May 21, 2003 (Published, HTR, May 28, 2003)

Dear Editor,

The May 6, 2001 Herald Times Reporter editorial opinion starts with, "The procedure used by the Board of Education of the Manitowoc Public School District to find a new superintendent has left the community with more questions than answers. For a board that pledged to be as forthcoming as possible with residents about the selection process, elected officials of MPSD - and especially President Jeanie Miller - have been surprisingly secretive." The editorial lists several ways the board avoided disclosing even basic information about the superintendent hiring process. Two years later, the board is mired in the quagmire of poor decisions created by secrecy-obsessed leadership. (The full editorial is posted on kossik.com.)

The school board, school attorney and administration are struggling to come to terms with suddenly being accountable to a public that was previously kept in the dark by an unyielding culture of secrecy. Now, the public is once again denied even basic information about a huge issue impacting our district, the resignation of Superintendent Johnson. The board took no public action regarding his settlement agreement and covertly accepted his resignation as part of the board's routine personnel report. The board views communication with the public as an annoyance caused by busybodies, instead of a central role of effective government. The board must respect the fact that the school district is a public institution and we are accountable to the public.

As a board member, I went to the district office to review Dr. Johnson's settlement agreement, but could not, because only the attorneys have copies due to confidentiality provisions agreed to by the board. This evasive tactic to escape public accountability was rejected by the Wisconsin Court of Appeals when the Shorewood School District tried it in 1993. In that ruling the court said, "All officers and employees of government are, ultimately, responsible to the citizens, and those citizens have a right to hold their employees accountable for the job they do. If information relating to a settlement and the underlying personnel dispute are kept confidential, the public is deprived of this ability. For this reason the pledge of confidentiality itself is troublesome because the custodian making the pledge is purporting to grant an exception to the public records law. This is particularly troublesome when the settlement involves the payment of money by the government."

The taxpaying public has the duty and the right to be informed. If the school board practiced open and ethical leadership, the public would not need to turn to attorneys and prosecutors to force them to do the right thing.