This story by Corey McDonald first appeared in The Other Paper on July 6.
South Burlington school board members will vote to remove Alex McHenry as the board’s chair at their next meeting, setting up a possible reshuffling of board leadership as complaints over McHenry’s effectiveness bubble to the surface.
The often tense, two-hour discussion at the Aug. 2 meeting centered on McHenry’s six-month tenure as board chair and ended with a 3-2 vote to take a vote of no confidence at the start of the board’s Aug. 16 meeting.
School director Kate Bailey forced the issue at a recent meeting where several members complained of a lack of clear and timely communication — between board members, with other governing bodies and the public — as well as a lack of professional training for new board members.
“What I’ve experienced over the last year and a half on this board is this cyclical conversation about how we don’t know how to do our jobs, or we don’t feel like we’re doing our jobs well, or we’re getting in trouble for not doing our jobs well,” Bailey said Wednesday. “That has felt very inefficient and very frustrating, and I am trying to offer another path, a different solution to move forward.”
Bailey said she’s had extensive one-on-one phone calls with other members of the board who also felt board meetings featured an inconsistent structure and communication barriers. She claimed they’ve suggested she step up as chair.
McHenry, who has been with the school board since 2017, was appointed as the board chair in March following an initial nomination from Bailey. Since then, members say they have been “begging for training,” board member Laura Williams said.
Emails to the board, Bailey said, are often delayed and out of date and communication to the community is also delayed and often incomplete.
Bailey directly criticized McHenry for the board’s response to the city regarding a traffic study, which she said was “unnecessarily delayed by two weeks.” She also pointed to several board meetings, including a joint meeting between the city council and school board, that had to be rescheduled.
“The reality is we’ve been very vocal as a board for quite a long time about our lack of efficiency and training in order to get things done,” member Chelsea Tillinghast said.
McHenry said little at the July 12 meeting, instead asking the school board’s attorney afterward to advise the board on how to proceed.
But at Wednesday’s meeting, he insisted multiple times that he would need more time to respond in writing to the complaints leveled at him — and called the situation a rushed process meant to prevent community members from questioning the validity of the allegations.
“I want this to be open, I want to be able to share this document publicly, and I want to be able to share my responses publicly, because I want South Burlington to know what’s going on,” he said. “I understand that Kate is trying to hurry this up. Basically, this is being hurried up as much as possible and is being done behind closed doors — not in the open.”
Bailey, Williams and Tillinghast pushed back, saying he had plenty of time since July 12 to respond to the claims.
“I don’t think this is anything personal,” Williams said. “I think Kate’s done a tremendous job by putting this out there in the open. This is in our meeting minutes, it’s in the video.”
“I don’t think this is a game of gotcha, I think we’re trying to do what’s best,” she said.
If next meeting’s vote is successful, it would mark the third chair of the school board in less than a year. Former board chair Travia Childs lost her reelection bid in March by just 26 votes to Bryan Companion, while McHenry won reelection. McHenry, a data analyst with Vermont Medicaid, was then nominated as chair.
Companion noted throughout the meeting Wednesday that he felt the reshuffling was “a very rushed process. I’m not in favor of this at all.”
Late in the meeting, McHenry was visibly angry, and at one point made a point of order, banging a gavel on the table after saying that he couldn’t get his rebuttals across because of interruptions.
“You all seemed to have made your minds up three weeks ago,” McHenry said. “It’s like a jury deciding before the trial is over.”
Tillinghast likened McHenry’s silence over the past three weeks to the issue they were addressing. “Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon to not have a response. My mind was not made up coming to this meeting, but I’m feeling more and more convinced after this discussion.”
Tillinghast added: “I would have come to this meeting tonight prepared with a rebuttal. I hear Bryan’s concerns that this is a rushed process, but I also think if we keep stalling this out it’s just continuing the problem we’ve been having as a board.”
McHenry countered that he felt bewildered.
“It’s been an incredibly discouraging three weeks for me and it just did not seem like there was any point in trying to defend myself.”
The vote to force McHenry out of his chairmanship at the board’s next meeting passed 3-2. McHenry and Companion voted no.
Bailey, who joined McHenry and Companion to delay a vote Wednesday on McHenry’s ouster, said, “I advocated for you to be our chair. This is not a position I’m particularly seeking or excited about, it is nothing personal. I truly want us to be able to function and do what is best in our roles as public servants for our community.”
