Pittsfield School Committee Chair Details PHS Investigation

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — School Committee Chair William Cameron has provided additional details about the third-party investigation into alleged staff misconduct at Pittsfield High School.

On Monday, the committee authorized him to negotiate and execute a retainer agreement with law firm Bulkley Richardson Gelinas of Springfield for "independent and impartial investigations of certain Pittsfield Public School employees."

A second investigation by a different firm will target the district's internal processes.

Mid-week, Cameron forwarded iBerkshires answers to a list of queries from news blogger Dan Valenti of PlanetValenti.com "in order to ensure that I am providing the same explanation of what is taking place to all Pittsfield news outlets."

The month of December saw three PHS staff put on administrative leave, including a dean who was arrested on drug-trafficking charges. The district is also facing a civil lawsuit over inappropriate conduct by a former teacher and a staff member who left earlier in the year is under investigation at his current workplace.

Mary-Lou Rup, a retired Superior Court judge, will be the lead investigator at a rate of $275 per hour and paralegal services are $110 per hour. The investigation is anticipated to begin on or after Jan. 2 and be completed on or before March 31.

"The three-month length of the agreement is precautionary," Cameron wrote. "At this time we have no reason to believe that the investigation will take as long as the agreement permits."

He said the total cost is indeterminate at the outset. 

"I will not venture to estimate how many hours it will take to conduct a thorough investigation, i.e., one that makes no presuppositions about culpability or credibility, and that will go wherever the evidence found will take it," he wrote.

Cameron relayed a suggestion that the city's liability insurer may bear the cost or some portion of it but "If that is not to be the case then the cost will be borne with public funds."

Members of the public and City Council have demanded answers, the council during a special meeting on Dec. 23 requesting that it "be included in the delivery of any disclosures, interim reports or findings submitted to the city."

Cameron said public progress reports on the investigation are not anticipated and the findings will be made public to the extent permitted by law.

1. The employment process of the Pittsfield Public Schools, including advertisements, interviews, reference checks, CORI and fingerprint checks, and hiring decisions.
    
2. The school system's investigatory efforts prior to the allegations now being looked into in matters related to reports of employee misconduct.
    
3. Areas where specific improvements in regard to these matters are recommended, including, but by no means limited to, training for building-level administrators in vetting candidates for employment, and the adequacy of the district's staffing for human resources management in an organization employing over 1,100 people.

Cameron has contacted Mirick O'Connell of Worcester for the second investigation. He reported that this firm serves as legal counsel to a number of school districts in eastern Massachusetts and "Importantly, it is also without ties to the City of Pittsfield, the School Committee, or any other party."

"To avoid confusion of roles, the process audit will commence upon completion of Judge Rup's investigations," he wrote. "The School Committee intends to make the final report received from the process audit available to the public."

The 100-year-old firm, Bulkley Richardson Gelinas, was chosen based on a recommendation from other attorneys, its tenure, and its experience with institutional investigations of employee wrongdoing.

Cameron boiled it down to three factors:

1. BRG does not now and, according to the firm's records, has not ever had an attorney-client relationship with the City of Pittsfield, the Pittsfield School Committee, a current member of the School Committee, or any of those identified in certain news outlets as accused of wrongdoing during their employment by the Pittsfield Public Schools. 
    
2. BRG has conducted investigations of employee wrongdoing for other school districts, albeit not in Berkshire County. 
    
3. Rup will be the lead investigator of the accusations and facts. She served on the Superior Court bench for 26 years and, since retiring, has been the lead investigator in other districts' independent investigations of allegations against their employees.

Cameron said the criteria included the investigator and firm's independence from any connection to the city or district, the firm's professional reputation, its experience with this kind of investigation, and the legal credentials of the lead investigator.

CamHeeron said the methodology will be "straightforward."

"The firm will conduct a limited series of interviews of key witnesses, in particular of each of the individuals named herein, and anyone else who has or purports to have actual knowledge of what has been alleged against current or former Pittsfield High School administrators or educators against whom allegations of wrongdoing have been made; to seek out such other credible sources of information related to the various allegations that have been made as might be found in the course of the interviews; to form a professional judgment of what, based on whatever can be learned, substantiates or fails to substantiate the allegations that have been made; to make such recommendations to the School Committee as the investigator deems warranted as a result of what has been learned; and to provide the School Committee with a report of its findings."

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