School Board Chair Hagerty-Ross on Gamm Report

In this statement (excerpted below) Elizabeth Hagerty-Ross, chairperson of the Board of Education, reacted to Attorney Sue Gamm's presentation of her probe into Darien special education:

Thank you, Attorney Gamm, for all your hard work, which has resulted in a thorough review and investigation.  The fact that you interviewed over 200 people, and reviewed thousands of pages of documents gives us great confidence in your findings. 

Your report is of great benefit to the Darien Public Schools and to the students and families we serve, and again we thank you.

This investigation is of utmost importance to me, and to all members of the Board of Education.  I speak for the Board of Education in expressing my disappointment to learn of the numerous mistakes made and inappropriate actions taken in the provision of special education services to Darien students starting last year. 

But we cannot fix our problems until we understand and acknowledge them.  During this process, we are all gaining an even deeper understanding of the impact of the violations that have occurred

• the impact on individual students, families, and clearly, the impact on trust
• Trust between families and  the Administration, between the BOE and the Superintendent   and the public trust in the community
• This trust must be restored and Attorney Gamm’s investigation is an important step towards that.
  

There is still much work ahead, and some of that work has already started.  For example, Mary Gelfman is implementing the important dispute resolution process. 

John Verre, hired recently, as our Special Education Ombudsman, is reaching out to families and promoting better communication between them and the school district. 

Attorney DeFrancis continues her work to make sure that staff are appropriately trained and that our written procedures and training materials are fully consistent with our legal obligations.

I have been asked about the role of the BOE in personnel-related decisions.  Here are the basics: the Board is responsible for hiring and supervising the Superintendent of Schools. 

There is a personnel search committee that is actively involved in the search for an interim superintendent and it is hard at work on the search process for a permanent superintendent of schools. 

It is the job of the acting superintendent/interim superintendent to make any other administrative and personnel decisions. 

That said, the Board of Education has an important responsibility going forward to assure compliance with the law and to assure accountability as we address the serious problems that Attorney Gamm identified. 

Accordingly, as the current Board chair, my recommendation is that an ad hoc committee of the Board of Education be created that will review and oversee the path ahead of us. 

I would suggest that an Ad Hoc Special Education Oversight Committee be created to monitor the various efforts taking place (those I have mentioned above as well as others that may be undertaken). 

This Committee will act as the Board’s eyes and ears to make sure that we are moving full steam ahead on all these fronts, and to make sure that our continuing efforts are discussed and reviewed in a public manner, transparent to the community. 

This recommendation will be addressed at out next Board meeting on Nov 12.