BUCHANAN — Inside of a hot, crowded meeting space Thursday evening, members of the community and teaching staff at Buchanan Community Schools clashed with the board of education over concerns of a communication and culture breakdown within the district.

The special Board of Education meeting began with good intentions as it hosted a community dialogue, which allowed community members to register with the board before the meeting to have specific questions answered during the public forum. After months of requests for such a session, superintendent Timothy Donahue said he was pleased to host the first such dialogue in the district.

“This is the first time we are doing this concept of a two-way communication between district residents and community stakeholders and our board of education,” Donahue said during Thursday’s meeting. “I applaud both the board and the committee who came up with this idea. I think it is pretty innovative in Michigan schools. Typically, school boards take public input and that would be the way that they typically engage with their community and stakeholders, but this is an opportunity for district residents to talk to the board and have their questions answered and have a free-flow of communication back and forth.”

However, the meeting quickly devolved with district staff, parents and community members expressing concerns over a Donahue’s leadership, a lack of teacher support and a lack of communication from both Donahue and the board.

“[The teachers] are not heard or supported or really respected, to be very clear,” said Britney Martin, president of the Ottawa Elementary Parent-Teacher Organization.

As a parent of a Buchanan Community Schools student, Martin said she was concerned that the board was not addressing issues raised by staff and community members at previous board of education meetings. At a May 20 meeting, several community members and members of the Buchanan Education Association, the district’s teacher’s union, brought several issues to the board including questions about hiring and firing decisions, district spending, lack of transparency and a lack of communication.

“Parents are very concerned with the morale of this staff. … We have a staff that is educating our kids, loving our kids, and we have a board that is not supporting them. That is an issue,” Martin said.

In response to Martin, board president Harvey Burnett said the board could not discuss staff issues in a public meeting, though he did disagree with the statement that staff members were not being supported.

Community member and Buchanan Community Schools parent Stacey Dodson Carlin also spoke at the meeting. Though she said she could not speak for teachers, she said she felt that as a community member, she also was not being heard by the board, as the board had yet to respond to a letter she sent to the board on July 19.

In the letter she shared, Carlin detailed the process she and other members of a parent committee went through to create an anonymous survey for teachers to evaluate the district’s cultural climate after the board failed to produce its own survey by June 30. During a July board meeting, Carlin informed the board of her committee’s plan to distribute the survey to teachers and later share the survey results with the board. 

Though she said she always spoke as a parent and never on behalf of her employer, Honor Credit Union, Carlin alleged that the day after the meeting, she was called into her CEO’s office and informed that Donahue had called her boss and told him that Honor Credit Union employees were “badgering the board.” Carlin further alleged that Donahue indicated that district business with Honor Credit Union was potentially in jeopardy.

Honor Credit Union CEO Scott McFarland confirmed a phone conversation between himself and Donahue did take place, but declined to discuss the content of their discussion.

“It was more related to our two businesses,” McFarland told the Niles Daily Star in a Friday phone interview. “[Donahue and I] are just two business people trying to do good in the community.”

While Donahue declined to answer questions regarding the alleged phone call, Carlin said she found it to be “retaliatory.”

“It saddened me because I felt I had worked very hard to be respectful in all the communication I had with [the board],” Carlin, who described the cultural climate she sees in Buchanan schools a tense, disrespectful and not collaborative, said. “I hope we can come together and find some semblance of genuine openness because one is not present.”

Jessica Cornelius Elliott, secretary of the Buchanan Education Association, said Carlin’s letter reflected district staff’s concern of retaliation if they were to come forward with complaints to Donahue or the board. She added that the BEA is still concerned with a lack of communication or progress with addressing concerns that were relayed to the board at the May meeting.

“It feels like we are starting the school year on uneven ground,” she said. “Many staff members have concerns that we would like to voice, but some of us are nervous to do so because we are afraid of what that might mean in terms of Mr. Donahue’s retaliation.”

Now, Elliott said the BEA is anticipating the results of the climate survey distributed by Carlin and the parent committee and is also hoping to soon come to a resolution and understanding with the board.

“[The board] can ask us questions. They can ask to sit down and have a conversation with their teachers or their union officers,” Elliott said. “If the board actually reached out to us and asked us what our concerns were, that would go a long way.”

After Thursday’s meeting, superintendent Donahue declined to answer specific questions from the press, though he offered a statement about the community dialog hosted Thursday.

“The board of education is very pleased to offer this community dialog forum. It’s innovative. I don’t know of any other school districts that are doing something similar,” he said. “We appreciate everyone’s interest in conversing with the board, and we will continue all our efforts to fully answer specific questions and concerns.”