[T]he teachers union at the Caledonian Cooperative Supervisory Union has filed a complaint against superintendent Mathew Forest for breaking state labor law by threatening to fire employees for publicly disseminating a staff survey critical of his performance.
In an unfair labor charge filed with the Vermont Labor Relations Board on Wednesday, the union argues that an email exchange between the district’s attorney, Burlington lawyer Pietro Lynn, with the Vermont-NEA’s counsel amounted to “interfering, restraining, and coercing employees from engaging in protected union activities.”
In the exchange, Lynn asked NEA attorney Wanda Otero-Weaver to provide a legal rationale for the union’s decision to release the survey to media. Doing so, Lynn wrote, “appears to be a breach of the employees’ duty of loyalty to the employer.”
“Before advising my client concerning whether there is a right to terminate the responsible employees, I thought it would be helpful to better understand VNEA’s position on the issue,” Lynn wrote.
Bill Douglas, a paraeducator at Peacham School who serves as the spokesman for the union, said the teachers “took that letter as a veiled threat” and “backdoor intimidation.”
The union survey in question, released publicly September 13, found that 60 percent of respondents said they disapproved of Forest’s performance, 19 percent approved, and 21 percent had no opinion. The survey was distributed to all 161 staff and faculty covered by the union’s collective bargaining agreement, and 93 people responded, according to the union.
“The main problems is he does not lead through collaboration. He just decides what he wants, and that’s what’s on his agenda. Anybody who disagrees with him is either ignored or bullied,” Douglas said.
CCSU board chair Lou Bushey said he’d been at the helm for Forest’s tenure with the district and was satisfied with his performance.
“Every decision I’ve seen him make puts children’s interests first and center. And I think that’s being lost in this conversation,” he said. Bushey called the unfair labor practice charge “odd.”
“It was a conversation between two attorneys that’s being taken really out of context,” he said.
Heather Gonyaw, chair of the Caledonia Cooperative school district, which comprises Barnet, Waterford, and Walden, also said she supports Forest.
“I find that he listens, he takes feedback, he is 100 percent about the education of students,” she said.
And she faulted the union for not responding to the superintendent’s entreaties to sit down and talk. “Honestly at this point I don’t believe that the union has any interest in working and collaborating,” she said.
For his part, Forest pushed back in an email on the survey, noting that its respondents represented less than half of the district’s 234 employees. And he said that a consultant’s earlier performance review had given him much higher marks. (The union has criticized that survey, because its results were only shared with the board.)
“An anonymous electronic survey was also provided to all faculty and staff, this was all through a nutural (sic) 3rd party. I received a success rating of 76%,” Forest wrote.
Both Bushey and Gonyaw said they hadn’t heard of any discussions regarding firing employees who disseminated the union’s survey.
Forest didn’t directly answer a question about whether he’d inquired with Lynn about the possibility of firing anyone, saying instead he’d reached out to the district’s attorney after hearing about the survey for the first time in a press article.
“I want to be clear on this matter, there is no issue with the union conducting a survey, and disseminating it to the membership. The concern is the false statements that have been made publicly. This should concern everyone,” he wrote.
