Des Moines School Board the Issue, Not Sebring’s Sexual Emails

Regardless if you were horrified, humored, sickened, disappointed or saddened by former Des Moines Schools superintendent Nancy Sebring’s salacious emails, don’t let the steam heat distract you from the worst of what these emails expose, the Des Moines School Board’s blind trust of the superintendent.

Nancy Sebring broke District policy by using school resources both on the clock and off for, let’s call it, juvenile electronic cavorting. Shame on her and, well, ew. Thankfully, she is gone.

The huffing and puffing by suddenly outraged school board members over these sexually explicit emails and how policy was broken with their transmission is a sloppily choreographed dance to avoid the real issue. Strike all of the sad bedroom talk found in these emails and we get a peek into Sebring’s unfettered and selfish leadership. This school board has been a fervent and breathless group of Sebring backers for the last six years, allowing Sebring to operate with little to no oversight.

Even the board’s handling of this matter shows their unwillingness to do the job they were elected to do. According to Teree Caldwell Johnson, the school board president, as soon as she knew the media was about to be given copies of the emails, Sebring resigned. The very next day the board went into closed session to discuss the matter anyway; something I maintain was in violation of Iowa law since Sebring was no longer an employee or being considered for a position. At the conclusion of the meeting the board president made a statement saying Dr. Sebring had decided to resign her position earlier than expected so she could focus on some personal matters – a kind of “there’s nothing dirty goin’ on” riff. We know now that this was not the case.

The board president was protecting Sebring even at the end by trying to downplay the matter. She was hoping this kerfuffle was going to go away for both Sebring and the board’s benefit. It has not and the board president was wrong to mislead the public.

The school board claims it did not want to violate the privacy of a legal personnel matter. Fair enough, but the board president’s statement was a bald face misrepresentation of why the meeting was called and what occurred. A simple, “Dr. Sebring has resigned and we have no further comment” would have sufficed. The board opted for the smoke and mirrors.

The really scurrilous stuff in the emails confirms a pattern of behavior the school board has rigorously denied and, at times, even defended as appropriate. One needs look no further than the charter school to see an example of Sebring’s active support of friends and relatives in Des Moines. Her willingness to dangle a job under her management in Omaha to her six-week lover proves beyond a doubt Sebring felt little shame in using public jobs to reward those who pleased her personally.

The emails also show Sebring was actively involved with the charter school. This had to be plainly obvious to the school board as it was conducting its own ‘thorough’ review of the failing school. If it wasn’t, one should wonder what exactly the board was reviewing.

It comes down to this, Nancy Sebring convinced the school board to edit, pass and strictly follow a governance model that stripped the Des Moines School Board of most of the activities an effective body conducts in order to ensure the public needs are being met.

During the Sebring years the school board became little more than an out-of-touch, disengaged cheerleading squad. Those who should feel the most shame in the wake of the Sebring emails should be the seven people who sit on the school board. The board has many responsibilities. Chief among them, setting policy and ensuring those policies are followed. It is the board’s obligation to hire the superintendent and to provide effective oversight. This board did not and has not for some time.

The seven members of the school board need to stop gasping about their disappointment in Nancy Sebring and look in the mirror. It is time the board was back in charge of our public schools. The governance model used by the Des Moines Public Schools is an unmitigated disaster. Sebring’s sexual dalliances are a passing story. However, if the school board fails to change the way it governs, Des Moines will soon discover something worse may be going on than sex talk on public time.

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Graham Gillette can be reached at grahamgillette@gmail.com 
This entry was first published as a Des Moines Register online essay.

May 10 Closed DMPS Board Meeting May Have Violated Law

Last Wednesday I wrote about the need for the Des Moines Public School Board to conduct the search for a new superintendent in the open saying “the seven elected members of the School Board will do the community a disservice if they lock the doors and hash things out alone.” As I was tapping away at my keyboard, the Board was planning a noon meeting for the next day. They locked the public out of that meeting.

Allow me to use this meeting as example why the school board’s willingness to close the meeting room door is dangerous and why all public bodies across Iowa should do better.

Iowa Code Section 21.5(i) allows a public body to go into a closed session “to evaluate the professional competency of an individual whose appointment, hiring, performance, or discharge is being considered when necessary to prevent needless and irreparable injury to that individual’s reputation and that individual requests a closed session.”

Fair enough, but let’s look at what we know about this particular meeting.

Nancy Sebring and Thomas Ahart, associate superintendent, signed requests to close the meeting on May 10, the day after the Board posted the meeting notice announcing a closed meeting.

Let me say that again.

The School Board planned a closed meeting and then got signed requests to close the meeting. That is backwards.

Only after a public meeting is planned can an individual request it be closed. The Des Moines School Board never intended this meeting to be open and that is a significant problem.

Next, Dr. Sebring resigned her position via an email at 11:30 p.m. the evening before the meeting, well after it had been scheduled. Therefore, the appointment, hiring, or discharge of Sebring was not being considered. Following the meeting Board President Teree Caldwell-Johnson confirmed Sebring’s ineligibility to request a closed meeting saying the board had not discussed the only remaining topic eligible for discussion in private, Sebring’s performance. Caldwell-Johnson went on to say the discussion during the meeting was about Sebring’s decision to speed her departure to give herself more time to make personal arrangements for the move.

Nancy Sebring was not legally permitted to request a closed session. The School Board violated the Open Meeting Law by discussing Sebring’s resignation in private. Any and all discussions the Board had about Dr. Sebring should have been held in open session.

Des Moines Public Schools (DMPS) anticipated how it would handle a superintendent’s resignation or incapacitation when the Board approved Des Moines Public School Board Policy ML 2.6. It states “the superintendent shall not fail to ensure that at least two other members of the staff are sufficiently familiar with Board and Superintendent issues and processes to take over with reasonable proficiency as an interim successor.”

On July 11, 2011 the Board, on a vote of 7 to 0, approved the Superintendent’s recommendation: “the district’s associate superintendents to act on behalf of the superintendent in the event the superintendent is incapacitated and unable to execute the responsibilities of the position. Both incumbent associates will be licensed as superintendents in the state of Iowa.”

The School Board approved a succession plan ten months ago. The Board had no need to discuss Thomas Ahart’s appointment.

The only reason left allowing the May 10 meeting to be legally closed was because Mr. Ahart felt the Board discussion of his performance would be damaging.

Perhaps the Board did want to make sure Mr. Ahart was up to the job and they used the May 10 meeting to evaluate his performance. If Ahart felt his reputation might suffer needless and irreparable injury during this discussion, he had the right to request the meeting be closed. Ahart shouldn’t have worried. Caldwell-Johnson’s public comments assure us Ahart’s reputation would not have been harmed.

Board President Caldwell-Johnson said the meeting was closed because Sebring and Ahart requested a private session, which is common procedure despite the law’s wording.

Wait. What?

Closed meetings of public bodies are supposed to be uncommon and if a law’s wording is allowed to be discounted all that is left is a blank page. Coincidentally, a blank page is all the public has to review when it comes to the School Board’s meeting last week.

Since Dr. Sebring’s request for a closed meeting is invalid, I have asked Mr. Ahart to rescind his request so the audio recording of the May 10 meeting can be made available to the public. A release of this recording would send a significant signal about the new acting superintendent’s commitment to openness.

Even if Mr. Ahart should choose to not rescind his request keeping the discussion of his performance sealed, the rest of the eighty (80) minutes of audio from the meeting should be released immediately. Caldwell-Johnson has admitted the Board discussed Sebring’s resignation and that conversation should never have been held in private.

A public body should go into private session only for an extremely limited number of reasons. The Des Moines School Board needs to set an example by voluntarily releasing the audio recordings of its May 10 meeting as they may have violated the law.

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Graham Gillette can be reached at grahamgillette@gmail.com 
This entry was first published as a Des Moines Register online essay.

School Board Should Conduct Search in the Open

The Des Moines School Board is losing its superintendent. Nancy Sebring is off to the greener pastures, well, at least the higher salary of Omaha. The Board needs to hire a replacement. Arguably, this may be the most important task a school board must undertake. A board and its individual members are wise to seek advice and guidance from many different sources. The Des Moines Board did that this week. From whom they sought the advice is as revealing as the advice itself.

Phil Roeder was chairman of the School Board in 2006 when Nancy Sebring was hired. Roeder oversaw the process and shortly after Sebring assumed her duties, Roeder resigned his board seat to become one of the School District’s spokespeople. Roeder may have some valuable advice for the Board, as long as all involved remember Roeder is providing input on how his next boss should be hired to replace his current boss, who he hired. I am not suggesting a conflict of interest. Sebring was impressed by Roeder and decided to hire him after he hired her, a happy coincidence. It may not be a conflict for Roeder to be involved now he is on the District payroll, but the Board should keep his advice in perspective.

So, let’s take a look at what Roeder said. “This board, the seven of us were joined at the hip, figuratively, for the length of time it took us to select a superintendent.” He stressed the importance of the Board appearing to the public and applicants to have a united front. Only the board president should speak to the media. He urged the board to have bold and robust conversations internally (to be read, behind closed doors). And, perhaps the most troubling line, “There’s nobody going to tell you this time around that you’re doing it right or wrong. It’s self policing.”

The board can only speak in a unified voice if they agree to what that voice will say in secret or delegate the entire process to one alone among them. Roeder is right, by speaking in one voice and keeping the bold and robust discussions about what the Board is doing out of public view, no one will have any idea whether the Board is handling the search well or not.

The community should be concerned that one of the paid communicators of their school district advised the elected school board to keep debate over how and who to hire as the district’s next leader out of the public’s earshot. There should be no internal discussions.

An elected board should not shy away from discussing important matters in public, especially something as crucial as the hiring of a superintendent. Self-policing is not good enough. The public needs to make those calls.

There is a difference between reaching a consensus and speaking with a unified voice. Our school district faces a multitude of problems and opportunities. Too many students fail to achieve, budgets are critically tight and we need to fight tooth and nail to ensure some of the best teachers and programs in the country stay where they are, in Des Moines. Everything the Board needs to consider and debate should be said out loud and in public. The community and potential applicants need to have the full picture.

The seven elected members of the School Board will do the community a disservice if they lock the doors and hash things out alone.

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Note: I served on the School Board and was on the same ballot with Phil Roeder and two others when I ran for reelection for one of two seats. I was one of two who lost and Mr. Roeder was one of two who won. I believe I lost that race because I have a propensity to say things out loud, but I admit there are likely many reasons voters chose others over me. I guess what I am saying is while I see my comments about Mr. Roeder as objective, if one preaches openness as I have, he should be willing to share all of the facts and let the reader decide for himself.

Graham Gillette can be reached at grahamgillette@gmail.com 
This entry was first published as a Des Moines Register online essay.