Teacher-coach vote again a hot-button topic at Lew-Port

by Larry Austin
Lewiston Porter Sentinel, June 24, 2006

One year after the Lewiston-Porter Board of Education appointment of teachers to coaching and co-curricular positions became a heated debate, the issue has returned.

The board approved all of its coaching and co-curricular appointments for next year at Tuesday’s monthly meeting, but one name was not on the list. The boys junior varsity soccer, boys varsity track and field, and Middle School Ski Club adviser positions held this year by Middle School teacher Richard Sweeney were not filled.

Middle School teacher Dave Sicoli asked the board who removed Sweeney’s name from the agenda; was there concern there would not be the necessary number of votes for approval; why did the board choose not to address the issue; and is there something being hidden from the public?

Board President David Schaubert denied that names were removed from the coaching and extracurricular list or that the vote on approving the positions was delayed.

“I don’t play those games like they were played last year, where something is published and you take it off,” Schaubert said. “There is no specific time that these have to be voted,” he said.

“Last year, it became about coaches and not about capital projects and budgets and everything else.”

“Although I am not going to be affected directly by not appointing the JV boys soccer coach, I believe there is nobody better qualified for the job,” Julie Bajor, a Lew-Port junior, told the board.

Meanwhile, neither Schaubert nor Sweeney would attribute the lack of an appointment to a complaint Sweeney made in April against a board member. In a letter to the Lewiston-Porter Sentinel published April 8, Schaubert alluded to the complaint filed with the Lewiston Police Department.

Schaubert called the report “false” and added: “It is hardly a coincidence that the annual election is next month.”

Board member Len Palumbo was the subject of a complaint by Sweeney filed on April 3 with Lewiston Police Chief Ron Winkley.

Palumbo called the issue with Sweeney “just ridiculous.”

“I don’t know anything about it. That’s what I told the chief,” Palumbo said. “I don’t know anything about the accusations. It was something ridiculous like my muffler was too loud and that I wave to him and his wife occasionally when I drive past their house. Because they’re my neighbors and they live right around the corner from me, I frequently drive past their house, and when I see them I wave.”

Palumbo called the timing of the complaint, one month before the school board election, “curious.”

Winkley said the Sweeney complaint was not seeking to have Palumbo arrested, or even to have Palumbo’s actions made public, but an effort to have Palumbo leave the Sweeneys alone.

“The police report my wife and I filed together a few months ago is a private matter regarding my family’s well-being, not a public issue,” Sweeney said after the Board of Education meeting Tuesday. “Therefore, I would not assume it’s the reason I was not reappointed. I do know I was on a list of appointments set to be approved at the April board meeting that was tabled twice.”

Sweeney was one of three coaches not initially reappointed to his coaching position for the 2005-06 school year, a decision that was later reversed. Sweeney, a teacher in the middle school, had criticized Palumbo at a March 29, 2005, board meeting for a letter Palumbo had written to the Sentinel that Sweeney considered misleading.

“I’m not going to give anyone a vote of confidence who disgraces the district or who is so immature that they can’t represent the district in a professional way,” Palumbo said of last year’s decision not to vote to reappoint certain teachers to co-curricular positions.

Schaubert would not discuss the specifics of Sweeney’s coaching status, calling it a personnel issue.

“Like I said in my speech, things happen for a reason, and that’s what’s happening. That’s as far as I’ll go with it,” he said.

A motion by board member Lou Palmeri to approve only the extracurricular appointments presented while tabling the rest failed 5-1.

“Some of these appointments may not be necessary,” Palmeri said.

The appointments were recommended by Interim Superintendent Don Rappold.