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At Thursday’s school board meeting, the Winona parents tried to get their voices heard, as Tim Hatfield read part of a prepared speech during a public comment period. Much of what they wanted to say was left unsaid, however, as the speech was cut short by board chairman Brian Neil after an allotted five minutes.
“Five minutes is what people get, to keep it fair to everyone,” Neil said. “Until the board decides to change the policy, that is my job.”
The Hatfields wished to respond to what they say are demeaning comments made toward them by Durand in the wake of a teachers survey conducted in 2006. It’s an issue that’s ping-ponged between the Hatfields, the union, the board and the superintendent over the past two years.
“We feel we’ve been pretty abused by this process,” said Susan Hatfield. “People have made all these statements, but nobody is backing them up”
In 2006, the Hatfields analyzed data of an evaluation survey on Durand’s performance created by the teachers union. The results of the survey were largely critical of the superintendent. Several school board members questioned the reliability and validity of the results, and accusations of plagiarism were raised.
Last month, the teachers union cast a no-confidence vote on Durand. Along with the vote result, the union sent the school board a list of concerns, including statements saying Durand was “misrepresenting and demeaning Dr. Tim Hatfield and Dr. Susan Hatfield for analyzing the results.”
In response to the union vote, Durand wrote a guest column in the Winona Daily News in which he cited “biased surveying” as something he’d faced in his tenure. The Hatfields say the comment was a shot at them.
“To our knowledge, this is the first time that Mr. Durand has publicly addressed the survey itself,” the Hatfields wrote in the prepared statement they were not allowed to finish reading at this week’s board meeting. “But like others, he provided no evidence to back up that claim.”
The Hatfields also referenced a response to the teachers union that was sent to local media by Patricia Maloney, the district’s lawyer. The response, written by Maloney and crafted by Durand with input by other administrators, was sent by e-mail along with several other documents, including a board resolution supporting Durand. The response was not a board statement, according to several board members, though they said many of the subjects included were discussed at the meeting.
The letter responded to the claims by the union that the Hatfields were demeaned and expressed bafflement at that assertion.
“If, perhaps, they were uncomfortable by the scrutiny given by the methods used on the survey, we do sympathize,” the statement read. “Intense public scrutiny can be very difficult.”
Durand said that he was not interested on revisiting things that happened in the past.
“That’s ancient history,” he said, “I’m going to focus on the positive and moving the district forward.”
The Hatfields — who are professors at Winona State University but analyzed the survey as parents, not academics — indicate their reputations have been smeared.
“Part of it is to clear our name,” Susan Hatfield said.
“We would rather not be fighting brush fires, but this stuff keeps coming up,” her husband said. “To not do something would be tantamount to caving, and I’m not going to cave.”
