[B]urlington School Board members heard from livid student journalists, former employees and parents on Thursday, who took the district to task for keeping a director of guidance on staff after the Agency of Education filed misconduct charges with the state’s licensing board.
Three student editors of the high school’s paper, the Register, which on Monday night broke the story regarding the Agency’s charges against Mario Macias, were first to speak during the public comment portion of the meeting.
The school’s principal, Noel Green, told the students’ advisor Beth Fialko-Casey on Tuesday to take down the story. After public outcry – and widespread media coverage – Green reversed course earlier Thursday. The district released a statement that the story could go back up, purportedly because so many other news outlets had since reported the news.
Register editor Julia Shannon-Grillo said the paper’s staff had been consulting with the Vermont Press Association and Student Press Law Center for the past few days, and believed administrators had violated a new Vermont law, passed in 2017, that protected student journalists from censorship.
“We understand that this order from Mr. Green is a violation of our rights,” said junior Julia Shannon-Grillo, another editor. “We felt that then, but know it now. The [district’s] statement regarding the BHS story released today fails to show an understanding of our rights under Vermont law.”
After a yearlong investigation, Macias has been charged by the Agency with creating a hostile and and offensive working environment; failing to maintain a professional relationship with a substitute teacher; deliberately falsifying a student transcript; bullying employees and being “unaware of the basic functions of the guidance department.”
The board also heard from Patty Wesley, Macias’ predecessor at the head of the BHS guidance department, who criticized administrators for turning a deaf ear to complaints from within the department. Seven employees had left since Macias was hired, Wesley said, but administrators had declined to perform exit interviews with any of them.
“I can’t help notice the ‘Me Too’ aspect of this current situation. Women’s voices are being dismissed, discredited, and silenced, including student voices in the student newspaper. And men in positions of leadership rally around each other,” she said.
Several parents also spoke Thursday, including Caroline Crawford, whose son graduated last year. Crawford said she sent Macias a string of unanswered emails about the school’s college- and career-planning software and events for students heading to college.
“He didn’t know how to answer my questions, and that terrified me,” she said. Crawford finally resorted to hiring a consultant, an option she noted many families can’t afford.
“I have had it,” she said of this week’s news. “I am mad. I love this city. I have been proud to send our kids to these schools, but for the first time in my life this week, I said ‘Honestly, I wouldn’t send your kid to BHS.’ And that horrified me.”
Vermont Press Association executive director Mike Donoghue also spoke at the meeting, reading a joint statement from the VPA and the New England First Amendment Coalition, condemning the administration’s actions for ordering the Register’s article be taken down.
Donoghue called on the district to sponsor trainings for the region’s educators to better understand the law – and he asked Green and district Superintendent Yaw Obeng to apologize in writing to the student journalists “for misunderstanding and misinterpreting an important student education law.”
Shannon-Grillo said what most concerned her and other editors was that school administrators didn’t seem believe they had acted in error at all. The statement released by the district earlier that afternoon was “really disappointing for us,” she said.
“It would be reassuring for them to acknowledge that they did break that law in order for us to feel secure in publishing future stories, that it won’t happen again. And that’s really what we were hoping to come out of this. And since the statement didn’t say anything — that they hadn’t done anything wrong — we’re still not feeling super safe in our future publications,” she said.
School board members spoke briefly after public comment, with most saying that they were limited in what they could say publicly about Macias because it was a personnel matter.
“We hear you, and we know that this is an important issue,” said board member Mike Fisher. “But I ask for your understanding that the board is accountable for having processes followed. As much as we want to do something from our heart, for me personally, I want to make sure processes are followed.”
Board member Jeffrey Wick called the administration’s censorship a “learning moment.”
“I don’t think we will make that mistake again,” he said.
