At the Oct. 23 meeting of the Evesham Township Board of Education, board members Lisa Mansfield, Joanne Harmon and Trish Everhart joined resident Sue Wilder in calling for the resignation of board member Kevin Stone.
The calls for Stone’s resignation stem from allegations Wilder has made against Stone at three consecutive meetings in which she said Stone gave her confidential board information in multiple instances with the direction to “leak” the information to the news media.
Wilder first called for Stone’s resignation at the board’s Aug. 21 meeting after she said a week prior Stone left a letter in her mailbox containing confidential school board information asking her to “leak” the information to the media.
Wilder said she did not and has not since presented the letter to the board for concerns that the confidential school board information contained within would then become a matter of public record, which she believes it should not.
At the Oct. 23, meeting Wilder made a statement during public comment in which she read a letter from parents complaining about emails and posts on Facebook Stone allegedly made containing threats, nastiness and foul language toward coaches and families of Stone’s son’s baseball team, and she said Stone has gone around town telling people she is “angry” and “crazy.”
Wilder has previously said she believes Stone chose to send information to her because of a previous friendship with Stone and his wife Nichole, who is also a member of the board.
At the Oct. 23 meeting, board president Joe Fisicaro Jr. said although the board has asked for the letter Stone allegedly left in Wilder’s mailbox, it has not been presented and therefore the board cannot act regarding it.
“In two months, the board of education, nor the district, has received any evidence upon that accusation,” Fisicaro said. “We haven’t received any. We have asked. We have not received any evidence. We cannot act on anything that we don’t have evidence on. We cannot act.”
Fisicaro then directed the discussion to a statement Wilder made at the board’s Sept. 18 meeting.
At that meeting, Wilder continued her allegations and calls for Stone’s resignation, presenting the board with an email Wilder said Stone sent her in February that contained school report card analysis and teacher workshop pay, again with the instructions to “leak” the information to the media.
A copy of the email given to the board and forwarded to The Sun from Wilder has the subject line “can you leek (sic) this,” shows the email as from “Kevin Stone,” with the email sent from the domain of “thejughandleinn.com.” Stone owns a bar and restaurant in Cinnaminson known as the Jug Handle Inn.
After the Sept. 18 meeting, and at the most recent Oct. 23 meeting, Fisicaro and several other board members said the information in the email Stone allegedly sent to Wilder was not actually confidential, and could have been obtained by any member of the public who requested it.
As such, Fisicaro directed the attention toward the potential “intent” behind the email “to leak” information.
Fisicaro and Board Solicitor William Donio reiterated their belief that state courts have upheld that any complaint regarding an ethics violation by a school board member would have to be handled by the School Ethics Commission under the state Department of Education, and a school board could not remove its own members for ethics violations.
Donio also said boards, as a whole, cannot file complaints with the School Ethics Commission. Only individuals can do so.
While Fisicaro said boards do have the power to censure members for violating board bylaws, it was the opinion of Donio and Superintendent John Scavelli that, upon an examination of the board’s bylaws, there was no violation that wouldn’t more clearly fall under an ethics violation and therefore be better suited to a complaint with the School Ethics Commission.
“It is my opinion that is not so clearly articulated solely by the bylaws and not by the code of ethics that that would be the course to take,” Donio said.
Fisicaro agreed with Donio’s assessment.
“The intent is hard to prove, because the information itself was public information,” Fisicaro said. “The information chose to quote-unquote ‘leak out’ was information that was already released to the public, so in that case, it doesn’t give us much authority to give that censure. “
Wilder said she’s still considering filing a complaint with the School Ethics Commission, but is hoping Stone will resign to avoid costly legal fees for the district as the board would be required to defend Stone.
Toward the end of the discussion, Mansfield, Harmon and Everhart joined Wilder in the calls for Stone to resign.
“I’m just going to publicly come out and say that Mr. Stone, I ask that you resign,” Mansfield said. “We have spent the past three meetings taking time to discuss this issue, taking the focus off of why we are here, which is the good, all the good that is happening here in our schools and the wonderful things that are happening in Evesham Township, and I’m tired of it.”
Harmon seconded Mansfield’s call for Stone’s resignation.
“I don’t know how we get past this,” Harmon said. “I don’t know how we trust, how the public trusts, and we need to get past this. If resignation is the only way, then that’s what I think should happen.”
Everhart then said she agreed with both Mansfield and Harmon, saying board members and parents feel disillusioned and saddened.
“Resignation is the way to go, and it would just help one step moving us toward healing then maybe that would be the right thing to do…we’ve asked other people in the past to do the right thing. That was the word that we were hearing all across the whole town,” Everhart said.
Fisicaro said he was frustrated that in following the letter of law there was little the board could do.
He ended his comments with a statement that he later apologized for as a “rant,” in which he said the board has accomplished great things, but “time and time again we shoot ourselves in the foot” and he was constantly “pissed off” at the board for one reason or another as it argued about things that made “no damn sense whatsoever” and he’s had to sit through “some of the biggest crap” during his time on the board.
“I sit there and think ‘what the hell are we doing, what the hell is the purpose?” Fisicaro said. “And that’s the problem. We forgot the damn purpose. The purpose here is to help the children of Evesham Township.”
Stone made no comments on the allegations during or after the meeting.
The next board meeting is scheduled for Thursday, Nov. 20 at 7 p.m. at DeMasi Middle School.
