It is very rare for the state Education Department to remove a school board member, because it can only be done in extreme cases.
View full sizeFrank W. Miller, then the attorney for the Jordan-Elbridge school district, answers a reporter's question during a news conference held in the high school library before the start of the board's Oct. 6 meeting. Standing behind Miller are Jordan-Elbridge school board members. Elbridge, NY -- A Jordan woman is starting a letter-writing campaign to try to remove all nine members of the Jordan-Elbridge school board. “Every board member needs to go,” said Maureen Doyle, of River Road.
Doyle said she first called upon the board to resign during a meeting Sept. 26 attended by about 200 parents —many unhappy with the school district.
Two administrators have been suspended with pay, a third transferred was involuntarily, the district superintendent’s five-year contract was terminated after three years and the district’s treasurer has been fired.
A state Supreme Court judge twice ruled against the district: once for withholding the terms of the superintendent’s severance agreement and once for violating open meetings law by appointing an interim superintendent during an executive session.
It is very rare for the state to remove a school board member, according to state Education Department officials.
School board President Mary Alley could not be reached for comment.
Doyle, who is co-chairwoman of the annual Jordan Fall Festival, said she is printing 10,000 copies of a form letter she wants residents to mail to the state Education Department. The copies will be available at public locations, such as stores, across the district.
Doyle said she expects to email the form letter today to the approximately 2,000 she has on an email list through the jordanny.com website, which she owns. She is also working with Mary Jo Wick, who helped organize the Sept. 26 meeting, to circulate the letter. “There won’t be a person in this community that won’t have access to this letter,” she said.
The letter will ask the state to investigate the workings of the school district and advise residents how they can oust sitting board members. She wants residents to inundate the state with letters. “Numbers count in Albany,” she said.
State Education Department spokesman Jonathan Burman said the department will remove board members only in specific circumstances. The process is called a 306 proceeding.
“The commissioner will remove a school board member only in rare and extreme circumstances — for actions like a willful violation or neglect of duty, or the willful disobedience of a law, regulation or order of the commissioner,” he said.
State education law says the commissioner will not remove a district officer unless “it is clearly established that the officer acted intentionally and with a wrongful purpose to (1) violate the law, (2) neglect his duty, or (3) disobey a decision, order or regulation of the Commissioner. The Commissioner will not remove a school officer if he or she has merely used poor judgment.”
Reach John Stith at jstith@syracuse.com or at 251-5718.