Name: GM board votes to stop attorney’s defense of ‘Chieftain’ for now | The Chester Telegraph
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GM board votes to stop attorney’s defense of ‘Chieftain’ for now | The Chester Telegraph

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The Chester TelegraphUp-to-date news for Vermont: Chester, Andover, Cavendish, Grafton, Weston, Windhamand LondonderryShawn Cunningham | Sep 27, 2023 | Comments 3By Shawn Cunningham©2023 Telegraph Publishing LLChe Board of Directors of the Green Mountain Unified School District voted 6 to 3 last night to stop paying an attorney and have him halt work representing the board to defend the Chieftain mascot in an appeal before the state Agency of Education.Instead, the board will meet in executive session with the attorney to discuss the representation.&nbsp; The attorney has agreed to do this at no charge.In the absence of Chair Deb Brown, Adrienne Williams, left, ran the meeting. Superintendent Lauren Fierman is at the right. Photos by Shawn CunninghamThe vote took place during a special meeting of the board called by a majority of members asking for information about how this legal representation came about in the first place. Those members say they were surprised to learn of the payments, which currently amount to more than&nbsp; $10,000 and were first reported by The Chester Telegraph.Last night’s meeting was dominated by members who had voted for discontinuing the use of the name Chieftain and who believed they were kept in the dark over the decision on its defense before the AOE. The issue was put before the AOE when three members of the public appealed the board’s May 18 decision to keep the name “Chieftains,” saying it did not violate school policy.The majority who called for last night’s meeting had expected to be informed of the details behind the hiring at last Thursday’s regular meeting. But that meeting was cut extremely short due to what Board chair Deb Brown erroneously depicted as an error in how that meeting was warned.Brown did not attend last night’s special meeting; Vice Chair Adrienne Williams instead took over the chair’s duties.Following a session of public comment, Board member Lisa Sanders of Cavendish asked about the procedure for hiring and paying for the lawyer to represent the district in the appeal.Board member Lisa Sanders, second from the left, kicked off the discussion by asking what the procedure was for hiring an attorneyWilliams said there was no formal procedure, but the decision arose from the May 18 executive session in which attorney Mick Leddy advised the board on its options on voting whether the Chieftain name violated the school district’s policy on Non-discriminatory Mascots and School Branding.While Williams also said that the board could not publicly discuss what happened in the executive session, board member Josh Schroeder of Chester noted that the board never talked about actually hiring an attorney and never voted on paying one to defend the Chieftain name.Board member Kate Lamphere of Cavendish also noted that any decision that the board would have made concerning hiring a attorney would have had to be done in open session since it is illegal for boards to vote during an executive session.She also said that in her years on the board – serving beside two superintendents – it has “always been customary” for any decision to hire legal counsel to come before the board.Board member Kate Lamphere, center, said it has been customary for the board to approve of hiring attorneys“It was shocking to me,” said Lamphere. “I don’t know where the board chair got her authority.”At one point, Lois Perlah of Chester asked if any member remembered a board vote on legal representation and no one did.Steve Perani of Cavendish recalled a conversation with he had with Brown, who told him that the attorney was not defending the Chieftain name and that hiring an attorney had been recommended by Lauren Fierman, superintendent of the Two Rivers Supervisory Union. Perani said Fierman had told him that was not true.Fierman, who was at last night’s meeting, said that she cannot support or represent the board’s decision that the mascot did not violate the policy so when the AOE attorney contacted her about the procedure for the appeal, she said that board chair Brown should handle it.Williams said that there are answers, but a public meeting was not the proper place. So for the purposes of that night’s meeting, Williams said they were “at an impasse.”“Deb had prepared information and was going to give you an update,” said Williams referring to last Thursday’s abbreviated meeting, which actually ended on a motion to adjourn put forward by Williams.Sanders said she wanted the board to act quickly to not have anymore money going toward the mascot defense instead of education initiatives.Pointing to a new addition to the board’s agenda format, Schroeder noted that among the “board norms” was the phrase “no surprises.” But when he spoke with Brown looking for an update on the appeal, she said there was “not much to tell.” Shortly thereafter, he said, The Telegraph published its article about the rising legal fees.Josh Schroeder moves to have the attorney stop defending the board’s decision in the AOE appeal“That was a surprise,” said Schroeder who then made a motion to have the attorney cease defending the Chieftain name.Williams asked if the board wanted to vote to stop the legal defense without hearing from the attorney,&nbsp; who she had said was willing to meet with them at no charge. “Do you want to vote without the information?”Schroeder said he had asked Brown for information and had given her plenty of time to get an answer.Lamphere said she disagreed with Williams’ characterization of the May 18 executive session but she was willing to talk about it after the defense of the mascot decision stops.Fierman, who trained as a lawyer, said that she could not recommend cancelling representation in the middle of a legal action and that the firm had told her that they were willing to meet with one or two representatives of the board – or the whole board in executive session – to talk without charge.Voting to cease paying the attorney were Kate Lamphere, Josh Schroeder, Steve Perani, Katie Murphy of Chester, Lois Perlah and Lisa Sanders. Voting against were Jeff Hance of Chester, Rick Alexander of Chester and Scott Kendall of Andover. Williams, of Baltimore, did not vote and Brown was absent.After the vote to discontinue defending the board’s decision on the mascot, attention turned toward the meeting with the attorneys. Lamphere moved to ask the Superintendent Fierman to schedule a meeting with the full board for a discussion with the lawyers as soon as possible after this week. That was approved unanimously.The meeting, which was also being held on Zoom, was interrupted by a Zoom bomber who flashed a porn video on the screen and blasted vile racial slurs. Zoom access was shut down and restarted with every Zoom attendee on mute and without video.Filed Under: Education News • Featured • Latest NewsAbout the Author:Leave a Reply | Trackback URLSeptember 27, 2023 at 7:33 pmI thought it was very telling the Chairwoman did not attend the “special meeting”. That is absolutely crazy. If it a matter of personal events going on, then don’t schedule a special meeting for a time when the Chair is not available. The Vice Chair stepped in for this meeting and handled it as best she could. Geez! But really come on! I thought it funny when the Superintendent said she told the lawyers she was not the one to speak to, yet a few minutes later she speaks of conversations she has had with them regarding an informational meeting with the board that they so kindly offered to do for free! That is a joke! Of course they would do it for free! They had/have a contract so why wouldn’t they do it for free even if it was voted to stop all payments. That is a no brainer for even me!September 27, 2023 at 6:32 pmI haven’t attended a school board meeting for several years. No disrespect to the board members who have good intentions, but after this meeting my belief that parents should pull their children out of public schools is reaffirmed. If you want your children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews to have the ability to read, write, understand math and have critical thinking skills do whatever it takes to keep them away from these institutions.September 27, 2023 at 11:24 amI was appalled by the Zoom take-over. I was watching the meeting from home with my 4-year-old daughter and 7-year-old Son who were exposed to this vial imagery and hate speech at which point I shut off the computer and drove to the school to attend in person.I am glad to see this report did not use the word “Hacked” as other media outlets have done – Zoom is a safe platform for these meetings so long as the meeting permissions are set correctly. By default, zoom attendees should NOT be able to unmute, show their video, or screen share without being called upon to do so by the moderator. These minor precautions will prevent this type of thing from happening again in the future.I also want to applaud the board members who put a stop to any further payments to lawyers on this subject until an in-depth review is complete. To some, $8,700 may not seem like a huge amount of money in the context of the district’s overall budget but in reality, an average classroom budget for materials and supplies is less than $500. I heard mentioned that the school has issues with young learners’ reading scores – Imagine what all the 1st and 2nd-grade teachers could do in their classrooms with that $8,700 !!We need to get rid of this Mascot so that we can start focusing on the students again. This mascot has caused turmoil for generations. But once it’s gone, there will be a short period of increased division and then it will fade away into nothing so that our school can get back to work focusing on the kids rather than Adults that can’t let go of the past.Editor's Note: Due to the recent repeated comments from some readers, including those using aliases, which is against our stated policy, we will be closing comments after an article has been up for eight days. We will allow one comment per reader per article. As always, first name or initial and last name required. COMMENTS WILL BE DELETED WITHOUT THEM. Again, no aliases accepted.Click here to cancel reply.© Copyright The Chester Telegraph 2023 • All rights reserved.

The Chester TelegraphUp-to-date news for Vermont: Chester, Andover, Cavendish, Grafton, Weston, Windhamand LondonderryShawn Cunningham | Sep 27, 2023 | Comments 3By Shawn Cunningham©2023 Telegraph Publishing LLChe Board of Directors of the Green Mountain Unified School District voted 6 to 3 last night to stop paying an attorney and have him halt work representing the board to defend the Chieftain mascot in an appeal before the state Agency of Education.Instead, the board will meet in executive session with the attorney to discuss the representation.&nbsp; The attorney has agreed to do this...

GM board votes to stop attorney’s defense of ‘Chieftain’ for now | The Chester Telegraph

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