DRACUT — Superintendent of Schools Steven Stone intends to sue Town Manager Kate Hodges and Board of Selectmen Chair Josh Taylor, alleging defamation of character and abuse of power.
The news was disclosed at a special meeting of the School Committee in which committee member Rebecca Duda was removed from all subcommittee assignments because of several documents she posted on social media.
The documents were related to a purported overpayment of retirement benefits to Andrew Graham, who worked for the School Department as a post-retirement employee.
Notice of Stone’s suit was delivered to Hodges and Taylor on Thursday night. The first public hint of the superintendent’s action came Friday morning when Shannon Rowe, executive assistant to the Board of Selectmen, posted the agenda for a selectmen’s meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 7.
The email announced an executive session, rather than a regular session, “to discuss strategy with respect to threatened litigation in the matter of the School Superintendent vs. the Chair of the Selectmen and Town Manager as an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the public body’s litigating position.”
The School Committee held its own special, but public, meeting on Friday afternoon to review the department’s payroll process, committee roles and the School Department, the board’s code of ethics and governance norms, and the committee response to criticism and claims.
The meeting was called after nearly six weeks of arguments conducted primarily over Facebook, beginning in August with a description of the Parker Avenue School lease to Community Teamwork Inc.
During that six-week interval, some school board members, a selectman and others posted a daily blizzard of criticism of each other in less-than-respectful terms. In one post, School Committee Chair Renee Young called on selectmen to remove Taylor as chairman of that board.
Neither the town manager nor the superintendent directly participated in the Facebook fight, although their names came up frequently.
School Committee member Linda Trouville may have spoken for many who have witnessed the social media exchanges when she said, “I’ve been taken aback by the slander I’ve seen.”
In the course of the school board meeting, School Committee member Allison Volpe made the motion to remove Duda from all her committee assignments because she posted several public records documents on Facebook regarding Graham.
“I respect you but I can’t trust you,” Volpe told Duda.
In a long introductory section, Duda said, “For approximately the past month and a half, I have been researching post retiree earnings with the Dracut Public Schools and our internal processes as it relates to these employees.”
That and similar statements may be what led to allegations of violations of School Committee norms. One of those norms reads, “The School Committee will lead by example and work to build trust. We agree to avoid words and actions that create a negative impression of an individual, the School Committee, or the district. While we encourage debate and differing points of view, we will speak with care and respect.”
Prudence Brighton
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