With a secret decision, Custer School Board gave Superintendent an ultimatum, but it backfired when an angry, tearful crowd challenged them

In what threatens to become an annual February event, the Custer County School Board convened an emergency meeting on Thursday night with an agenda that was clearly geared towards firing newly hired Superintendent Thom Peck. In response to the unexpected meeting, a crowd of over 100 students, teachers, parents, and community members clashed with the Board in tear-filled and often angry pleas to not fire the popular Superintendent. After one and a half hours of public comments, the Board relented and stated that it would not hold a vote on the issue that night.

During the barrage of comments in support of Superintendent Peck, the Board rarely responded, claiming that they were protecting the employee rights of the Superintendent by withholding the reason they wanted to terminate his contract. While the Board did not publicly discuss the topic, it appeared that all five members were united in their decision to try and fire the school leader.

This repeats what took place in February 2024 when the School Board suddenly turned sour on the employment of Superintendent Jackie Crabtree without giving a reason, and she resigned before they had the opportunity to fire her. After a search in the early spring of 2024, Current Superintendent Thomas Peck was hired out of three finalists for the Superintendent position.

Surprise emergency meeting

The school board surprised staff and parents alike when they posted an agenda on the front door of the School Administration building in a remote part of the school campus around 7 p.m. on Wednesday evening. The agenda was not spotted until early the following day, and staff learned that a special emergency meeting would take place at 7:15 p.m. Colorado law states that meetings must be posted at least 24 hours before they are held. The agenda was short and stated in the action items, “A: Superintendent Employment. B: Interim or Acting Superintendent.” This agenda and the way the meeting was quietly announced by the Board immediately rippled through the school and local community as people were shocked that the well-liked Superintendent was likely going to be fired Thursday night.

On Tuesday, before the emergency meeting was announced, the Board of Education went into an executive session (a meeting that is not open to the public) at the end of the regular board meeting that was listed on the agenda as, “The Board will vote to convene in executive session pursuant to C.R.S. 24-6-402(4)(f)(I)  to consider a personnel matter, specifically to conduct the superintendent’s performance  review.” Performance reviews are common this time of year. When the Board exited the executive session, there was no indication that the review had gone badly.

After several dozen public comments during the strained Thursday evening meeting, Board President Reggie Foster responded to the crowd, “The Board’s responsibility has always been, and will continue to be, the education and the well-being of our students. I wrote the agenda in a specific way today because I did not know what was going to transpire today. We got feedback from all over the place. And we have really hard decisions to make and we need the information. And we pride ourselves on taking all the information before we make a decision. And we are the only ones with all the information.”

Making decisions behind closed doors

What was striking was the statements that Foster made next and all but admitted that the Board had come to a unanimous decision in secret about Peck. Foster stated in the emergency meeting, “We did, as I mentioned, tried to work through a plan with Mr. Peck, and he was not amenable to that. We also gave him the option to contact us by this afternoon and he did not do that.” This shows that the Board repeatedly communicated with the Peck about the secret list of demands they had for the Superintendent.

Colorado Open Meetings Law clearly states that decisions such as overhauling a Superintendent’s contract must be discussed during public open meetings. No such meeting has taken place, which indicates that the Board had decided to fire Superintendent Peck behind closed doors. Colorado Judges have ruled that such meetings by school boards are illegal. One such instance in Douglas County in 2023 cost that school district over $100,000 in open meeting violations and $850,000 in a wrongful termination settlement.

In Colorado, it is a simple process to fire a public employee as the state has “at-will” rules on employment. Peck’s contract states that the Board can fire him for any reason. However, when a board fires an employee, they must list the action by the Board as an executive session “regarding a personnel issue” and give the employee the opportunity to make the meeting public if they choose. The lack of information from the Board repeatedly exacerbated the Thursday night crowd. On occasion, the Board would claim that the public had wrong information, but the room responded that the problem was not misinformation but rather no meaningful information from the Board at all.

It was apparent that the Board was attempting to “have their cake and eat it too,” as the old saying goes. They wanted to terminate Peck’s contract but denied him the ability to make their reasoning public for fear of retaliation. In addition, the Board lied on more than one occasion, stating that Peck had breached his employment contract by discussing the demands of the Board with staff members. Executive sessions and secret email demands do not constitute and force a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) on an employee. The cost of terminating Peck’s contract is expensive. Peck is entitled to at least half of his $123,000 salary if terminated before the contract ends this summer if the Board fired him now. In addition to that cost, tens of thousands more would have to be spent recruiting the sixth Superintendent in the past eight years.

Shouts for recall

Most School Board meetings are sparsely attended events with little public interest in the workings of the school administration. However, the Board was clearly rattled that their attempt at a quick meeting to fire Peck had turned into a large gathering of staff, students, parents, and even County Commissioner Paul Vogelsong, calling into question the hastyness of the Board over such a serious matter. Throughout the meeting, the public continued to state that the firing of Peck would lead to a recall against the entire Board for their lack of transparency and seemingly callousness to the wishes of the gathered crowd for a meaningful explanation of why Peck might be fired.

The Board is made up of only two elected members from the 2022 election. The other three members have been appointed because of the resignations of previous board members. There is very little experience on the current Board, and none of the members of the last eight years remain, leaving a noticeable gap in knowledge of the state laws governing School Boards.

Conclusion

While Board President Foster decided not to continue the meeting, she left the crowd with a threat that if Peck  plus the Board could not come to an understanding, “we may end back up in the same place.” However, it was clear she did not intend to make such a meeting public, leaving the crowd at a loss for the next steps.

The Tribune will continue to update this story and publish additional information as events to the standoff between staff, teachers, and members of the public against the Board continue.

– Jordan Hedberg