Seabrook School Board under fire after principal departure: 'Kids were crying'

SEABROOK — Citing crying children, demoralized teachers and devastated parents, the public showed up in force Tuesday night to take the School Board to task over its recent actions that led to the resignation of Seabrook Elementary principal Bryan Belanger.

“What I saw in this building this morning made me want to curl up in a ball,” parent and former School Board chairwoman Christina Keiser told the board. “Teachers and kids were crying. When I see kids crying in the hallways, how is that the right decision for the kids? Why are we forcing kids to watch a principal who loves them walk out the door? They are devastated. I am devastated.”

Forced to wait in the hall for three hours while the School Board ordered pizza and met in secret non-public session, the crowd of 33 parents, teachers and residents who turned up at 4:30 p.m. at the middle school library actually grew in size. By the time the board reconvened in public session at about 7:30, nearly 50 people were waiting to express themselves and they weren’t offering praise.  

Dissension had been brewing in the community since March, but what triggered the vocal discontent at the board’s May 14 meeting was the resignation of Belanger last week.  Belanger said he quit following three School Board meetings in three weeks, at which he believes the board acted in an “unethical” manner, making “decisions that were not in the best interest of Seabrook students and their families.”

In a school system that has struggled for decades with low-performance scores, high homelessness, and food insecurity rates, Belanger saw it ill-advised that the board shot down $1.3 million in grants to pay for mental health professionals to work with students and families enduring social stress. And he could not align the board's rejection of his efforts to improve early childhood learning with his own “professional values.”

While Belanger offered his resignation effective June 30, the board ordered that his last day be on May 14.

Teachers, parents blast School Board

Teacher Kelly MacInnis told the board, she walked into Seabrook Elementary School Tuesday morning, frustrated and angry. Staff had lost their leader, proposed grants and other programs, MacInnis said.

The result was “the look of defeat on people’s faces,” she said, adding, “morale at the elementary school is lower than at any other time.”

A parent of a third-grader, Meghan White, who is a mental health professional in a school elsewhere, told the board she was the kind of person they would be “trying to fire.” She chastised them, saying they should be ashamed of their treatment of Belanger and his programs. She said they “shattered” the school’s “foundation.”

“Your small actions had a big ripple,” she said. “It’s disgusting. You didn’t give the kids time to grieve (the loss of their principal), so they wouldn’t feel abandoned.”

A teacher in another school district and father of three Seabrook students, Matt Stevens also expressed his disdain at the board’s treatment of Belanger, who he judged to be an “exemplary” educator.

“I understand why Bryan chose to leave,” he said. “He wants to make a difference. All educators do. Unfortunately, this board has done nothing but block these efforts.”

Stevens added the board did everything they could to force Belanger to leave through their “desire to micro-manage the town’s schools.”

The students and community will pay for the board’s “rash decisions,” Stevens said, for they will “drive away high quality” educators.

Teacher Laura Litcofsky was dismayed at the board’s elimination of the parent-child pre-school playgroup program Belanger began with an early childhood coordinator.

“The early childhood outreach coordinator is no longer allowed to run the playgroup that’s so helpful to students and kindergarten teachers,” Litcofsky said. “She’s no longer allowed in our building!”

Belanger believed preschool playgroups help prepare children for school by engaging parents of children from infancy to pre-kindergarten so they are ready to learn when they arrive at school.

Alyssa Dowe, a teacher of 10 years, said she was at the meeting because she felt like there was a distrust between the School Board and teachers.

“I feel like our School Board practices have not been following our policies, I feel like our School Board is not trusting our staff,” she said.  "...I have no idea how telling Bryan to leave today was mission based or listening to the community."

Each speaker drew applause upon finishing, but no one garnered more vocal support than Christina Keiser, who didn’t run for re-election this year. She slammed the board’s actions.

Keiser said the board’s decision to have Belanger leave immediately is neither good educational policy nor financially sound. Forcing an administrator who wants to work to sit at home – while getting paid – is not good fiscal management, Keiser said, adding as a taxpayer she’s “horrified.”

"Make that make sense,” Keiser said.

“... I have three kids in this school,” she said. “It is not OK to send an administrator out in two days and let the kids flounder. I’m afraid for my kids.”

Keiser accused the board of claiming to want change, but only if it coincides with their personal agendas, which she believes are misguided.

“The board only wants to listen to those they agree with,” Keiser said. “But when the 40 people here want to speak, you make them wait three hours.”

Keiser said it was disrespectful to the board’s constituents to hold a three-hour executive session at the beginning of a monthly board meeting. As is customary, such lengthy non-public sessions should take place on a separate day, she said, or at the end of a monthly meeting.

School Board chair defends board’s actions

There was one lone voice of approval for the board’s actions.

Seabrook Selectman Harold Eaton rose to commend the School Baord for rejecting the grants that would underwrite the cost of hiring mental health professionals to work with students and families. The main concern for schools should be education, Eaton said.

He said everyone should be working together to give Seabrook children the same opportunity to learn as in other school districts, where students perform much better in assessment tests.

“Mental health is important,” Eaton said, “but it shouldn’t be a priority. Education should be.”

But when Eaton left the podium there was no show of support from the audience, only silence.

The four board members present, Chairwoman Maria Brown, Vice Chair Kelli Hueber, Lacey Fowler and Patrick Knott sat stone-faced throughout the criticism.

Only Brown spoke up in the board’s defense, telling the crowd she’s spent the last two months since she was elected “cleaning up the messes,” she believes she’s uncovered in the school system. She pledged to make it right.

“We’re going to find out how to fix it,” she said. “We don’t know how yet. This is my school; I grew up in this town. We have to talk about social and emotional (issues), but it cannot be the focus.”

After the meeting, Brown declined to provide a reason why the board asked Belanger to leave on May 14 and not finish out the school year.

Heather Arsenault, a mother of three — two currently at Seabrook Elementary School — said she came to the meeting because she was angered by the board's actions.

“It is a fight every day to get my son to school,” she added. “But he comes because he knows that when we pull in, Mr. Belanger is going to be outside… When I drove through the parking lot this morning, he (Belanger) stood out there, and he high-fived every single kid that came into this building. He had a smile on his face, and he knew every kid by their first name."

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Seabrook School Board blasted by teachers, parents for principal exit