Should We Be Surprised by School Board Decision? – It was a long night on Thursday, sitting, waiting – the mind wonders under those conditions. At some point the thought came to mind that, with four members, maybe they would end up deadlocked. As it turned out there was never even a second vote to overturn the appeal.
There is a natural tendency to second guess a governing body when they make a decision that one tends to disagree with. In this case I would tend to believe that is a little dangerous – after all, the public has not read the report. Even the “accused” or the “appellant” was not allowed to read the report until apparently they were in closed session – that is part of why the process took so long.
My first thought then on Thursday night, which quickly bled into Friday morning, was how could the community second-guess the school board when only the school board and administrators actually read the report?
That is where Gina Daleiden’s dissent is critical. First, let me give Ms. Daleiden praise. For the last month, she spent a lot of time trying to get this process right. She worked hard to inform the public as much as possible and she worked hard to make sure the process was as open and transparent as possible.
At the end of the day, I feel that she and I saw pretty close to eye-to-eye on this issue. Her words on Thursday night make it very clear that she did not see that this issue rose to the level that her colleagues did.
“I do believe that our district’s response to complaints and the way that we handle the procedure and the investigations needs to be in proportion,” Gina Daleiden stated. “I do believe in this instance the district went Code 3 on something that maybe didn’t warrant that.”
“I do not find in reading the investigation that there is a preponderance of evidence to support the findings and the conclusions,” she said. She added that they “ended up jumping right into the deep end of the pool” and she would have preferred to have seen this resolved “at a much lower level, a whole lot earlier.”
I think the entire school board is serious about looking to alternative conflict resolution processes, and those of us who believe that restorative justice is an approach that could help resolve these conflicts before they end up in an official board hearing should take some solace in the apparent commitment that the board has to look into those very types of conflict resolution processes.
Unfortunately in this case, while Julie Crawford seemed very willing to go through a mediation process, it takes two to tango and apparently Nancy Peterson was never open to resolving this in a way other than what unfolded.
Ms. Daleiden’s response gives those of us who disagree with the board ruling the solace that we have a solid foundation to believe that the majority of board members simply saw this conflict in a different light. Like Gina Daleiden, I see this as a tempest in a teapot that Nancy Peterson attempted to incite into something wholly disproportionate to what it was.
Investigator Alexander Sperry would apparently agree when he concluded the absence of “willful mal-intent” on the part of Julie Crawford. Without malice, how can we understand the notion of retaliation?
Retaliation can be generally understood as the act of seeking revenge upon another. In this case, it seems that the school board understood the act of retaliation in the loosest of all possible terms, embraced in the notion that the decision to cut the Peterson’s daughter was “influenced at least in part” by the broader conflict between Nancy Peterson and Julie Crawford.
The three board members apparently took any evidence at all that “retaliation” occurred as necessary and sufficient to uphold the district and investigator’s ruling. But the weakness of the evidence becomes apparent in the school board’s own remedy to the transgression.
Rather than banning Ms. Crawford, they essentially encouraged her to simply reapply for her former position and all but promised to hire her back upon her doing so. And while there are some technical questions, apparently, Ms. Crawford will even be allowed to be a volunteer assistant coach for the boys right now.
Some people took this remedy as some sort of compromise, but I take it slightly differently – a tacit acknowledgement that the Petersons made a mountain out of a molehill in all of this and that the district became a willing partner in this drama.
These thoughts are clear when you re-read Tim Taylor’s comments, where he stated that this was the first time, he said, that he and the board had a chance to listen and ask questions of Ms. Crawford.
“I was given great comfort by that opportunity,” he said. “What I saw and heard has definitely affected my actions here this evening and my thoughts about this entire process.”
“Our decision here this evening, will allow that pursuit of hers – which she spoke to eloquently earlier – to continue,” Tim Taylor stated. “There were some mistakes made. What we now need to do is learn from those, not repeat those, and move forward.”
In other words, reading between the lines, it seems that, unlike the public comments throughout by Nancy Peterson, Julie Crawford offered contrition and at the same time a passionate plea to be able to continue coaching and the board was clearly moved by her passion.
The Fallout
All of this leads me to once again ponder the depths to which Nancy Peterson sunk herself. It seems that Nancy Peterson allowed her anger and ultimately her need for revenge to consume and destroy herself. “Wrong us, shall we not revenge,” is necessarily softened by the introduction of notions of forgiveness and redemption, which are the better angels of our nature.
The tragedy becomes clear in the resolution by the school district. Had Nancy Peterson – as we have stated so many times – simply stayed silent, all of this could have been avoided. She was undone first by her inappropriate comments in July and then by a series of actions her family took: the leak, her husband’s comment, and then her column was the ultimate immediate cause of her resignation.
Four relatively insignificant and ultimately unnecessary actions in a much broader string of conflicts caused her to resign her position less than 18 months into her elective term.
Thursday’s ruling brings her no vindication, however. If anything, it paints her actions in an even more negative light. For if the district responded with a Code 3 to what Gina Daleiden described as “something that maybe didn’t warrant” that type of response, Nancy Peterson declared global thermonuclear war in what should have been handled by a few rounds of diplomatic talks.
Thursday’s result made her actions leading up to and following this immediate conflict completely unnecessary and underscores the tragic nature of her resignation.
One can only wonder what would have happened had her op-ed been more conciliatory and shown a willingness to move past the situation rather than digging into Defcon 1 position where retraction and mediation could not have occurred.
In many ways, the second fallout in this might be Sheila Allen. We have really avoided discussing this during the interplay, but Sheila Allen was board president last year when the escalation occurred. It is easy to second guess decisions that could have been made. However, at least in retrospect, the fact that no one spoke out when Nancy Peterson publicly criticized a district employee last July is troubling.
On Thursday, Sheila Allen made some strong points in her lengthy prepared remarks. We do not know when those remarks were prepared but some of them were clearly thoughtful.
Personnel issues are troublesome and problematic for both the public and board members.
Ms. Allen was absolutely correct when she said, “I hear loud and clear your desires for transparency.”
She added, “It is very hard to say I can’t comment because it’s a personnel issue. I do not make personnel laws… but I’m bound by it. So please understand that your elected officials are doing the very best they can with the information that they have and hopefully that information contains all sides of any issue.”
At the same time, she went where Robert Peterson went with the issue of anonymous comments.
Sheila Allen would state on Thursday, “I’m very concerned about the social media postings that occurred surrounding this issue. I am very supportive of an open dialogue and absolutely support public input and dialogue.”
“But,” she continued. “I’m very concerned about the tone and accusations that have occurred behind the façade of anonymous comments. Let us be the models for our children of civil dialogue and working together to solve our community problems.”
The tech in me wants to make the point that social media comments are by their nature NOT anonymous and Ms. Allen is conflating the posts in comments sections of the Vanguard and Enterprise with social media.
That technical point aside, I actually disagree with her core point. There is a perception, and I think Tia Will laid it out very clearly yesterday, that the Vanguard is a focal point of strongly negative anonymous comments.
The truth is that, while there was a time when the comments were extremely vitriolic in the Vanguard, we have worked very hard over the years to clean them up.
We have largely avoided mean-spirited attacks that lack any substance – those get pulled quickly by our dedicated moderator. What remains can be pointed but largely substantive comments.
There seems to be a tendency in the community to dislike comments that are critical of public officials. At the same time, they miss the clear benefit of what to me was a huge crowdsourcing endeavor, where public comments led to follow-up inquiries and many of the comments and stories were confirmed. Some were not and we tried to debunk the false information and confirm the correct information.
As we wrote last week, it was because of the ability of the public and those with key information to come forward in a safe and non-threatening environment that the truth came out over the last few weeks.
So while I understand the concern about contentious nature of the comments at times – I do not think, at least on the Vanguard, the comments were over-the-top. We avoided attacks on the minor children and largely focused on attempting to understand the facts. I would argue this played a beneficial role in the process rather than a negative one.
No one likes to be criticized and no one likes conflict, but this was a contentious issue and I’m proud that the Vanguard’s discussions never degraded into tit-for-tat personal feuding.
One of the fallouts that we will be watching is the impact of this controversy on the city council election. Yesterday there were some fairly prominent citizens, including an elected official, who posted on Facebook that they were pulling their endorsements of Sheila Allen.
Is this a temporary phenomenon that will quickly pass? It is easy to react in the immediate aftermath in frustration and anger. It bears watching.
Finally, I am troubled by the appeals process itself. Julie Crawford was not permitted to see the report by investigators prior to the appeal hearing. Board President Gina Daleiden has likened the process to a quasi-judicial process.
But if that is the case, then the withholding of the report and hence the nature of the accusations against Ms. Crawford renders the entire process closer to something out of Kafka’s “The Trial” where the protagonist had to navigate through a system without knowledge of the charges against him or the process under which he would be subjected.
How Ms. Crawford could offer an adequate defense without knowledge of the report is mindboggling, but then again par for the course.
The immediate controversy is over. The public who supported Julie Crawford will understandably be upset by the immediate ruling, but the school board has tough issues to tackle.
We do not believe the conflict of interest policy goes nearly far enough; the district needs to make a lot of changes to this process. It is our belief that this conflict should have never risen to the level that it ultimately did.
We remain troubled by the large expenditure of money, time and community turmoil and the fact that no one within the district or the board was able to stop this runaway train. Really, this was unacceptable.
And now we are left with the possibility of an appointment process and four new board members by November. Stay tuned.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
“Rather than banning Ms. Crawford, they essentially encouraged her to simply reapply for her former position and all but promised to hire her back upon her doing so.”
I am perplexed about why this is seen as so weak a stance. If Ms. Crawford expressed contrition in private conversation, the implication is that she found something in her own actions worthy of contrition. If this is the case, then certainly a brief “time out” as was expressed by posters on a previous thread might be warranted. This is a well established mechanism for reinstatement into full participance in our community when one has breeched a rule or law ( in this case the possibility of retaliation in its broadest sense). We as a society have decided that when one breaks a rule, there is a penalty to be paid and that once that penalty is paid, one should be fully reinstated in the community, not sentenced to exile.
Now it would appear that at least some members of the community are willing to continue to punish not only Nancy Peterson, but also Sheila Allen for her perceived transgression. I would urge that the community use the same standard of generosity to all involved as the school board extended to Ms. Crawford in inviting her to reapply.
The point I was making in this column is the lack proportionality of the original response – expense, community strife – to the ultimate findings.
And with that point I am in agreement.
We have bonafide proof that Nancy Peterson tried to get Coach Crawford fired three times. We have numerous examples of Nancy Peterson attempting to micromanage the volleyball program.
We still have no proof of retaliation by Coach Crawford. Indeed, we do have proof that a rare occurrence happened – two outstanding freshmen joined the program, which was unfortunate for less-qualified players.
It is not important that “we” have ‘proof’. It is important that the Board felt they had sufficient evidence, one way or the other, to make an informed, rational, ethical decision.
We can’t know what was in the report so we should not have any faith in a split decision, especially when the dissenting member spelled it out so clearly. The numerous mistakes and cowardly actions of the district administration and its governing board in the case of Julie Crawford demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that this “quasi-judicial” process became what is better known as a kangaroo court. The reality is they protected their top administrators and those administrators numerous contemptuous decisions at the expense of the coach’s career and reputation not to mention the frivolous expense to the district. You heard it directly from Daleiden but as you point out you also heard it from Taylor, who, with a few word changes, could have used his remarks in an awards ceremony for one of Crawford’s coach of the year celebrations.
Yet oddly, the tell in the story was actually Lovenburg, who talked the least, but spoke about consideration of the “factors” instead of the facts. This was not a slip of the tongue and reveals that this was a political decision instead of a judicial one. A judicial decision is based on the facts of the case while a political decision takes into account the impact of a decision on the the institution itself including whatever “factors” might come under public scrutiny.
A few commenters wrote yesterday about the board “splitting the baby” but Taylors remarks about stopping the bleeding are more on point. While it seems they sought to try to stop the bleeding they ended up with more metaphorical blood on their hands with Julie Crawford’s career path damaged and in play, the community angry and divided, the overbearing parents of Davis more in doubt of the intentions and decision making abilities of their children’s teachers, and the teachers morale badly damaged wondering if they might be the next victim of an overzealous and dangerously obsessed but connected, rich, self-serving parent.
Topping it all off was Sheila Allen’s turn at losing it on the dais with remarks that, because they were prepared, reveal a contemptuous revulsion of free speech that calls into question her fitness to take any oath that requires her to uphold the constitution. Allen like Rob Peterson, who at least was a private citizen, are unprepared for a world where I can write some screed and immediately have it broadcast to anyone interested to read it and I can do it, thanks to David, anonymously. In fairness, Allen has taken some unfair and petty abuse about the graduation celebration of her son last year. She could have responded that by having him go last she thought she was she was signaling that she understood her privilege and was trying not to abuse it. She could also have apologized to anyone who was offended by being forced to wait while she indulged her desire to savor her moment of joy at her child’s graduation. In doing so she would have won the argument by humanizing it. Instead she seemed combative, lecturing and in favor of censorship after having just voted wrong on an emotional decision with consequences that are yet to fully play out in the community. Finally she did this in a room full of Crawford supporters after having just voted to give Nancy Peterson her undeserved and repulsive due.
Excellent synopsis. I fully agree.
And I see this analysis as completely over the top, and as disproportionate to what has actually occurred as Ms. Daleiden’s assessment of going “Code 3”.
With the amount of community support that Ms.Crawford has, I honestly do not see this as significantly affecting either her reputation or her career in the long run. Ms. Peterson on the other hand essentially self destructed in terms of her ability to positively affect the community at this time.
If the destruction of Ms. Peterson is felt warranted by any commenter, they got what they wanted, so is it not yet time to back off and consider that what we are discussing is two sports seasons in a small city. Do we really need to consider this “blood sport ” ?
Please, the Board member’s ‘injury’ was self-inflicted. The ‘community’ never got to the point of demanding her resignation, nor recalling her. Didn’t happen. There were some ‘voices’, but you don’t have to ‘listen to the voices’. I do think the Board member did the right thing, for herself, her family, the District, and the community.
Perhaps you missed the words “self destructed” in my post ?
And if you do not believe that there were calls for Ms. Peterson’s resignation, just go back and read the previous threads on the Vanguard.
K… my apologies, for missing your nuance. If YOU read the past posts, you’d realize that I was one of the first to suggest the possibility of ‘recall’. Peace. We need it.
Agreed. I find it a shame that there remain those who apparently do not agree with David and Gina Dalieden’s view that proportionality has been lost In my view . this is true not only o the administration and the board, but also by many in the commenting community.
No it is not yet time to back off and it will be a long time before the damage that Nancy Peterson has done to the community is abated
Talk about desire for ‘retaliation’!
The repair process will take much less time if people stop being vindictive about it now.
The problem is that a terrible precedent has been set, and district policies, practices, and staff have been revealed to be very inadequate. And in the absence of recognition of what a mess has been made, it will be necessary to keep reiterating it until the Board members acknowledge their screw-up. It discourages me that we are likely to see NO progress in addressing this, and the other coaches are basically left out to dry, until the incumbents leave office. So 2014 continues with the school board in a muddle, a coach shafted by a terrible decision, and probably nothing remaining to accomplish.
This school board has rendered itself a lame duck. And the decision was a turkey.
Look at your adjectives Don [see also Fremontia’s]. Looks like you seek ‘mea culpas’ all around, and that might not even satisfy. I agree changes need to be made, but I see little point in ‘picking scabs’… we need to tell the Board, in no uncertain terms, that this was a cluster-****, and that we expect more from remaining trustees and any new ones.
But I still see no reason to drag the children farther into it.
Hey, add in the fact that the administration was afraid to stand up to a Board member — they were chicken — and we have a complete turducken!
Forgetaboutit. People are still angry. The damage is still being felt. Sheila Allen is running for city council and is in the middle of a campaign. Expect the after effects of the vote to punish Crawford to last for a long time. You can’t do what they did and expect then to go oh its over now let’s move on. Julie Crawford cannot simply move on and i have no intention of letting any of the people who voted to allow this travesty to transpire to put it behind them.
So, Coach is not an adult?
Ahhh… desire for retaliation, again. But wait… isn’t ‘retaliation’, by board Member an/or Coach, how we got here? When you find yourself in a hole, first, stop digging…
I’m not a board member or a coach or an employee of the district. I am barely an apparition. I am an anonymous blogger. I have no ability to retaliate against anyone. I have nothing but the power of words and persuasion to further my cause. But I will freely admit that I am angry and believe that Julie Crawford has been treated horribly by the Superintendent who was supported by the school board. I believe they did this for no good reason as explained by Gina Deleiden. I believe like Don Shor that those who perpetuated and supported the actions taken against Julie Crawford have expressed insufficient remorse or corrective action and I’m going give voice to those beliefs for some time to come.
fremontia
So would it be safe to say that you value your anger and keeping dissension alive within our community above any restorative process ?
Fremontia wrote:
> Allen has taken some unfair and petty abuse about the
> graduation celebration of her son last year.
Most people are honest that they work hard to get the best for their kids and try and get special things for their kids. I think that the actions of Allen (and Peterson) have rubbed so many people the wrong way is that while they are up in front of everyone telling how they want to help the “underprivileged” and “poor” they are really doing even more than a typical parent to get the best for their (upper middle class privileged) kids and using their position of power to get special treatment for their kids that other parents don’t have access to.
I find Fremontia’s apparent [pun unintended] logic interesting… the Coach was not subject to something being “taken away”, but denied a new contract “given”. Unless Coach or Fremontia believes Coach was “ENTITLED” (vested?) to receive a new contract, I don’t think the earlier decision constitutes a negative personnel issue.
That being said, we’ll probably never know if the Admin felt “pressured” to not recommend approval of a new VSA, inappropriately, or if they were using their independent judgement, which is what we pay them to do. I hope Coach applies, if she is so inclined, in the future, and that her application is reviewed w/o any consideration to nonsense that has happened to date. And, if there are better qualified candidates, they should be the one chosen.
I do believe in ‘meritocracy’.
This is nonsense. She was the coach last year the A.D. and the principal had her in place for this year. The District Admin and the school board pulled the rug out from under her. The district Superintendent did so at the last minute right before the season started after she had long been under the impression that she would be the coach. Only in the most technical sense is there any merit to your argument. In reality they took away her career and tried to damage her reputation. This woman has been subjected to the most offensive harassment in her job for the longest time. Any transgression that transpired and then used as an excuse to play gotcha to someone who has suffered the continued abuse this woman has suffered is guilty of the same game of beat the devil that the school board perpetuated last Thursday. I find the who thing repulsive and disgusting and anyone who wants to defend it is as guilty as the rest.
They “took away her career”? So she is no longer a teacher? Or, did she just forgo a VSA for one season? Too much drama. I do not find anything that has occurred as ‘defensible’, but if you are so much into the drama, Fremontia, feel free to find me “guilty and repulsive”, even though I repeatedly criticized the former Board member, and have repeatedly backed Coach, but perhaps not as much as you thought I should. You have little to no credibility to me. Hell, ask for the death penalty for me. I do not care about your opinion. I pray that you are not a teacher of children.
There is NO credible evidence, unless you interpret the recent vote as such, that the Board had any part in this. If District Admin pulled the rug, show evidence, and they should be held responsible. The former board member was VERY CLEARLY out of line, and she did the ‘honorable thing’.
“They” tried to take away her reputation? Who is “they” other than possibly the former board member and her spouse? I believe the coach’s reputation is intact, and this is a hiccup.
Suggest you get into an EAP.
Yeah she still has her day job but that is what coaches do for a living its not what they are most passionate about. They are passionate about coaching and watching the kids they mentor in that role as coach develop and mature. They took that away from her.They took away from her the part of her job for which she has the most passion and gives her the most joy and pride. I believe that Tim Taylor knows it. You could hear it in his words. You could hear his regret as he caught himself lamenting what they had just done to her halfway through his remarks. I believe he understood that she is exactly what you want in a teacher and a coach. But he voted to screw her over anyway. Its all indefensible and I’m sorry if I’m being a little hard on you for trying to tease out a subtle point but I am pretty angry and not in a forgiving mood. I may eventually get there but it is hard to forgive those who have shown no regret for their deplorable actions. There has been much damage done for no good reason. Those who think the aggrieved are going to calm down so that Davis can return to business as usual are going to be sorely disappointed.
Who are aggrieved, except Coach and the Board member & her family? I guess I’m dense.
And, I repeat, for others who may be as dense as I am, I have consistantly supported Coach, have occaisionally maligned the former Board member, but do not understand the continuing “blood lust”. Please keep the students out of this. All of my children have graduated/moved on, so I have no dog in this fight, but there seems to be those who want this to stay ‘toxic’ as long as possible. I guess I just don’t understand this, given the nominal stipend that Coach would have earned. I wish her well, and hope, if she is so inclined, she ill apply for a subsequent VSA. I do NOT understand Fremontia’s attacks on my writings… but then again, I only have a Batchelor’s degree, and two professional registrations that take more knowledge/effort than a standard teacher, so I guess I’m not qualified to have an opinion. At least in Fremontia’s eyes.