Loss of Confidence is Claim for School Superintendent Dismissal in Hamilton/Wenham

Heads were spinning and reality seemed off balance this past week in Hamilton and Wenham when the School Committee abruptly announced that the employment of School Superintendent Dr. Raleigh Buchanan was being terminated...less than one year into a three-year contract.

The principal reason?...Loss of Confidence.

LOSS OF CONFIDENCE is a term often used as grounds for termination of an employee.  Loss of confidence arising from fraud or willful breach of trust by an employee is generally seen as a just cause for termination.

Ordinary breach should not suffice.  It should be willful and without justifiable excuse and should be supported by substantial evidence, not merely by the whims or caprice of the employer.

For her part, School Committee member Dacia Rubel took great pains to justify her long and disparaging performance review of Dr. Buchanan.  Her review was 10 times longer than any other board member's review of the Superintendent.  As someone with a law degree (not currently practicing), Ms. Rubel surely knew the term "loss of confidence" and how to use it in order to justify her desire to see Dr. Buchanan removed from his position as School Superintendent.

I counted the term "loss of confidence" no less than eleven times in her evaluation survey.  Considering her harsh analysis of Dr. Buchanan's performance, once would have sufficed.

But wait.  There are other legal terms that may bear consideration in this instance, such as:

"Wrongful Termination" or "Wrongful Discharge" and most notably "Constructive Dismissal".

Definition: CONSTRUCTIVE DISMISSAL: forcing of resignation of employee: action taken by an employer intended to make continuing in a job intolerable for an unwanted employee, thus forcing the employee to resign.

All we heard after the Executive Session last Thursday night right was a statement issued by the School Committee's attorney, Naomi Stonberg:

"Parties have had a frank conversation about the employment relationship between the Hamilton/Wenham Regional School District and Superintendent Raleigh Buchanan.  They have agreed that their mutual interests will be best served by bringing the relationship to a conclusion.  There will be no further comments until a final agreement has been reached."

Despite stating "there will be no further comments...", the School Committee issued a statement on Monday ostensibly to clarify the reasoning for that Executive Session meeting.  They claimed that it was Dr. Buchanan who requested the meeting and that his performance reviews were not discussed.  Surely they would not have us believe that the reviews had nothing to do with Dr. Buchanan's asking to meet in Executive Session.  It would be naive to suggest such a thing.

Obviously the meeting was called by Dr. Buchanan as a direct result of the negative performance reviews of most of the School Committee members, in particular Ms. Rubel's - she is clearly the leading spokesperson - and  I would suggest that Dr. Buchanan may have felt no choice but to "resign" for reasons imposed by the School Committee.

And that sounds a lot like "Constructive Dismissal".

We'll know more soon, but in the interim there are lots of comments on The Patch and an editorial in the Salem News [click here] for you to review.