Greenwich School Board Tie Vote Means Motion to Extend Super’s Contract through 2029 Fails

By: greenwichfreepress | 2 minutes ago

An action item at the end of Thursday’s school board meeting on extending the Superintendent’s contract ended in a tie vote, which meant the motion to extend failed.

Democrat Karen Hirsh made the motion to extend superintendent Dr. Toni Jones’s contract by an additional year, through 2028-29.

In 2025 the Board of Education approved a contract extension through June 30, 2028. The vote was 5-3 with four Democrats, plus Republican Jennifer Behette, voting in favor of the extension.

In 2023 and 2024, the board voted to extend the contract by one year, with Republicans favoring a one-year extension and Democrats seeking two-year extensions.

Last Thursday’s contract vote came at the end of a long meeting, on the heels of the board’s 5-3 vote in favor of a bell to bell cell phone ban at the Greenwich High School.

The superintendents contract currently runs two more years, 2026-2027 and 2027-2028.

The vote was a 4-4 tie, along party lines, with Republicans voting no and Democrats voting yes.

A tie vote on the BOE means the motion failed.

The vote came after a discussion highlighted by confusion. While the motion to extend was being discussed, BOE chair Dr. Michael-Joseph Mercanti-Anthony “suggested” a motion to table the contract extension item until the board’s first business meeting in September.

Mercanti-Anthony said his reasoning had nothing to do with Dr. Jones’s performance.

“My reason for tabling is because over the past 3-4 months we’ve been having conversations about developing a more robust and sustainable over the long term – regardless of who the superintendent is – evaluation system for the superintendent.”

He said per the superintendent’s contract, the board can only adjust the evaluation system in the beginning of the school year.

“I’m suggesting a motion to table. I didn’t make a motion to table, because I didn’t think I could. I’m happy to make a motion to table.”

“That’s actually how it works,” said BOE Republican member Paul Cappiali.

Ms Hirsh said Jones’s contract stipulates once she makes the request for an extension, it needs to be discussed within three months.

“I think where we are here, is I have made a motion to table,” Mercanti-Anthony said.

Mr. Cappiali seconded the motion.

There was confusion because a motion had already been made to extend the contract.

Communications Specialist Michael Antonaccio explained the initial motion to extend the contract would have to be withdrawn in order to make the motion to table until September.

The board continued to discuss the original motion to extend the contract.

“I agree with Mike,” said Republican Karen Krause. “The existing contract already covers next school year and the year after that, which is a significant amount of time. We did very recently receive the GEA survey results,” she said, referring to a teacher union survey of morale that had 600+ respondents. She said she personally received many calls and the board received many emails on the topic.

As for Krause’s reference to the GEA survey results, earlier in the meeting, Greenwich Education Association president Margaret Jackins talked about the unions teacher survey about morale.

“The results showed that 90.8% of respondents reported a decline in morale during their time in Greenwich Public Schools, with district level leadership identified as the primary contributing factor,” Jackins said.

“Our teachers live in fear of retaliation if they express an opposing opinion. They fear for their safety, having been assaulted by students in the classroom, taunted on their private telephone numbers, or had racist comments made in the classroom.”

“Imagine what it’s like to have your attendance challenged when you lost both parents in one school year,” she continued. “Where’s the compassion. Where is the empathy. Leadership is not measured by test scores and budgets.”

But Ms Jackins was also critical of the school board.

“When we engaged in contract negotiations with the Board of Education last summer, both parties expressed a commitment to meeting and working together to resolve concerns around around teacher morale. We’re still waiting for this to happen. To date the full BOE has not met with the full executive board of GEA to discuss any issues.”

As for teacher morale, previous GEA president Lil Perrone has repeatedly testified before the school board regarding teacher morale, emphasizing that budget cuts, increased responsibilities, and unfunded state mandates were driving professionals out of the district.

Ms Krause said she had made recommendations for improvements to the superintendent review process, which she characterized as “deficient.”

“I’ve faced some resistance so far from some of my colleagues in proposing improvements that I bring in from the corporate world. And I think we need some more time to discuss the relative merits of those,” Krause said.

Karen Hirsh disagreed.

“I’m the longest seated member on this board. I’ve been here for seven years and I’ve sat through seven years of reviews on Dr. Jones. Each one of those has been top-heavy with praise and support for the work that she has done,” she said.

Hirsh recalled that in each review of the superintendent, the board shared areas of weakness or concerns.

“And each and every time, (Jones) has taken those notes and worked to make improvements,” Hirsh said. “She’s achieved almost every single goal that has been set every year. She’s met every single goal in the current strategic plan. She’s worked to make much needed improvements in special education, and ensuring that our curriculum is consistent horizontally and vertically. These are major changes and things our district has asked for for years. She’s focused on visible and achievable actions. It’s the first strategic plan we’ve had, ever, that has time-sensitive and data-driven goals, and she has met every single one of those. You can’t change a school’s culture overnight.”

Hirsh noted the district had experienced the greatest academic gain since Connecticut implemented its current accountability system, earning earned the highest number of schools of distinction in its history. Also, she noted all three Title 1 elementary schools have received recognition, and New Lebanon School was recently named a 2026 National Blue Ribbon School.

Dr. Mercanti-Anthony said his argument had nothing to do with Dr. Jones’s performance.

“I’m telling you why I made the motion to support the contract extension,” Hirsh said. “And yes, we have two years, but we don’t do things differently than the rest of Connecticut, and it’s always a three-year contract, and most districts add an extra year every year.”

“When you have something that is working, especially when you’re meeting all the needs and goals of your strategic plan …To me, it’s a no-brainer,” Hirsh added.

Democratic school board member Sophie Koven said it was highly unusual to push the contract renewal to September.

“It is typical that the superintendent always gives us notice that she would like to have a contract extension and we always would vote on it, and usually it’s in May or June,” she said. “And frankly it looks like a lack of leadership to me, and waffling to do something like that.”

“I don’t think it’s waffling. Nor do I think that it’s good governance,” Mercanti-Anthony said. “We have this system that we’ve fallen into what I think is a bad system where every year we add a year. I don’t think that’s appropriate.”

“I did not want this on the agenda because I did not want this misinterpreted around the superintendent’s performance,” he continued.

“I think the norm in Connecticut is wrong,” Mecanti-Anthony added. “This is four months into seating of four new board members with an incredibly deficient – and been deficient for seven years – evaluation system for the superintendent.”

“We had a lot of conversations with the new board around restructuring, but because of contractual obligations and restrictions, we can’t change that until September. I think it’s entirely appropriate and should not be interpreted by anyone in the community, including the GEA, that this is a vote of misconfidence in the superintendent.”

Ms Koven disagreed.

“I don’t understand what we’re pushing off until September. We’re pushing off a vote on an extension of he contract, but in September we would be doing a new evaluation process, in collaboration with Dr. Jones. I’m perfectly happy to have that discussion over the summer. It doesn’t even make sense that were pushing off a vote, and simultaneously we’re asking her to establish new goals next year and create a new evaluation process. Everything is going to be overlapping in a very awkward way.”

Paul agreed with Ms Krause. “I think Karen said it earlier, and more eloquently than me, that we had some resistance as is related to developing those metrics …I’m hearing you say that we can do those things in September. …Karen feels that there was resistance to that, and you’re suggesting there won’t be resistance. So I think that leaves me questioning myself, is there going to be resistance, or is there not going to be resistance?”

“Things are really good,” Cappiali said. “But I’m stuck on wanting to develop a process that’s going to go on in perpetuity, and is better than the one we have right now.”

“I don’t know where you felt the resistance, but we already gave Dr. Jones her review this year,” Hirsh said. “So waiting until September to start looking at a new review process isn’t going to change the review that we gave this year.”

“It’s a new process,” Mercanti-Anthony said.

“Yes, but that review would take place at the end of next school year,” Hirsh said.

“There’s no difference between now and the start of next school year in September. And the contract states, ‘At the end of the first year of that contract, which it would be prior to the end of the first year, the board of education at the request of the superintendent may vote for a new agreement.’ She made the request.”

And so despite a glowing review of Dr. Jones, the board voted against extending her contract through the 2028-2029 school year following a party-line tie vote.

Votes on the school board require a majority to pass.

The no votes were the Republicans: Wendy Vizzo-Walsh, Karen Krause, Michael Joseph Mercanti-Anthony.

The yes votes were Democrats Sophie Koven, Karen Hirsh, Bob Chaney and Sophie Koven.

After the vote, Dr. Jones recommended adding another retreat this summer for the board to give her direction about what to focus on.

She said she constructs the following year’s budget over the summer and needed to know the board’s goals and priorities.

Jones reminded the board that when she was hired in 2019, she was the 14th superintendent in 20 years.

“We had a strategic plan and virtually nothing was done in five years. Along with that I had very clear direction from the board, and I have for several years about work that needed to be done. I am a little unclear because I will tell you – I really value the health of the building and our building surveys at the end of the year means a lot to me. Because, are they happy coming to work? But what I need to know is – you talk about things like personal days …We either implement it as the contract is written, or we just say we’re going to approve them all. And I can tell you that’s something that upsets people. But I think the board needs to have a conversation about some of the changes we’ve made to actually tighten up.

She recalled when she started in 2019 there were large groups of parents speaking at school board meetings about dissatisfaction with special education, but teachers were not complaining.

“It now has switched where some of our teachers are frustrated,” she said, adding that if the board wanted to change staffing ratios, she would need that direction now.

“We’re building the budget right now. The finance budget committee has already seen the first iteration. If we’re going to add a lot more staff, we’re going to address some of those things that are frustrating to teachers. I know what some of them are. Our teachers would like to have a four-day week and have one day off where they get to do all the paperwork. We don’t do that any more. We struggle to do that. Maybe the board’s going to tell me, go add 15 staff in the budget, and let’s tackle some of these issues in a different way. I really need direction, because I don’t know how some of these issues get fixed unless we make some big changes.”

Before a motion to dismiss, Mercanti-Anthony said, “That’s an open question whether or not we can have one meeting in a retreat in late June that has that, as well as the pool and maybe something around litigation, in an executive session.”