School Chief Spies on Committee E-mail

Two members of the Cambridge School superintendent’s staff secretly accessed e-mails sent to the Cambridge Public School Committee, a group that oversees the superintendent, committee members disclosed on Friday.

The incident adds fuel to an already contentious debate over the school leader’s contract.

Superintendent Thomas D. Fowler-Finn issued a statement yesterday assuming responsibility for giving the two staff members access to e-mails from parents and citizens, and for failing to inform or solicit advice from the school committee.

“I gave approval to the suggestion to add the names of two administrative staff to the recipients, and I take full responsibility for this circumstance,” he said.

The suggestion to have the administration access the school committee’s e-mails, according to Fowler-Finn, came from former committee member Nancy Walser, who was serving at the time.

Walser said she felt it was necessary for the administration to view public concerns over the “day-to-day operations” of the district, such as the snow storm issues at the time. “School committees are effective when they work with the superintendent as a team,” she said. “He might not know about these problems if he doesn’t see these e-mails.”

But Fowler-Finn did not immediately inform the school committee and the public of the administrative members added to the e-mail list. Walser said “there is no way [the committee] could not have been aware of it,” since the e-mails added to the list were apparently visible in the e-mail heading.

Legally, citizen e-mails to the school committee can be a public record and are subject to public records disclosure, according to the state’s Public Records Law.

In its statement, the school committee expressed “disappointment” over the administration’s actions and believes it “may have violated the public trust.”

The committee has also “taken steps to ensure that the administration no longer has access to the school committee’s group e-mail.”

Walser said that it is “truly false” that communications with the school committee should always remain private, and said the current committee is “misleading the public” by such statements.

Some members of the public were riled by administrative actions.

“The behavior shows a complete and utter lapse of professional standards,” said Elizabeth H. Dionne, a parent of four children in the district. “He should have accessed them in an above-board and honest fashion.”

Dionne said she sent e-mails that she thought were only read by the school committee during the time of secret administrative access, and had encouraged other parents to write e-mails as well.

“I did so with the explicit understanding that these were confidential e-mails that [Fowler-Finn] would not see,” she said. “The breach of trust won’t deter me, but I know it will deter others.”

Fowler-Finn, who received a contract extension in January by a 4-3 committee vote, has been at the center of debate among parents and committee members regarding the effectiveness of his administration and the length and nature of his pending contract.

“Anyone else would have been fired by now,” said Dionne. “His performance is substandard.”

Walser, supporting the superintendent, has in the past called it “foolhardy” not to continue Fowler-Finn’s contract. “A few members want him to leave,” said Walser. “The timing of this is curious.”

Members of the public called for further explanation of what happened from the school committee. School committee member Marc McGovern said that his committee was holding off on further comment until its executive session today.

Fowler-Finn said he plans to inform those who e-mailed the school committee between December 19 and January 15, when the e-mails were accessed by his administration.

—Staff writer Vidya B. Viswanathan can be reached at viswanat@fas.harvard.edu.