More than a dozen current and former Shelton High School students spoke out against two recent personnel moves at the school, decrying officials for making “arbitrary” decisions they said will hurt learning.
The protest concerns two teachers at the school — Katelyn Botsford-Tucker, a social studies teacher and track coach, and Carolyn Finley, an English teacher who serves as the adviser to the school’s award-winning Gael Winds student newspaper.
Botsford-Tucker is being reassigned to Shelton Intermediate School, and Finley is being stripped of her role as adviser to the student newspaper.
A large sign was erected across from the school’s front entrance this week urging students to be heard at the May 28 school board meeting.
Students obliged — a crowd of more than 60 people spilled into the hallway outside the meeting room.
And for more than an hour during the meeting’s public session, 15 current and former students took to the microphone to condemn the moves.
Beth Smith, the headmaster of the school, declined to comment on the moves in an email Thursday beyond noting that “only one side of the story was presented last night.”
Nepotism?
Botsford-Tucker is being reassigned to Shelton Intermediate School pursuant to a school board “nepotism” policy that prohibits staff members who are married from working in the same school.
The school board approved the policy July 25, 2012, about three weeks after Botsford-Tucker, known as “Bots” to students, became engaged to another teacher at the school, Hugh Tucker.
Students said the policy is unfair and will deprive them of a great teacher and coach.
For example, Johnna Bakalar, a junior elected as the 2014 – 2015 captain of the cross country, said that in her three-year track career at the school, “Katelyn Botsford has quickly become one of the most influential mentors in my life and high school career.”
She said she signed up to take an Advanced Placement Government and Politics class next year because Botsford-Tucker was scheduled to teach it.
Now she’s regretting the choice.
“Moving Coach Botsford would be an injustice to her and this entire community,” Bakalar said before submitting a petition protesting the move with dozens of signatures from her fellow students.
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Courtney Rodrigues, another junior and one of Bakalar’s teammates on the track team, said the team is like a family, with “Bots” like a mother.
“She’s watched us grow on and off the track and I believe we’ve grown with her too,” Rodrigues said, lauding her coach’s passion and dedication.
“My teammates and I can truly say we would be devastated to lose her,” Rodrigues told the school board.
After Rodrigues spoke, Superintendent Freeman Burr said that Botsford-Tucker’s coaching assignments would not be affected by her move to the middle school.
But several subsequent speakers said otherwise, pointing out that track practices begin after the high school dismisses around 2 p.m., and the intermediate school doesn’t let out until nearly 3 p.m.
Even if she remains in her coaching role, they argued, she wouldn’t be able to serve as effectively as a coach.
The Valley Indy sent Botsford-Tucker an email Thursday seeking comment.
Change Of ‘Winds’
Students also declared their dismay at the news that Carolyn Finley, the adviser to the high school’s Gael Winds student newspaper, will no longer serve in the role after this year.
Finley took over the adviser’s role four years ago upon the retirement of Deborah Stellavato.
It’s unclear what specifically, if anything, led Smith, the building’s headmaster, to make the move.
As noted above, Smith declined to comment, and Finley herself declined to get into specifics in an interview with the Valley Indy Thursday.
What was clear at the meeting, however — Finley’s students are sorry to see her go.
Alex Gumbs, the publication’s top editor, said it would be a “travesty” to lose Finley as an adviser.
Last winter, she said Finley was able to secure press passes for Gael Winds staffers to attend the Rockefeller Center tree lighting ceremony, and “encourages us to step outside our comfort zone.”
“It is because of her influence that I am the student I am today,” Gumbs said.
Finley is “more than a teacher,” said Liam Cummings, the senior class president and an editor of the newspaper.
“She is one of the most caring and loving individuals I have ever met,” Cummings said. “She has taught me more about loving a subject than any teacher I’ve ever had.”
“There is no teacher in this school as devoted to their students and clubs as Ms. Finley,” he said, waiting a beat before adding: “Except for maybe Botsford.”
“And now we’re here fighting for her to keep her position, which she’s done so well for the past four years,” he said.
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Joelle Schumacher, the newspaper’s senior staff reporter, said Finley serves as a “constant source of inspiration,” and has an uncanny knack for understanding her students.
“Whether she is voluntarily locking herself in the school basement until 10 p.m. to work on the paper, or taking a bus to Boston with 20-something moody high schoolers to a national journalism convention, Mrs. Finley approaches each endeavor with a seemingly infinite well of wisdom and calm,” Schumacher said.
Even recent graduates of the school showed up to the meeting to voice support for Finley, as well as Botsford-Tucker.
Katie O’Brien, a former Valley Indy intern who is now a student at Marist College, said Finley’s tutelage gave her the ability to effectively interview figures like Shelton Mayor Mark Lauretti and Gov. Dannel Malloy.
O’Brien got involved in the paper her junior year, she said, “and for the next two years, I had the best time of my life in that high school.”
“My junior year was really rough,” O’Brien said. “Mrs. Finley was always there.
“She sees things in people that most people wouldn’t,” she said. “She doesn’t give up on her students, and that’s what you need. She inspires her students, and it’s so rare.”
Rebecca Ercolani, another SHS alumna and currently a student at the University of Connecticut, said she was “shocked and disgusted” when she learned of Finley’s reassignment.
Ercolani’s voice cracked and she held back tears while trying to describe Finley’s influence on her.
“I come to a loss,” she said. “How do accurately explain in such a short period of time all the ways in which one very important person has influenced you? It’s impossible for me to sit here before you and tell you every single thing Mrs. Finley has done for me, because the list is endless.”
Finley: Removal ‘Unjust’
Finley herself was the last person to speak to the school board, and received a loud ovation before and after reading a brief statement.
“I have an incredible, articulate, and bright group of students that I have the fortunate ability to work with every single day,” Finley told the school board.
“Tonight, my students, past and present, showed me through their heartfelt speeches that they will never forget how I made them feel, nor will I ever forget how their words tonight made me feel,” she went on.
“However, to those responsible for making the decision to remove me from Gael Winds, in time, I may forget what you said, and I may forget what you did, but I will never forget how you made me feel through your unjust actions.”
Finley pointed out that a year ago, she and the staff of the newspaper were before the school board for a much different reason — “to receive praise and accolades for the accomplishments of Gael Winds.”
“Tonight I stand before you asking you to do the right thing by allowing me to continue the work I began with Gael Winds four years ago,” Finley concluded.
In an interview Thursday with the Valley Indy, Finley said that she doesn’t know what she can do to change the reassignment.
But she was thankful her current and former students made their thoughts known.
“A lot of the emotion that I showed last night was because of the fact that I had students there from my very first staff from four years ago, and I had students there from every year that I’ve been teaching,” Finley said. “To me, it really touched my heart to see that they came back because they so believed in what we had done together that they just really wanted to see it continued.
“It was just wonderful to see their support and see how much journalism has affected them,” Finley said. “So many students have gone on to be doing things with journalism as a result of taking the class, and it really has influenced them a great deal.”
Will Any Of This Change Anything?
Whether that passion will translate into a change in her reassignment is doubtful, she said.
“Honestly, I don’t know if anything more will come of it,” she said. “Right now as far as I know I have no reason to believe that anything will change.”
School board chairman Mark Holden said the outpouring of passion on display from students at the meeting was “something to feel good about.”
But he also said that “unfortunately the matters they were talking about were something we’re not in a position to do anything about.”
With respect to Botsford-Tucker’s reassignment to Shelton Intermediate School, Holden said: “The problem that you run into when there is an issue with policy is even if we felt that we don’t like the rule, that doesn’t allow us to ignore it.”
Although the sentence in the policy discussing reassignment of school district employees who get married references the “discretion of the superintendent of schools,” Holden said that discretion applies only to when employees are reassigned, not if.
But, he said, “I did ask the (school board’s) policy committee to take a look at that policy again, without expressing comment about whether a change needed to be made.”
“In light of this particular event, it was worth asking ourselves ‘Is there justification for that being in there?’” he said.
“It’s not anything necessarily directed at the individual, per se, it’s just that if you have two people that are closely related in the (same) building, that can cause some issues,” he went on, deferring to the superintendent on what specifically such issues might be.
Regarding Finley’s removal from her role at Gael Winds, Holden said “the reassignment of the student advisers for activities like the newspaper is at the discretion of the building headmaster.”
“The Gael Winds has been well-managed and it’s one of those things where we clearly have some incredibly talented students and certainly they are passionate about their newspaper and certainly I respect that,” Holden added.
Burr, the superintendent, declined to comment extensively Thursday because he said the teachers union may file a grievance.
“Any time a teacher feels they have been unfairly treated, the contract allows them to pursue due process,” Burr said.
“Reassignments are kind of annual business, we do those all the time,” Burr said of such personnel moves, in general. “Occasionally one bubbles to the surface, but again I want to limit my commentary simply because I have to wait and see whether there is going to be any due process action on the part of the Shelton Education Association.”
The contract, posted below, spells out the process for teachers to file grievances — they must first bring the issue to their immediate supervisor or principal.
If denied at that level, a teacher could take the matter to the superintendent, then the school board, or finally an impartial arbitrator.
Burr said Thursday afternoon he wasn’t aware of any grievances being filed on behalf of Botsford-Tucker or Finley.
