New Details Emerge About Meeting That Put Ely On Leave

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Ken O’Brien
Sources close to the decision to place SouthbridgeSchool Superintendent Eric Ely on paid administrative leave have provided newdetails regarding the matter to The O’Zone.
Initially the Worcester Telegram and Gazettereported on November 14^th, in an article titled “Southbridgeschool committee votes to put superintendent on leave”, that, “The decisionwas made during an emergency meeting held in executive session at thedistrict's administrative building on Cole Avenue, the former high school.” 
The O’Zone has learned from those sources that thisinitial report was not entirely accurate.
Initially it was the belief of the committee thatits meeting would be held in executive session due to the presence of Mr. Ely.The Telegram reporter was told it would be a closed meeting based upon theassumption that Mr. Ely would be present.
However, state law requires that such actionsrequire 48 hours notice to the employee in question as well as the right tolegal representation, unless such rights are waived. According to our sources, Mr.Ely had initially informed the committee that he would be present andconsequently the committee assumed that he would waive his rights. It was uponthis basis that the committee informed the Telegram reporter that the meetingwould be held in executive session.
Subsequent to this notification, however, Mr. Ely informedthe committee that he would not be present at the meeting. That meeting has nowbeen posted to a future date. 
As a consequence of this timeline of events, themeeting was, in fact, an open public meeting.
At the meeting the School Committee counsel advisedcommittee members that a complaint had been filed against Mr. Ely. The detailsof the complaint, however, were not specified. The counsel merely indicatedthat the complaint was “serious”. Beyond that, the committee’s counsel wouldonly characterize the complaint as a matter of “misconduct”. It was thus, onthe advice of counsel that the school committee voted, reportedly unanimously,to put Mr. Ely on paid administrative leave.
After the meeting school committee chairman,Patricia Woodruff, issued the following statement: 
“The Southbridge School Committee held an emergencymeeting on November 14, 2012 and placed the Superintendent of Schools onadministrative leave in connection with a complaint received by the SchoolCommittee. The matter is under review by the School Committee and SchoolDistrict counsel. Terry Wiggin, the District’s Director of Finance andOperations, has been appointed Temporary Acting Superintendent pendingappointment of an Acting Superintendent.”
An additional component is provided by a report ofThe Times Union of Albany, NY, on November 15^th in its article “Elyput on leave in Massachusetts”. In that article they state, “SchoolCommittee Chairwoman Patricia Woodruff said Thursday that the seven-memberpanel took action Wednesday at an emergency meeting after receiving a complaintthe day before.She declined to detail the complaint, but said itwas not criminal.”
Thus we are left with a situation where, based upon informationfrom previously reliable sources, the school committee, acting upon the adviceof counsel, unanimously placed the Superintendent on paid leave for an unspecified complaint ofnon-criminal misconduct.