State rejects request for hearing on leak
But Education Dept. chides school officials on controversy involving volunteer coach
The state Education Department has declined to hold a hearing to determine who leaked information to a reporter for The Buffalo News in the Jayvonna Kincannon case but said that it was “troubled” by the conduct of School Superintendent James A. Williams and one or more Board of Education members.
The issue involved allegations that Williams told the board during a closed-door executive session that Michelle Stiles is a lesbian and that she was dismissed as the volunteer assistant girls basketball coach at McKinley High School because of suspicions that she was having sex with girls on the team.
Williams also told board members that he lacked proof to back up that suspicion, according to several board members who spoke with Mark Sommer, a reporter for The News, in January 2008 on the condition of anonymity.
Stiles has denied the allegations. Kincannon, a member of the girls basketball team, received a lengthy suspension for actions she took in defending the volunteer coach.
“The statement[s] made by the superintendent about a certain individual [that she may be a lesbian] appear to have been gratuitous and, in any event, irrelevant to that individual’s professional performance, even if true,” Kathy A. Ahearn, the state Education Department’s deputy commissioner for legal affairs, said in a letter to school officials earlier this month.
“Moreover, if the superintendent and/or board had any real concerns about the safety of children under that individual’s charge, they were required to report it to the appropriate authorities,” Ahearn said in the three-page letter, a copy of which was obtained by The News. “The fact that no report was made demonstrates either a serious omission on their part or likely confirms that the statement( s) were baseless speculation.”
Ahearn said she also was “troubled” by the possibility that one or more board members had lied during testimony before the board’s Ethics Commission by denying they had given Sommer information about the executive session.
The Ethics Commission reported that board members Pamela Cahill, Ralph Hernandez, Catherine Nugent Panepinto and Lou Petrucci all said they had spoken with Sommer, but all denied discussing confidential executive session matters with him.
“It is possible that one or more witnesses who appeared before the commission may have testified untruthfully under oath,” Ahearn said. “Almost equally disturbing is the impact of disclosure of confidential information from executive session, which ultimately undermines the effective operation of a board.”
After the Ethics Commission concluded that it could not determine the source of the leak, board President Mary Ruth Kapsiak asked the state Education Department to launch an investigation.
Ahearn said the department does not plan to do that, because it would likely encounter the same roadblocks that hampered the Ethics Commission.
“This determination reflects only the practical difficulties inherent in conclusively proving the alleged violations of law, and not vindication of the handling of this matter by either the board or Williams,” she said.
Kapsiak and Christopher Jacobs, an at-large board member, claimed in February 2008 that Sommer’s story on the executive session comments was not correct. They made the allegation at a news conference that Williams attended.
But an unredacted version of a report by investigator David L. Edmunds backed up The News’ account. Williams told the board that he had heard rumors that Stiles “is having affairs with our kids,” according to the Edmunds report.
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