BUCHANAN — Eleven minutes after the Buchanan Board of Education meeting was scheduled to begin Monday evening, concerned parents, staff and community members were still crowding in the Buchanan Middle School Library. Some holding signs that read “respect our staff” or “listen to your employees,” the people filled every seat in the room and searched for standing room, which spilled out into the hallway. The place was buzzing with noise and chatter until, at 7:11 p.m., board president Harvey Burnett called the meeting to order.

During that meeting, the board unanimously voted to extend the contract of Superintendent Timothy Donahue until June 30, 2022. The contract renewal does not come with an increase in Donahue’s salary, according to board member Ruth Writer.

Following the vote, Donahue, who came from Potterville Public Schools in 2017, said he thanked the board for their support of the extension of his contract.

However, not everyone was pleased with the outcome of the vote. Many in the crowd were attending to express their concerns over Donahue’s leadership.

A list of concerns provided by the Buchanan Education Association, the district’s teacher’s union, includes:

• Donahue’s decision making regarding hiring and firing Buchanan employees

• The superintendent’s lack of communication and collaboration across the district

• Lack of transparency from superintendent and business offices

• Business office reporting and spending

• Poor treatment from the operations supervisor

• Difficulty getting accurate financial information form the business office

• District employees leaving for other schools

• On April 16, BEA representatives said they met with Donahue to discuss concerns. During the meeting, Donahue suggested the creation of an advisory committee to include representatives from all employee groups and board members to meet regularly and promote a dialog. More than a month later, BEA representatives said they had heard nothing about the committee.

• The BEA requested that an evaluation of Donahue be completed and include a survey of all district employees. The BEA said they had received no response from the board concerning this request. During Monday’s meeting, BEA representatives asked the board to delay the vote to extend Donahue’s contract until an evaluation and survey could be conducted.

“The community is disgruntled with the decisions that the board and the superintendent are making regarding staff assignments, budget spending and lack of transparency about decisions,” said BEA President Wendy Murphy.

In an email to the Niles Daily Star, Superintendent Donahue addressed several of the BEA’s concerns. He said that while he has heard many of the concerns before, the concerns often lack specificity, which makes it difficult to respond to them. Donahue added that he had a dialog with BEA and teacher leaders last month, during which he was able to answer specific questions raised. He said he felt the meeting was productive and he was unsure why staffers decided to ask questions in Monday’s public meeting, which was not designed for two-way communication.

“As for other negative reactions in the crowd regarding myself as a superintendent, I think those are unfortunate,” Donahue said. “Sometimes when difficult decisions are made, people are angered. I wish folks would talk with me directly when they have questions or concerns.”

Donahue confirmed that despite rumors, a full evaluation of his work has been completed and that his next evaluation will take place this summer. He also confirmed that he has received no raise in his salary from the district.

In response to the BEA’s concern over staff leaving the district, Donahue said it would be inappropriate to attribute a cause to staff turnover.

“In any school district, personnel transitions happen for many reasons,” he said. “This past year, we welcomed several new teachers from other districts in this area for positions that we had open.”

In addition to the concerns raised by the BEA, many in the audience Monday were there to express concerns over the reassignment of Ottawa Elementary principal Karin Falkenstein to the role of special education director effective July 1.

“If you look around wondering why there are so many people here, that is why,” said Jessica Elliott, BEA secretary. “[Falkenstein] is still totally crushing her job [as principal.] … There are a lot of staff here — her staff and districtwide staff — to support her.”

“That was kind of the last straw,” Murphy said. “People are finally saying, ‘I can’t believe the board is approving that decision in addition to some of the other things they have done.’ It is kind of the thing that rallied the community to say, ‘enough.’”

Prior to public comment, Donahue addressed the situation of Falkenstein’s reassignment. He said that Falkenstein, an at-will employee that is not directly employed by the school district, is being assigned to the role of special education director as she is the district administrator with the highest level of knowledge in special education law and special education programming.

“This change has been made to position the district to best serve the students in our school,” Donahue said. “Karin Falkenstein will still be a part of our administrative team. She is an amazing individual who has many, many years of experience with the school district and the community. … Her record is one of distinction, dedication and selflessness.”

As of press time, Falkenstein could not be reached for comment.

Parents’ perspective

After the board’s vote to extend the superintendent’s contract Monday evening, Britney Martin, president of the Ottawa Elementary Parent-Teacher Organization, wiped tears from her eyes.

Upset with the vote, Martin, who has a child at Ottawa Elementary, said she hopes that the community will have an opportunity to have an open discussion about Donahue’s record and their concerns with his leadership in Buchanan.

“I’m angry,” she said. “I’m frustrated because the board of education is allowing Timothy Donahue to cripple our district, and nobody will stand up to him.”

Martin is not the only parent who is dissatisfied with Donahue’s leadership in the district. Three weeks ago, Ashley Hanson, a former Ottawa Elementary employee, pulled her son out of Buchanan Middle School. Hanson is now homeschooling him, saying that she has seen problems in the schools worsen in recent years.

“As a parent, I am outraged by the direction the district is going in, the treatment of our faculty and staff,” Hanson said. “I can stand here and say the system has failed my child. In my personal opinion, Tim Donahue cares more about the bottom line than he does about my child or his education. I have chosen to pull my child from Buchanan Schools because I no longer feel confident in the administration, specifically Tim Donahue and Tricia Lowery [executive director of business and operations]. They have failed my child.”

Moving forward

Following the vote to extend Donahue’s contract, a wave of upset ran through the crowd of Buchanan residents, and several walked out of the meeting. After board members moved into a closed session, many attendees lingered to discuss the results of the meeting.

“I am thoroughly disgusted that the board did not take more time to consider the feedback tonight and seek further information from Buchanan staff before making a decision,” Murphy said.

“This is not what we wanted,” Elliott added. “I am in disbelief.”

As of Monday evening, Murphy and Elliott said it was too early to talk about what next steps the BEA could take other than to continue to attend board of education meetings to ensure that teachers’ voices were heard. Additionally, Murphy said that the BEA would continue to ask for the formation of an advisory committee that would meet regularly and a survey of employees to be conducted.

“I would say that we will continue to be at meetings and that we will be keeping up with what is going on,” Murphy said.

Donahue said the district will work to put in place the advisory committee for the 2019-2020 school year.

Going forward, he said he would encourage employees to reach out to him in order to start a dialog and find productive ways to collaboratively solve issues.

“[Employees] were all provided with my personal cell phone number at the opening of school meeting in August. Please reach out and set up a time to talk,” Donahue said. “Our district is moving in a positive direction. We have great kids doing great things, and we have wonderful staff at all levels who go above and beyond to support them.”