To the taxpayers of RSU 13:

About half of our school board wants to hire Lew Collins as our interim superintendent. Yes, the one who quit his job. By state law, we need to have an interim superintendent in place when he leaves on February 15th. The school board chairwoman, Tess Kilgour, has not even advertised the position yet. She's known about the resignation since early December. We believe this is so the rest of the school board will feel pressured to vote for Lew Collins since there won't be any other choice. They are going to be voting on this at the next board meeting, 6pm on Tuesday, February 11th, at McLain School. Please share your opinion with your local school board representative, and show up at the board meeting.

We think most of us have felt outrage at the resignation and $100,000. severance package of Lew Collins, superintendent of RSU 13. Currently, the district is careening towards total destruction. Mr. Collins and Tess Kilgour, the school board chair, have done much to foment dissension among the citizens of RSU 13. Ms. Kilgour is heading a petition for Rockland to leave the school district. When the cost of that move is determined, I think it will be apparent what a colossal waste of time it is. Somehow, about half the board feels that Lew Collins is leaving because the other half of the board and administrators have 'forced' him out. Make no mistake: Lew Collins has quit his job. There is no way to make him leave before his contract is up in June. We think it is more likely that Mr. Collins realized that the board was not going to renew his contract, so he resigned because that looks better for him on his resume. The money was given on the advice of our attorney.

In our opinion, the problem isn't that the full school board has not supported Mr. Collins. The problem is that Mr. Collins has not supported the parents, administrators, teachers and taxpayers of this district.

He publicly said that the main problem at South School was parents not getting their kids to school. The only point we can see to making such information public is to demean the parents. If some parents aren't getting their kids to school, find out why and help them. Then he cut a teacher at South School, even though the school has the largest class sizes and worst test scores in our district. By cutting a teacher, he made the class sizes even larger. Mr. Collins acknowledged the low income level in the district, but then he started the elementary schools at 9:00 am, creating a child care crisis for the same low income parents.

Similarly, Mr. Collins put our business manager, Scott Vaitones, on administrative leave without following proper procedure. It is likely that Mr. Vaitones has good grounds for suing the district, no matter how his costly 'hearing' turns out. Mr. Collins is trying to lay blame for all of our financial problems at the feet of Mr. Vaitones, who has a stellar reputation as a business manager. SAD 40 was very sorry to see him go when he came to our district. We would like to remind RSU 13 citizens that a business manager counts the money. He is not in charge of spending it. In fact, that duty belongs to our superintendent, Lew Collins. In his first year at RSU 13, he put the Special Ed director on paid leave. So there is a history of him having us pay people to not do their jobs. The new Special Ed director is being paid around $20,000. year more than the previous one.

Furthermore, Mr. Collins accused our teachers of abusing their sick days. According to statistics by the Seacoast Education Association, our teachers use less than half the sick days allotted to them. Why was this even put out to the public? If there are individuals who are abusing sick days, then it should be dealt with on an individual basis. This accusation shows a lack of respect and support for our teachers as a group.

In the 2013-2014 budget, Mr. Collins cut three excellent teachers from Oceanside High School. He kept the cut even after the public came out strongly in favor of keeping the teachers. Mr. Collins said that we couldn't afford those teachers; in fact, he said we needed to close schools to save money. The next day, he stated that we needed an addition to Oceanside East so that the 9th Graders at Oceanside West could join the school. The proposed addition would cost $5-7 million.

At a very recent Policy Committee meeting, Mr. Collins complained about administrators talking directly to school board members. They are supposed to talk to him only and then he alone speaks to the school board. Unbelievably, school board members are not supposed to talk to teachers or the public, either. This is our policy and it needs to be changed immediately.

Hiring an interim superintendent could be a positive turning point for our district. We could get someone who is skilled at communication, mediation and negotiation. That person is not Lew Collins. We urge the school board to choose wisely when they vote on this matter.

We know many people are frustrated and think everyone on the school board and administration should leave. But if some school board members and administrators hadn't spoken out, the public would be even more in the dark about what is going on in our public school system.

In closing, we would like to thank our administrators and teachers for keeping the chaos created by Lew Collins out of the classroom, and continuing to do your jobs in a positive manner.

Do you think Lew Collins should be rehired or have the date of his resignation changed? Please let your voice be heard. We hope to see a lot of people at the next school board meeting. This letter has been turned into a petition online and has about 155 signatures. View it here:
https://www.change.org/petitions/tess-kilgour-chair-please-do-not-rehire-lew-collins.

Sincerely,

Cynthia McGuirl, Thomaston
Noreen Mullaney, Thomaston
Dena Davis, Thomaston
Rayden Emery, Rockland
Matthew & Torey Whitman, Thomaston