Parent lodges cafeteria complaints

WEBUTUCK — A district parent and member of Webutuck’s Wellness Committee spoke out at the July 6 Board of Education (BOE) meeting against the board and the way it has handled its cafeteria program and what it serves to students.

Specifically, Victoria Alexander gave a summary of an extensive blog post she first published two months earlier outlining what she concluded was improper procedure regarding the hiring of cafeteria staff, “nepotism� between a member of the cafeteria staff and her husband (the Board of Education vice president) and “corruption� on the part of the board for not addressing this issue.

Alexander charged that cafeteria worker Jo-Ann Herald was hired without the job being posted. She said Herald was “not qualified� for the position of cook or to choose menu items to serve in the cafeteria. She went on to charge that BOE Vice-President Joe Herald (Jo-Ann’s husband) acted inappropriately in dealing with the Wellness Committee and accused the Heralds of “benefiting financially from various failures on the part of the school board to observe proper procedures.�

At the July 6 board meeting, Alexander said that she has met several times with the district’s attorney, Jay Girvin, and former superintendent, Lee Bordick. She has received several follow-up memos from Girvin but said his objections to her charges “were irrelevant.�

When asked by BOE Trustee Casey Swift what she was trying to accomplish, Alexander replied that she is asking for the resignation of the vice president and asking that the positions of cook and cook manager be posted properly. She also asked that an attempt be made to see if there are more qualified people interested in either of the positions.

Girvin and Bordick recently sat down for an interview with The Millerton News to discuss the specifics of some of Alexander’s charges.

Girvin acknowledged that there may have been some technical issues, seeing that there is no record of job postings for the new positions on file, but insisted that there was discussion and agreement among the Board of Education, administration and the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA, the non-instructional staff union) representative, who reportedly spoke with all of the cafeteria employees to make them aware of when the positions became available.

At the July 6 meeting, district employee Jerry Heiser spoke out and said he thought there may have also been a job posting, as he applied for a position in the cafeteria around that time and went so far as to interview with Richard Johns and Linda Peters, Webutuck’s superintendent and business administrator at that time, respectively.

BOE President Dale Culver pointed out at last week’s meeting that the board has had problems before with trying to locate documents and records from that administrative period.

“A hallmark of that era is that a lot of things we’ve gone looking for, they weren’t there,� he said. “It’s an issue we’ve been working very hard this year to overcome.�

The CSEA guidelines for job postings are not legal requirements, Bordick pointed out last month. That’s the gray area that several of Alexander’s charges fall under, including one that Jo-Ann Herald should not be involved in choosing menu items for the cafeteria. Girvin showed The Millerton News the local job description that provides a “catch-all� that would allow a cook to assist in the ordering process.

“It’s a small cafeteria and they all work together,� Bordick said.

Perhaps the most talked about change was one that was removed after an argument ensued in the comments section of Alexander’s post.

“At a time when obesity is a national epidemic,� she had originally written, “the school board violated procedure and hired the unqualified wife of Joe Herald, the school board’s VP, a woman who has not been able to make good nutrition decisions for herself, resulting in her own very serious health problems with obesity.�

Alexander’s obesity remark was referred to in several public comments at a board meeting in June at which she was not in attendance.

“Sometimes it’s easier to throw stones at people than to work constructively,� one of the school’s social workers, Tom Marshall, said at the June 7 board meeting. “I was taken aback by the personal attacks and the tone of it doesn’t impress me or anyone else. The Heralds have contributed a great deal of time to this community and they do a wonderful job.�

That sentiment was echoed by new board Trustee Joanne Boyd at the July 6 meeting.

“I hope we can get past this point and get the Wellness Committee to the point where it needs to be, with everybody working together,� she said.

In an e-mail, Alexander declined to comment on some of those negative aspects, and said that she wanted to focus only on improving the school’s food service for students.

Alexander also said that all the Wellness Committee is looking for is to follow the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) guidelines more closely.

One of Alexander’s closing concerns is that the Wellness Committee, despite having a policy adopted by the Board of Education last month, remains an ineffectual representation for parents and community members. This is the third grouping of the Wellness Committee over the past few years. Alexander has repeatedly said the committee has been “obstructed� by the BOE and administration from having any say in the cafeteria program.

Alexander said that the committee currently doesn’t have a chairperson or meetings scheduled, but the board rebutted that Webutuck’s K-6 Principal Katy McEnroe is the current chair.

And so it continued at the July 6 meeting, a back-and-forth exchange among Alexander, the board, administration and members of the audience until there was a consensus reached by the board that the discussion wasn’t going anywhere and it  was best suited for executive session anyway. There was no conclusion reached by the board or any indication that a definitive decision or statement regarding Alexander’s charges was forthcoming. Newly appointed Superintendent Steven Schoonmaker, who was sworn in to the position only an hour earlier, said he needed time to speak with Girvin and would respond to Alexander as soon as that happened.