By MIKE CAPUTO
The meeting's agenda had included a discussion of the stalled search for a new superintendent and an executive session item about possible personnel violations. Officials confirmed that at least the superintendent search would be included on the agenda as a discussion item at the regularly scheduled work session on Thursday, March 5, which was scheduled to follow a public budget forum at 8 p.m. in the auditorium of the Leon J. Campo Salisbury Center.
Before the postponement, four trustees - Diana DeVito, Steven Jacobs, Abby Rothschild-Kaplan and Al Semonella - were expected to attend the special meeting, which was announced at the Feb. 26 work session and called by DeVito.
The superintendent search has not appeared on a school board agenda since the Jan. 29 meeting, when a motion related to the search was tabled to an unspecified future date. DeVito said she called the special meeting because certain items, primarily the search, have not appeared on recent agendas, as requested by some trustees.
"The main reason is that we are running out of time to do the superintendent search," DeVito said. "We felt that we needed to discuss it, and [Brian O'Flaherty] wasn't allowing us to discuss it at the regularly scheduled meeting."
District board policy gives O'Flaherty, the president, the authority to set the agenda for each meeting. Trustees planning to attend the special meeting were expected to weigh in on that policy and possibly revise it to take the authority away from the president.
The school board hired an outside firm to conduct a superintendent search following the retirement of Superintendent Dr. Robert Dillon in 2007. Leon Campo, then the deputy superintendent, agreed to be the district's interim leader until the installation of a permanent replacement. The school board extended Campo's contract through June 2009, after two final superintendent candidates withdrew their names from consideration last June.
Last August, the school board approved a second search, to be conducted by an internal committee consisting of top administrators. An advertisement was placed in The New York Times in October to solicit new applicants, with the goal of finding final candidates by January.
Several officials have said the administrative committee sent rejection letters to applicants without approval by the full school board. No final candidates were selected from the second applicant pool.
The search took another turn on Jan. 29, when Campo suggested that the board consider promoting a highly placed member of the district administration to the superintendent's job. Trustee Steven Jacobs took a different tack, calling for a motion to run another ad in The Times to expand the applicant base further. The motion was eventually tabled, but not before Jacobs and Campo had a loud argument.
Campo's suggestion found limited support, and an opponent of his plan said there was a conflict of interest because the administrator Campo favored was a leader of the internal committee that conducted the second search in the fall.
Both O'Flaherty and board Vice President Walter Skinner said they believed the special meeting planned for this week was illegal, and that they would not attend. According to O'Flaherty, board policy states that special meetings require written requests from at least three board members, and that DeVito was the only school board member to make such a request.
On Feb. 26, DeVito, Jacobs, Rothschild-Kaplan and Semonella voted down the minutes from a work session on Feb. 12. Officials said that was believed to be the first time minutes have ever been disapproved. Jacobs explained that the four made their decision based on O'Flaherty's refusal to entertain a motion to discuss the superintendent search at the Feb. 12 meeting. O'Flaherty said he did not entertain the motion because the session was a special meeting to discuss the preliminary school budget.
Despite the majority vote, Jacobs and DeVito emphasized that they are acting independently. "We are not looking to put a motion on that says something terribly offensive to the board or the community," Jacobs said. "We are looking to put motions like, 'Let's talk about the superintendent search,' things like that that we think are important."
"I just want to be able to sit down to discuss and figure out what is best for the district," DeVito said of the superintendent search.
O'Flaherty expressed optimism that progress on the search would be made at Thursday's meeting, expected to be attended by the entire board. "I want a game plan and I want to present my ideas," O'Flaherty said.
Skinner appeared concerned about the recent events, the future of the board and the district. "I am very worried about what is going to happen," he said of the trustees who were expected to attend the special meeting. "These people have their own political agendas."
Anonymous fliers, which circulated at the Feb. 26 board meeting, included a campaign against O'Flaherty and Skinner, whose seats are up for election in the May budget vote. The fliers also criticized Campo, and his recent suggestion that the board consider promoting the administrator to the superintendent's seat.
Comments about this story? MCaputo@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 287.
