GEORGETOWN – The Georgetown Education Assn. (GEA) is suing the town’s School Committee in superior court to stop the release of teachers’ personnel records to a private citizen.
The school committee, relying on an order from the Supervisor of Records, released the records, including professional development plans, to Kevin Wood, who had demanded them of more than a dozen teachers.
“The Professional Development Plans and related documents constitute information of a personal nature pertaining to particular employees that is useful in making employment decisions regarding employees,” the GEA law suit states.
Personal records are exempt from disclosure under state law, the suit states.
On June 7, 2023, the Supervisor of Records ordered the School Committee to release the records requested by Wood. That was followed in April of 2024 with another request from Wood to release the individual professional development plan and professional development points for one individual “to satisfy the statutory requirements for license renewal” and the comments about the employee from the supervisor.
In May this year, Wood requested documents on more teachers. Specifically, he requested one employee’s letter of appointment or contract and the employee’s mentoring program records.
He also requested individual professional development plans for 11 employees.
The lawsuit does not state why Wood wanted to have possession of the teachers’ professional development records. And a request for an interview with the teachers’ union was not returned.
Wood has filed numerous complaints against Georgetown government agencies, departments and boards, regarding violations to the Open Meetings Law, and has on multiple occasions exposed professional license lapses by members of the school department. The state has returned corrective guidance to the town boards on multiple occasions. Mr. Wood was asked to explain why he recently requested another batch of individual professional development plans for several Georgetown teachers, but instead his reply aggressively questioned past reporting on the issue and vehemently declined to comment at this time.
