The two top officials of the Windham Northeast Supervisory Union resigned this week amid a public back-and-forth among school board members about Covid-19 protocols and how to spend millions of dollars in federal grant money.
Superintendent Christopher Pratt and Assistant Superintendent Lynn Carey resigned on Saturday and Wednesday, respectively, both citing personal reasons. But some in the Bellows Falls-area school district are blaming board members for the departures, accusing them of trying to assert power instead of working with administrators on behalf of the students.
Tensions came to a head Wednesday evening at a meeting of the supervisory union’s executive committee, made up of the chairs of the four local school boards that govern the district’s schools. While that panel is only a part of the body that actually oversees Pratt and Carey, about 20 people attended the meeting and, during a public comment period, asked officials to “tear up” the pair’s resignation letters, according to video footage of the event.
Olivia Clark, who introduced herself as a supervisory union employee, said the board was failing to support the district’s administrators and suggested that the Covid-19 protocols approved by the board didn’t go far enough in keeping students safe.
“The fact that [Pratt and Carey] are both resigning I think just shows the complete and utter disregard of the board for who you serve,” Clark said.
Pratt has faced pushback from board members in recent months on multiple issues. Though he asked local boards to adopt the state’s guidance on masking in schools this fall, the Rockingham School Board — which governs Bellows Falls Middle School, Saxtons River Elementary School and Central Elementary School in Bellows Falls — adopted looser Covid-19 protocols.
Board members and Pratt have also tangled on how to spend millions of federal dollars from three coronavirus relief packages. A handful of board members asked administrators for an itemized list of how the grant money would be spent, so they could vote on individual measures, though others agreed to a simple up-down vote on Pratt and Carey’s proposal to allocate the funds.
David Clark, chair of the supervisory union board, disputed the criticisms lobbed at him and his colleagues during the meeting, saying that, while he and the superintendent had disagreements in the past, Clark always “had his back.”
“I feel pretty much the same way most people in this room feel about seeing him leave,” David Clark said of Pratt during the meeting.
Pratt, who attended the meeting, did not elaborate on his reasons for resigning. He declined to comment for this story.
Jack Bryar, a member of the supervisory union board, said in an interview that Pratt’s decision involved his health and the high degree of stress that accompanied his position during the pandemic.
“I believe that Chris Pratt acted as he thought best,” Bryar said.
Once Pratt left, Carey was bound to go too, David Clark said.
“Lynn, in several of my meetings with Chris Pratt over the years, had strongly expressed the fact that she felt that she and Chris were a team, so I think that she quit in sympathy,” David Clark said.
Carey didn’t respond to VTDigger requests for comment.
The departure of a school district’s two top administrators in such quick succession is almost unprecedented, said Jeffrey Francis, executive director of the Vermont Superintendents Association.
While Francis said he didn’t know enough about the situation to weigh in, he sympathized with the stress among education administrators throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Unless you’re living these jobs, it’s hard to understand what these people are experiencing,” Francis said. “It’s an extremely challenging time in education right now.”
