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.
That was a very good blog.
ReplyDeleteI made copies of all of the performance evaluations and have read them all in detail. My conclusions at the moment are as follows:
After eight years of being completely dominated and micromanaged by Marinel the school committee, with the exception of the two new members, has been brain-washed to the extent that they are totally incapable of understanding any other management philosophy and style other than that which Marinel practiced.
The SC's job to my way of thinking is to assure that they hire the proper person to be the superintendent. The SC should recognize their limitations relative to only the SC performing the interviewing process for a new superintendent and should hire any consultant needed to supplement their limitations such as a professional education/business management based consultant.
If the SC would be willing to openly admit to the public that they totally screwed up in the hiring process a year ago, which they never will, maybe, even though it's probably not true about their negative opinions of Raleigh, things could move on in a positive way for the school district and the towns. One way or the other, the damage to Raleigh is done and that is a sad commentary indeed.
Perhaps if they did just that, we would not be where we are today.
The remainder of the SC's job should be to set policies and standards with the assistance of the school administration and communicate with the local town and state officials relative to education laws and mandates. They should leave the school administration alone in the day to day running of the school system and not micromanage everything that is being done and that also means not micromanaging the development of the school budget. Whatever the SC's opinion of the budget is, they can comment on it and in the final analysis they should accept and support the budget put together by a professional and approved by the superintendent who is another professional.
Perhaps if they did just that, we would not be where we are today.
It is very clear that the SC was unable to grasp the fact that Raleigh's management style is one that delegates specific responsibilities to his staff and does not micromanage his staff because he believes they are professionals and know how to do their jobs. His management style is also one of " Management By Walking Around ( MBWA) " and observing the day to day activities. His style of management is one of the most effective management styles. At the very bottom of the management style list is Management By Micromanaging Staff ( MBMS ).
No professional or non-professional worker likes to be micromanaged.
The SC should not have micromanaged Raleigh and Peter Gray because they are professionals in their field of endeavor.
Perhaps if they did just that, we would not be where we are today.
This entire situation that we currently find ourselves in is unfortunate and should never have been allowed to happen and it is appalling that it has taken place.
We must do whatever is necessary to assure that it never happens again by reducing the overall autonomous power of the regional school committee