Students, parents upset by lack of communication, transparency

By Lauren Young

Staff writer

Many of the more than 50 residents who showed up for the latest Jamesville-DeWitt Board of Education meeting on Monday, Sept. 17, were concerned about the ongoing issues related to last month’s suicide of a recent J-D graduate and the culture in the high school music department that may have contributed to that death. They were told that their issues would not be aired, at least in the public comments section of meeting.

“It has been brought to our attention by our mental health professionals that public comment concerning the recent tragedy in our school community and the aftermath affecting the high school music program is impacting the mental health of our students, having the effect of sensationalizing suicide and presenting it as a vehicle for communication to express concern,” said board President Mark Schulman in a prepared statement. “With the mental health of our students as our highest priority we will not accept further public comment concerning any aspect of the recent death or the high school music program. If you have additional information you’d like to provide, please provide it in writing to the board.”

The statement referred to the suicide of a 2018 graduate in late August and the school board’s emotional Aug. 27 meeting during which nearly 60 students, parents and other district members commented on both positive and negative aspects of the culture in the high school music department.

Schulman also announced at the Sept. 17 meeting that the two community comment periods on the agenda — one at the beginning on agenda items only and one at the end of the meeting on any item whether on the agenda or not — were reduced in time from the typical three minutes down to two minutes due to having a “late start and long executive session at the end of the meeting.”

Because issues related to the suicide were not on the agenda, attendees waited through the full meeting – until after 9 p.m. – before being told the issues they came to discuss were barred from conversation.

“I came here to talk about something else, but clearly I can’t talk about that,” said student Geraldine Mason. “I just don’t appreciate this hostile environment that’s been created here, and we’re not trying to encourage anything … I came here to talk about mental health and how we can prevent something like this from happening again.”

“I can’t even express how appalling it is in our community to have young adults back there, who came out tonight to sit through an hour and a half presentation about character and empathy to start us off with,” said parent Tanya Maguire, referring to the meeting’s first agenda item — a 40-minute presentation about Tecumseh Elementary’s Character Education program that includes, according to Principal Jill Zerillo, “adult modeling of the expectations,” and “adults behaving in ways that kids see.”

“[The students] are our future leaders, and they’re taking their guidance from all of you in this room who are giving us two minutes to speak with no answer,” continued Maguire. “I’m just appalled, and I can’t even believe this is what goes on during a board meeting.”

Resident Sandy Burton, who said he has been around the J-D school system since 1972, called the board’s discussion ban “really discouraging.”

“We never get any information from you folks,” Burton said. “I would hope that some decision is made on the recent problem.”

Parent Rachel Gilchrest told the board that part of their responsibility as elected members is to listen to their constituents when they have issues to discuss. “Banning conversations about people’s trauma hurts them further … I beg you to get experts to help you learn how to facilitate hard conversations, because they’re going to keep happening,” she said. “Silencing people in pain is not the side of history you want to be on.”

“I think the hypocrisy shown by this board tonight is a whole new level,” said Michelle Kielbasinski, former J-D board member. “I think changing [to] the two-minute rule because of the length of this meeting … tells this community that somehow your time is more valuable that their time … please do not confuse the fact that parents are not coming to you with their problems that there is not a problem. At some point, when the community comes here, and they say problem after problem after problem, the problem doesn’t go away — just the hope for a solution goes away, so they stop coming to you … that doesn’t mean that problem doesn’t exist — you’re creating that problem.”

In addition to comments focused on the board, several parents aired their concerns about delays finishing repairs to the district’s pool, and about the difficulty they had communicating with the administration related to concerns about the special education program. Throughout the meeting, the board did not respond to any of the public comments, and several commenters were cut off when they reached the two-minute limit.

After the meeting, Schulman provided the following statement to the Eagle Bulletin, “The community has brought some very challenging issues and concerns to the attention of the board and administration. We are working through processes to address these challenges and want to take sufficient time to find the course of action that will best serve the interest of our students. We appreciate the patience of the community as we work through these very difficult matters.”