This story by Liberty Darr was first published by The Other Paper on March 6.
Alex McHenry, former chair and seven-year veteran of the South Burlington School Board, abruptly announced his immediate resignation, just hours after voters shot down the school budget on Town Meeting Day Tuesday night.
He cited an “enormous amount of disrespect and incivility” he says other board members have shown toward him since August.
The $71 million school budget lost 2,856 to 2,072.
“Anyone following the school board knows that the past 7 months have been difficult for me,” he wrote in a heated email to board members Tuesday night, adding that trouble began last summer when board member Kate Bailey urged the board to consider reorganization after voicing specific concerns with the way McHenry, then board chair, handled board and community relations since March of last year.
McHenry was elected — with an initial nomination from Bailey — to step into the role as chair at the March 8 school board meeting following last year’s Town Meeting Day vote.
“It began when Kate Bailey staged a coup to become chair,” he wrote. “After pressing for reasons, she claimed that I had missed meetings, citing 2 instances. One of which was when I was in California for my uncle’s funeral, and another was when I had to be with my son on short notice for important surgery. For someone to use those as reasons for a recission was incredibly offensive to me.”
This isn’t the first time the board has weathered a shake-up in the last year. Following a contentious few weeks in September as members considered McHenry’s ouster as chair, the board’s newest member, Bryan Companion, who was elected to his seat last Town Meeting Day, resigned, similarly citing a “lack of respect and civility” at board meetings for his departure.
McHenry’s more than 1,200-word email outlined a series of personal accusations against certain board members as “creepy” and “manipulative” over the last months, but claimed mostly that his decision to resign came from a recent altercation with board member Chelsea Tillinghast following the Feb. 21 board meeting when he motioned to alter the budget and postpone the Town Meeting Day vote — a decision Bailey, Tillinghast and board member Laura Williams voted against.
“I actually believe the responsibility for maintaining a ‘toxic environment’ lies with you since from my view you’ve done little or nothing to resolve the conflict between you and Kate. I’ve seen you at meetings working to undermine her or speak over her, which is disrespectful and toxic in its own nature,” Tillinghast wrote in her own email on Feb. 26, adding that she and Bailey also had interpersonal conflict during her first summer on the board, but the issues were later resolved. “Returning to the topic of the vote — all that I was trying to say is that you spoke over our chair and made a motion without discussing with the rest of the board what a delayed budget vote might look like.”
Tillinghast, who has been a member of the board since 2022, ran uncontested for another term this year. Bailey, whose seat was also up this year, did not run for reelection.
McHenry cites another reason for his resignation: “I’m not going to serve on a board in which my colleagues unfairly humiliate me and get rewarded for it with an uncontested reelection,” he wrote.
“I’m not going to do volunteer work for my community if it means having to be in a toxic environment in which I get blamed and criticized for others’ inability to understand how a meeting is run, or if I get called disrespectful for placing a motion on the floor,” he wrote. “I know Kate Bailey’s term has ended, but I’m exhausted from it.”
McHenry ended his resignation letter by saying that aside from the turbulent last few months, he has enjoyed serving South Burlington for the last seven years and will fondly think back on all of the people he has met over that time.
“I’m still devoted to South Burlington, but I will find other ways to contribute that are both rewarding and appreciated,” he wrote.
School board race
Although the board must now decide how to move forward following McHenry’s unexpected resignation, the city of South Burlington voted in three school board members Tuesday night. All three were uncontested races, with two incumbents and one new candidate vying for the open seats.
Tillinghast, who was seeking reelection to a three-year seat, netted 3,598 votes while Tim Warren, who was elected by the board to fill the seat after Companion’s resignation, garnered 3,672 votes to fulfill the remaining year left on that term.
A new candidate to the board scene, Elaine Cissi, who ran for the two-year seat vacated by board chair Bailey, garnered 3,583 votes.
A charter change to expand the school board by two seats also passed, 3,815 to 977.
The proposal was recommended by the city’s charter committee, which sought ways to increase representation and participation in local government. In August, that committee formally recommended that the school board expand to at least seven members, noting that other comparably sized districts have at least nine members, if not more.
South Burlington’s school board is currently made up of five members elected at-large — three of the seats are three-year terms and two are two-year terms — but current and previous board members have said five members is not enough to shoulder the school district’s workload.