School system in violation of state access law

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MADAWASKA – The Madawaska School Department has violated Maine’s Freedom of Access law.

That was the ruling of Justice E. Allen Hunter in Aroostook County Superior Court on Thursday in a case that pitted Paul Cyr, a resident of Madawaska, against the school department.

Cyr had filed an appeal of a school board decision to keep secret parts of an investigatory report of the Madawaska School Department last year. The 15-page report was done by Wiscasset attorney Ervin Snyder. The department hired Snyder to look into a controversy involving the resignation of the high school principal that was followed by a student walkout.

Justice Hunter ruled that the school department must “disclose the entire Snyder report.”

The school department has 30 days during which it can appeal Hunter’s decision.

The school department has kept much of the report secret from the public and news organizations, claiming it involved personnel and was protected under Maine’s Freedom of Access law.

Cyr filed an appeal to the Aroostook County Superior Court when school board Chairman James Lavertu refused to release the entire report. Cyr represented himself in court.

The Bangor Daily News also had filed an appeal to Lavertu’s denial of the report, but the newspaper settled for the redacted copy.

More than half the report on controversies within the Madawaska School Department was edited out of a copy received by the newspaper.

Only two conclusions, of 12 in the report, were made public. None of the nine concerns raised by Snyder was made public.

Last summer Snyder interviewed more than 60 people, including the past three superintendents, other administrators, teachers, central staff, several students and parents.

Lavertu and Carlton Dubois, interim superintendent of schools at Madawaska, were out of the area and could not be reached Thursday.

The man who bucked the system was happy. “That’s good news,” Cyr exclaimed over the telephone when asked about the decision Thursday. “This is a wonderful vindication for the students, especially the ones that walked out of school.

“I had no attorney. I did this myself,” he said. “I did this for the kids who knew in their hearts that things were wrong.”

Cyr said the school committee needs to change, and not only its law firm. He said the report addressed issues that still have not been resolved. He said some members of the school board should resign their positions.

Cyr, a retired investigator for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, has been a thorn in the side of the school department for much of the last year. He challenges decisions, especially those made behind closed doors in executive session.

The school department argued in court that the report included information about the high school principal and the superintendent of schools, and was confidential by statute.

Cyr maintained that the Snyder report was an investigation of the situation at the Madawaska Middle-High School and not a report compiled and maintained for employment purposes.

“In this court’s opinion, the Snyder Report is not the kind of performance evaluation contemplated [by state statute on confidentiality],” Hunter wrote. “Additionally, as the plaintiff [Cyr] points out, there is no evidence that the school treated the Snyder Report as such an evaluation.

“No part of the report was compiled or maintained for employment purposes of any school employee,” he wrote in his decision.

Hunter also wrote in his decision that the “personal history, general character or conduct of an employee is not applicable statutory provision with regards to the Snyder Report.”

Hunter also points out that Principal Conrad Cyr, no relation to Paul Cyr, asked for a copy of the report and also was refused.

“[Conrad] Cyr, by the defendants’ own logic, would have been granted access to all portions of the report that pertain to him, as required by law,” Hunter wrote. “When construed liberally, the undisputed facts support the contention that the Snyder Report is not an employee record for which confidentiality can be claimed.”

During a period of controversy, before the investigation, the Madawaska School Department was in an uproar. Conrad Cyr, Madawaska High-Middle School principal, resigned, Superintendent Danny R.P. Michaud accepted his resignation, and students walked out of school.

Parents were excluded from a meeting of students with Michaud, and escorted off school grounds.

Last May, the school board, faced with the controversy, hired Snyder to conduct the investigation. Conrad Cyr was rehired. Since Snyder delivered his report, Michaud has resigned. He now holds a one-year position working with curriculum and grant applications. Carlton Dubois, a retired superintendent, is the interim superintendent.

Both he and Lavertu said Michaud’s resignation had nothing to do with the Snyder report.

Michaud started his tenure at Madawaska in July 2004. He was given a two-year contract extension in November 2005.

Michaud was superintendent in SAD 43 when the Maine Department of Education investigated the Rumford school system. Michaud came to Madawaska during the first year of a five-year contract with the Eastport School Department.