Superintendent Paul Kadri Defends Himself, Says He’s Hurt

The lawyer for Superintendent Paul Kadri expects to receive a letter today from the lawyer for the Groton Board of Education saying it’s considering terminating Kadri’s contract.

The . Kadri has 20 days from the date of the letter to request a hearing. Kadri was placed on paid administrative leave in May, pending the outcome of

Gregg Adler, Kadri’s lawyer, asked on Kadri’s behalf to read a statement to the school board Thursday, but the meeting had already adjourned and the board did not reconvene.

The full text of Kadri's statement is below:

Dear Groton Board of Education:

What in the world are you doing to me? As a Board of Education you have two primary responsibilities: to establish board policies and to hire and supervise a superintendent. In other words, you manage one person, me, and rather than managing and being respectful to me, I can’t imagine being judged more hastily and being hurt more deeply.

Since being blindsided by a vague accusation that I knew was false on May 4, 2012, you have done the following to me:

• You reacted to secondhand and unverified information to place me on administrative leave and completely isolated me.

• You refused to take the completed data I had on redistricting and you cared less about the financial information I had that was urgent to act on.

• Although I have delivered to you outstanding student achievement and flat budgets you saw this as an opportunity to dismantle several of the intiatives that brought that success.

• You assumed I was guilty by refusing to initially confirm the allegations.

• When you realized the first allegation was false in less than a week, you continued to look for reasons to fire me or entrap me.

• You intiated a biased investigation process that dragged on beyond any reasonable period of time.

• Finally, but far from lastly, you refused to meet with me on three occasions to discuss a path to work out a solution that would be in the best interest for the district. Unless your focus was on politics and what will make you look best in the public eye, I can’t imagine what it would have been.

We all desire to be child centered in our actions. Before one can do that, one needs to have grounding in common sense and common decency. I know that many of you for whatever reason, wanted to believe that the accusations were true, however, if you used any part of common sense and common decency you would have realized quickly that several things did not make sense. Because you chose to move blindly and with little compassion for all, you have thrown this district, which was only months before operating at peak levels, into a regressed state.

I want to state this clearly. I have been falsely accused and the process you have laid out kept the facts from surfacing. Again, I am trying to understand your motive for not wanting to receive the facts. I had a lot of respect for many of you on this board. You always wanted to do what was right. In this case, however, you are doing the opposite. Perhaps you have been receiving biased information, but how can you endorse what was done to me?

You completely isolated me. You tried to entrap me. You leaked information that caused permanent damage. You never called me to see how I was despite the Board President promising that she would. I could not have giving you more effort, more loyalty, more honesty, and more results. You could not have treated me worse over the past few months.

For the past 3+ years I have delivered to the Board of Education decisions that have had vision and produced real results. I was able to achieve success despite significant barriers, some of which were created by the Board itself. Two years ago I told you that that your focus on being pleased and wanting everyone happy was causing mediocrity in the district. Staff members were not focused on things that were actually producing results but on things that looked like they were producing results.

I would argue that it is still true that the squeaky wheel, the political force, and those that can mask with a smile or complain loudly will get your attention. The district can never be great that way. You have now on your hands a situation where some workers in the district have made accusations and I am raising the concern of fairness and equity. Don’t you believe that the person who followed all your rules deserved to be treated fairly? Why does one have to be a squeaky wheel to be heard?

Thank you for your time.