin previously didn’t allow Pearl to read from the letter at the board’s May 10 meeting, repeatedly telling the parent to sit down and uninviting him from speaking with the board.
Pearl said readers of the letter would understand that the superintendent falsely cited federal law as barring her from informing the public that Rekha Luther, the high school’s former dean of students, was arrested and charged with bringing heroin into the school in mid-February.
In his return Tuesday, Pearl said he intended to read from the letter, and Serafin replied that he could submit it to the clerk and the board would discuss it out of the public eye.
“It’s certainly not my intention to call to have you ejected,” Serafin said. “I hope we don’t need to go there.”
“We’re there,” Pearl replied. “I either read this or you call to have me ejected. You’ve seen it. You know what it is. It doesn’t break your rules. It’s not criticizing anyone, so I’m going to attempt to read it or you’re going to call.”
A moment later, Officer Jordan Boisvert stepped in to ask Pearl to leave the meeting room. Pearl asked what he was being charged with, and upon learning there were no charges, opted to stay in the room.
“I don’t know why you can select people to be removed from the public meeting unless you’re going to arrest me,” he said. “I do not intend to be ejected unless I’m arrested.”
Boisvert said he had summoned the police sergeant, and Serafin asked for a motion to recess the meeting. It passed and board members left the library with the superintendent to speak privately in the hall.
Sgt. Jason Fiske and Officer Karl Hanson arrived and began to talk with Pearl, standing between his seat in the front row of the audience and the board.
Serafin brought the meeting back to order while Pearl continued to speak a few feet away with the officers, who attempted to direct him outside but maintained that they wouldn’t arrest him. After five minutes of the board attempting to conduct its business with a separate discussion going on in the audience, the members decided to adjourn.
Pearl said if he was allowed to read his letter, the attendees of the public meeting would see his point that a statement sent by the superintendent to parents after the news media publicized Luther’s arrest was unjustified. It said state and federal laws prohibited the school district from notifying parents of the arrest, and in the emails Pearl asked about the specific federal law.
“At this point, I don’t know how they defend the letter,” he said. “So it should be rectified.”
He has requested that the superintendent send home another letter stating that the first one was wrong.
Another parent, James Decker, drafted a policy for the board that he had previously recommended. He said the board should have a policy that the district notify parents whenever an arrest is made on school grounds. Having previously heard no response from the board members, he wrote a proposal Tuesday that the board accepted.
Pearl said he will return to the school board’s next meeting and attempt to make his point again. The Monitor has posted online the letter he attempted to read.