The Concord School Board unanimously accepted the resignation of Superintendent Terri Forsten at a special meeting Friday night and approved the appointment of a career educator to the leadership role on a part-time and interim basis.
Franklyn Bass of Manchester, who previously served as superintendent of the Pelham and Dresden school districts, was chosen by the board to help lead the district until a permanent superintendent is chosen. The board said it hopes to hire a new superintendent with community input by July 2020.
The announcement came after president Jennifer Patterson informed the community that Forsten, who was placed on paid administrative leave in late September, had tendered her resignation. Patterson said the board had voted in a nonpublic meeting on Sept. 25 to terminate Forsten’s employment with the district in response to a 100-page investigative report that examines the district’s response to complaints of inappropriate behavior by former teacher Howie Leung.
The minutes of that Sept. 25 meeting were unsealed Friday night and show that the board was unanimous in its decision not to renew Forsten’s contract.
As Forsten’s departure became official Friday, Concord High School Principal Tom Sica’s status remained unchanged. Patterson said Sica remains on paid administrative leave and when questioned by parents said she could not provide any further information about the next steps.
“We’ll share more information when we have it but we just don’t right now,” she said.
However, she did confirm that he was not performing any duties on the district’s behalf.
More than 300 pages of emails obtained in a Monitor right-to-know request show that Sica, who initially went on voluntary paid leave in June, continued to work throughout the summer outside the public eye. Board members have since said they were misled and did not know the extent to which Forsten allowed Sica to be involved in the district’s day-to-day affairs.
While parents commended the board Friday night for the steps it took to terminate Forsten, they said Sica’s continued employment with the district remained a source of anger and frustration.
“I don’t understand the process for why we’re still paying someone who obviously a lot of people feel we shouldn’t be paying,” said Kate Frey, whose daughter Sica suspended in 2014 when she came forward to report inappropriate behavior by Leung.
Sica, who was principal of Rundlett Middle School at the time, accused 13-year-old Ana Goble of spreading “malicious and slanderous gossip” for reporting that Leung showed favoritism toward certain female students and crossed boundaries. After Goble shared her story for the first time publicly earlier this year, the board hired an independent investigator to examine the district’s response to complaints by students in 2014 and again in 2018 about Leung, who now faces rape charges in Massachusetts.
The report was completed by Djuna Perkins, who is a Boston-based attorney with extensive experience working with schools on approaching sexual misconduct cases. However, it has not been made public, even in a redacted format.
On Thursday night, the school board released a 10-page report from Perkins that is heavy on recommendations to the school board and community but sheds no light on what administrators did or did not do following the students’ reports of misconduct against Leung. The public report does not name Forsten, Sica or Leung but reveal that Leung’s actions should have been clear warning signs to administrators that student safety was at risk.
Parents in attendance at Friday night’s meeting told the board they hope the complete, 100-page report submitted to the district on Sept. 25 will be shared with the new interim superintendent.
Max Schultz, a parent who is running for a spot on the school board, encouraged the board to be completely transparent with Bass, who will be assuming a temporary role at a very difficult time in the district’s history.
“I think you can’t handcuff this person who is about to come into a tremendously tumultuous situation,” Schultz said.
Schultz and others thanked the board for unsealing the minutes of the September meeting that includes the unanimous vote to terminate Forsten but said it’s just one step toward transparency. Schultz said Bass must read the report immediately, even if he has to sign a confidentiality agreement when his term of service ends next year.
“I’ll go on the record – I agree with you,” school board member Chuck Crush said.
Crush, who took a lead role in vetting Bass for the board, said he understands that members of the community are frustrated by the process in recent months and how slow it appears that decisions are being made. However, he said, the board is frustrated, too, but bound by contractual obligations and other legalities that it can’t readily discuss in an open forum.
Vice President Thomas Croteau said the district as a whole is in “uncharted waters” and that board members are trying to respond to the public’s questions and concerns as best as it can but that there has been a learning curve for everyone involved.
He said typically the board does not engage in a back-and-forth conversation with community members during the public comment period but that the circumstances of Friday night warranted it.
Frey told Croteau that the conversations were much appreciated.
“People are really hurt and they are sick and tired, and I am one of them,” she said. “In order to heal, we need to have a dialogue.”
One of the questions still looming after the board’s vote Friday was what the role assistant superintendent Donna Palley would fill given that since Forsten’s leave she has been interim superintendent. Board members said that Palley, who has been in the assistant role for eight years, will return to that position.
After the board’s nonpublic meeting in late September, Patterson announced that Palley was temporarily assuming duties of the superintendent. However, local media reports uncovered that Palley lacked state credentials with the Department of Education, which administrators are required to obtain and renew every three years.
Palley told the Monitor that she misunderstood components of the requirements and never meant to mislead the district or the public. She said she has been taking actions since August to obtain them.
“It’s a big mistake,” Palley said. “It’s shaken the community. It’s distracting the board and others from their work at an incredibly difficult moment in time, and I feel terrible about that.”
When asked by parents Friday night if the board had confirmed that Bass is credentialed, board members responded in unison that he has the green light through 2022.
Crush said he conducted an extensive review of Bass’s professional qualifications and feels that he is a strong candidate for the district during this time of transition.
Bass, who served as a school administrator for 25 years, is an adjunct professor at Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester. In addition to his prior experience as superintendent, he also was assistant superintendent of the Manchester School District for five years.
Board members said Bass will primarily work Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays but noted that he will be available should something arise the other days of the week. The district will pay Bass $750 per day for 95 days as it continues its search for a permanent superintendent to take over the district in the 2020-21 school year.
“He brings a wealth of experience and a history of positive leadership,” Crush said.
Board member Barb Higgins echoed Crush’s comments, saying that in preliminary meetings with the board, Bass has show a deep concern for the community and the district.
“He wants to keep children safe and happy,” she said. “We can commence our work knowing that someone is taking care of everybody and that is really important.”
In the near future, board members said they hope to plan a community event to allow the public to ask questions of and get to know Bass.
And as the search for a permanent superintendent moves forward, board members promised the public that the process will be an inclusive one and that they will be seeking input from faculty, staff, parents and students.
Parents said they were going to hold board members to that promise.
David Parker, who is running against Schultz for a seat on the school board, said he appreciated all the work elected officials have done so far but that their work is just beginning. He told the board that the real stakeholders around policy are faculty and staff and to not forget that as they move to act on the recommendations outlined in Perkins’ report.
“You can repeat the same mistakes by having only an administrator’s perspective,” he said. “They don’t have a ‘boots on the ground’ perspective that faculty and students have.”
The board is next scheduled to meet on Monday at 7 p.m. at Mill Brook School in Concord.
(Alyssa Dandrea can be reached at 369-3319 or at adandrea@cmonitor.com.)