This is old news but I promised to post video from the May 21st meeting of the Middletown Board of Education. It was at this meeting that the board made the unprecedented decision to reverse its prior decision to not rehire Harmony School principal Mr. Erik Paulson.
The BOE's earlier, unexplainable decision not to rehire Mr. Paulson against a stellar job performance review by School Superintendent Dr. William George, sparked anger and a major backlash against the BOE from the parents of Harmony School and its PTO.
This first video is of the public comments portion of the meeting where several people spoke on Mr. Paulson's behalf (but not before similar pleas were made to rehire district special education teacher Mr. Dilworth). Interestingly, in anticipation of those comments board president Chris Aveta, addressed those in attendance, compelled I suppose, to discuss Paulson's previous rehirings. Dr. George also spoke a few words about Mr. Paulson's situation before the floor was opened.
Mid-way through the comments, board member Jim Cody interrupted the proceedings and asked his fellow BOE members for a vote to enter into Executive Session to discuss the situation. Surprisingly, after the board was locked 4-4, board president Aveta broke from his colleagues who had initially voted against Paulson's rehiring and voted in favor of entering into Executive Session.
After being in Executive Session for over an hour, the second video shows BOE Attorney Mr. Parton addressed the audience to discuss what had happened in session, stating that new information concerning Mr. Paulson was brought to the attention of board members and because of the this new information the board would vote again on whether or not to rehire Mr. Paulson. The BOE then voted unanimously to do so. The floor was then opened back up to finished the public comments portion of the meeting that had been interrupted earlier
At the 9:05 mark of the second video a Mrs. Gyher (not sure of the spelling), who I believe was a district faculty member, scolded board president Aveta for his wrong and misleading remarks on school tenure (which many believe was behind the decision not to rehire Mr. Paulson). Mrs Gyher pointed out that it was not impossible to fire a teacher today and tenure was not for life as stated. Aveta backtracked slightly stating that it has been or would be to expensive or cost prohibitive for the district to fire a teacher so essentially tenure was for life (or something close to that effect).
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