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School board attorney receives effective evaluation

By MEGHAN BRADBURY - | Apr 15, 2021

Although School Board Attorney Kathy Dupuy-Bruno received an effective rating in all four areas, the board had a discussion of verbiage of the evaluation process, as well as tasks of the board attorney, which will be brought back to the board for further input.

Board Chair Debbie Jordan said as with every employee there needs to be a one-on-one, so any issues can be addressed.

“If we do have issues with them, we take it to them and share our thoughts with them,” she said, adding that they look at opportunities and strengths. “We all have our opinions and view each of these differently. I really do not like doing this in public.”

The four areas in which the board scored the board attorney were board performance (2.84 average), stakeholder performance (2.83 average), legal performance (2.93 average) and professionalism (2.93 average).

Board members Chris Patricca and Cathleen O’Daniel Morgan provided an overall rating of needs improvement, while Betsy Vaughn scored a highly effective rating and the remaining board members provided an effective rating.

The first standard, board performance, was graded on “the board attorney serves as general counsel and advocate for the school board.”

Vaughn shared concern over the word “advocate.”

“I don’t think that is fair. Is that really a major job for the attorney,” she asked. “She certainly supports board legislative platforms.”

Board members have specialized duties as liaisons to legislation. Because of this, Vaughn asked if the board attorney needs to be an advocate rather than support the board and keep up with legislation.

Board member Melisa Giovannelli pointed out that the district does not have an in-house lobbyist, which is something that might be hurting them. She said that Dupuy-Bruno requested a paralegal to assist her better.

“There is a lot for her to handle and she could use the assistance,” she said.

Continuous Improvement Director Cindy McClung responded by saying those were all important points and will be noted for a future meeting when the evaluations are reviewed again.

Board member Mary Fischer provided some background information to the board as she was serving as the board chair when Dupuy-Bruno was hired and worked with her on a daily basis. She said it has been a challenging year with the pandemic and a lot of extra work has been placed on many staff members plates.

In terms of the board attorney job description and evaluation, Fischer said Dupuy-Bruno inherited it when she took the position. She said the board needs to have a conversation to make sure those are correlated and coordinated.

“There has been a lot of work that came onto the legal department and we had new people. There were obviously some glitches along the way and some misunderstandings,” Fischer said. “Ms. Bruno handled that in a very professional matter and very strong legally. I noted that she took it upon herself to get two interns to help with the workload and some of the research. She did a very good job regarding legislative platforms and making sure policies were up-to-date with legislative updates.”

There was also discussion around stakeholder performance.

Vaughn said the biggest opportunity focused on coordination with staff attorneys.

“There has not been good coordination or collaboration. Quite frankly, I don’t believe it rests on Bruno’s shoulders,” she said.

As someone new coming into the district, Vaughn said the current attorneys should offer guidance, help and answer questions. She asked if changing the way the legal department is set up would help.

“It’s not something we can do right now considering the fact that our staff chief counsel has announced his intent to resign,” Vaughn said, adding that a second staff counsel has also resigned. “It’s an issue and something we need to deal with our board attorney. It’s a much larger issue. I count on our board attorney to give us information and I think she does a good job on passing appropriate information to us. It’s not her fault when she is not informed. It’s an overarching issue that we need to deal with.”

Giovannelli told her fellow board members that Dupuy-Bruno came to them a little late in sharing there was a disconnect, as it is her responsibility to tell them where there are issues and problems.

“I realize her hands were tied, that was evident. (I will) not hold her completely responsible. We cannot have it surprise us at a board workshop and see how bad it was and it wasn’t even from her. She was actually very professional and I commend her for that,” she said.

With that said, Giovannelli said she wants to start settling things and heading them off before they become legal issues and matters, as it costs the district more money and costs the taxpayers more money.

Jordan said she likes Dupuy-Bruno’s philosophy to mediate and discuss rather than going into a court case. She said the board attorney likes to try and solve things at a school level first, so things do not balloon out of control.

Board member Gwyn Gittens said collaboration is also a major concern to her.

“If an employee says to you before you do the evaluation ‘I did not have the tools, or resources to do this,’ it is where I go back to objective and subjective,” she said. “To ding someone in these areas is unfair. We knew there was issues. I went ahead and gave a four. If you don’t have control over something, how can you be graded on it?”

Fischer said before the district hired Dupuy-Bruno, they were presented with a format for one legal department — a board attorney, staff attorney and assistant attorney, which is what they enjoyed in prior years. She said the legal department worked together, something necessary because there is overlapping.

“We have learned through experience. I am hoping we can use this opportunity to reevaluate the way our district legal team is fashioned to make sure we set everyone up for success and give tools they need to be successful,” Fischer said.

Jordan agreed that collectively the legal department needs to work together to make sure there is communication.

“We need to make sure we are all on the same page and all working together for that same purpose,” she said.

As far as professionalism, and legal performance, Jordan gave high praises.

Jordan said if there is something that Dupuy-Bruno does not know she contacts colleagues to get the answers. She said she is also working on her certification in education law, a certification that only 7 percent of attorneys hold.

“I am doing everything I can to get 50 hours to fulfill that requirement,” Dupuy-Bruno said. “I have done gigantic leaps in trying to get legal certification to qualify for the exam.”

Dupuy-Bruno said given the fact that she has five board members giving her an effective, or highly effective evaluation is a good accomplishment, especially under the conditions she started the position with.