District 209 cans Stan Fields, hires Robert Libka

At tonight’s special board meeting the District 209 (Proviso Township High Schools) board of education voted to place Superintendent Stan Fields on paid administrative leave pending a termination hearing.

Former CEO Robert Libka was offered a 60-day contract as the interim superintendent.

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Four board members voted affirmatively for these moves: Brian Cross, Robin Foreman, Reatha “Sue” Henry and Emanuel Chris Welch. Dan Adams was absent. Robert Cox voted against both moves. Theresa Kelly voted “present” on the issue of removing Fields and opposed hiring Libka.

The meeting had to pause when the move to hire Libka was announced. The audience was laughing loudly enough to disrupt the meeting.

The board took some other actions.

The contract with Glenn Gerard to consult on the Proviso foundation was terminated. And the group that had been working with Gerard was disbanded. As I understood the meeting the foundation will still be created, but it will be done in-house. Gerard was brought to the district by Fields.

The student codes of conduct were approved 6-0.

Kelly raised the issue of Fields being paid a bonus. When she asked the rest of the board if Fields had been paid a bonus no one would respond. Also, after the meeting Kelly reminded people that board member Charles Flowers had pushed for a review of Fields’ performance while he was on the board. Kelly made it sound like Welch resisted the performance review.

Also, the police liaison agreement with the Village of Hillside was approved “as discussed in closed session”. Board president Emanuel Chris Welch who makes money billing school districts for legal work used this language twice. This discussion should have happened in open session. When I questioned the lawyer from Giglio & Del Galdo about why this was handled in closed session he said it was a personnel matter.

The Open Meetings Act provides for discussing personnel matters in closed session because of the issues about privacy and candidly discussing performance. Renewing a contract with a police department doesn’t fall in this category. If one applied the Giglio & Del Galdo analysis any contract where the services were ultimately provided by people would be a personnel matter to be discussed in closed session. Construction would be discussed in closed session because personnel would be used by the contractor to do the construction.

I also think canning the superintendent was a violation of the Open Meetings Act. I think removing a superintendent needs to be specifically publicized in the agenda. The heading of “Personnel Matters” seems too vague.

Feel free to discuss the back story in the comments.

[UPDATE Tuesday, 8:56 AM: Getting lots of traffic this morning.

[What do you think of Fields getting canned? Bringing back Libka? How should the community react? What should other public officials do to make District 209 a properly functioning school district?]

[UPDATE2: Forest Park Review (Josh Adams) has a good summary. The board members for terminating Fields declined to give reasons. But the attorney told Adams it wasn't because of the federal subpoenas. There's more to the article. Good read it.]

[UPDATE3: Chuck Fieldman seemed to think the earliest Proviso Herald would cover the story is Wednesday, eight days from now. But he was wrong. See Proviso Herald (Chuck Fieldman)

Cox said he had been advised to "not comment on the logic of the Board's decision to remove Fields as superintendent." He added that he wants his "no vote" to speak for his view of whether Fields should have been placed on leave, pending a termination hearing.

[Bob, Bob, Bob, feel free to consider the possibility that the people giving you advice are giving advice designed to serve their interests, not you, the board, the taxpayers or the students.]

[UPDATE4: I talked to Cox this morning (August 6) and he voted against putting Fields on administrative leave and for hiring Libka.]