They're Singing In Harmony, Middletown BOE Changes Its Tune And Re-Hires Principal Paulson

It's been a long night! I just returned from tonight's exceptually long Middletown Board of Education meeting and I'm please to announce that Harmony School principal Erick Paulson, has been granted tenure and will remain as the school principal for many more years to come.

All the credit for his rehiring as principal of Harmony School goes to the many parents, teachers and fellow administrators who stood up, spoke out and showed their support for him over the past week and at tonight's meeting. Without the astounding show of support from all involved the Middletown Board of Education would not have been moved to change its mind.


There's an awful lot to talk about but at this time I'm a bit tired. I'm going to reflect on tonight's meeting a little and have video to post later.

But real quick though, here is what happened after the BOE came out of a special executive session to discuss whether or not to rehire (grant tenure) to Mr. Paulson.

The BOE came out of executive session @ ~ 11:45.  Mr. Parton, the BOE's attorney,  made a statement saying that there was some new information brought fourth during the session (but didn't say what it was). He made a statement that School Superintendent Dr. William George would like to amend his evaluation of Mr. Paulson to stated that he highly recommends his re-hire. After a motion was made to to amend the report and seconded, Mr. Parton didn't make it clear that they were voting to rehire Mr. Paulson, instead it seemed that they were voting on whether to have a vote or not. After all board members voted yes, Mr. Parton said Mr. Paulson was rehired.

Parton's statement had many confused at first but when those in the audience realized what had actually just happened - the BOE had voted unanimously to rehire Mr. Paulson - the crowd exploded with delight.

Tonight was totally out of character for the BOE, changing its position on something like this doesn't normally happen, but I'm glad it did! They got this one right.

Congratulations Mr. Paulson!

Middletown Patch has a brief article on tonight's meeting as well if you would like to check it out.

Letters To The Independent Expressing Outrage Over The Demotion Of Dr. Shallop Have BOE Members Defending Reassignment of Principal

According to the this weeks edition of the Independent (already posted online), many residents had sent letters to the publisher this past week, expressing outrage over the action taken by the members of the Middletown Board of Education that lead to the demotion of the very popular Principal of Middletown High School South, Dr. Anthony Shallop.

So many letters in fact that the Independent felt compelled to follow-up on these letters of support by contacting BOE members for a response, all of whom defended their decision to reassign Dr Shallop to his previously tenured position as a teacher at High School South via email.

...Board Member Vincent Brand said in an email that his decision was based on the facts relevant to the issue, which by law cannot be discussed in public because the issue remains personal and confidential.

“It would have been easy to vote the popular vote last night, but that would have been, for me, unethical to do so.”

According to Brand and board Vice President Christopher Aveta, the board gave Shallop a chance to address the issues prior to the vote.

“I fought hard for Dr. Shallop to get into executive session so that he would have every opportunity to impact the vote and so that he could hear directly from the board the specific issues at hand,” Brand said.

“He was given that chance and could not positively affect the outcome.”

Board member Michael Donlon was the only board member to vote against the reassignment.

“I had not been totally convinced the decision was correct, therefore I could not go along with it,” he said in an email.

“Granting tenure to someone is not a decision that is taken lightly,” board President Joan Minnuies said in an email.

Minnuies said that the decision was three months in the making and involved discussions with the district’s central office and Shallop.

“I feel that the information provided to the board by both the central office and Dr. Shallop himself has convinced the board that the decision we ended up making was the correct one,” she said....

This vague reasoning by BOE members is a little hard to swallow based on some of their comments. It seem as if the decision to reassign Shallop was made long in advance and no matter what he would have said to the Board in Executive session, his words would not have been convincing enough to change their minds and will remain a mystery until someone decides to break the silence and explain what really went on between Dr. Shallop and the BOE that lead to his reassignment.

Comments left on my previous post on this subject are full of speculation, name calling and innuendo as to the real reason why Anthony Shallop was stripped of his duties as Principal of High School South and reassigned back to his original teaching position that he had held before becoming principal a couple of years prior.

Some of the comments seem to have merit while others are a little farfetched, you can read them and decided for yourself which ones seem legitimate and which ones are bogus. The bottom line however, is that when the truth comes out someone will have egg on their face and will have some explaining to do.

The Independent posted online two letters that were sent them supporting Dr. Shallop in his fight to retain his position. The letter sent by Patricia Wood,Resident heartbroken over Board of Ed. action, was referred to in the article posted by the Independent, while the other written by Judy Krivitzky, Parent urges Mid’twn BOE to reconsider principal’s removal (An open letter to the Middletown Board of Education and Interim Superintendent Patrick Houston), collaborates and supports much of what is contained in Patricia Wood's letter.

They are both worth reading, as is the article about the BOE defending Shallop's reassignment. Somewhere in between the three, the truth lies.