Feedback to the Mt. Tam Board

I tried to access the webpage listing the current Board of Trustees. It appears the page has been removed. Anyone else have any insight?

Please excuse my mistake, Mitch Cantor not Cohen.

Out of this sad and unfortunate situation is an opportunity. Starting with rewriting the By-Laws, MTS can build a strong foundation based on best practice. Pair that with the new Head and a real commitment to complete transparency, will allow the community to come together and move forward. The Board took a path which did not give the community the information they required to make their decision about the school and whether or not to sign a contract for the 2016-2017 school year. I favor change that leads to best practice in transparent governance and doing what is right as well as what is legal. I thought Steve Hibbard and Stacey Boyd distinguished themselves in their questions and comments Thursday. Further, in the comments here, Mitch Cohen highlights the same need/opportunity. The Board should reach out to three of them immediately and if willing they would be great choices to work with the Board appointed member who we were told is currently rewriting the By-Laws. This would allow the existing Board to pair with a part of the community who have raised very valid concerns. I appreciate the countless hours many of the Board have given the school. While they were dealt a bad hand, they had a choice when they were asked to serve on a Board that was founded and governed by a very poor foundation.

I agree to sign this petition

The entire current board needs to resign, if none other than to avoid further investigation, culpability and possible arrest. There will be no trust in a board that had a party to any of this information and chose not to reveal it to the Mt. Tam community. Mt. Tam is exclusive and very expensive. You cannot expect any parent to be satisfied with anything other than an entirely new board and a well-written, imbued system of checks and balances. The culprit being Kate also ruins the history and dignity of this school. Where are these misplaced and misused funds? Have they been recovered? If so, how will the funds be applied to satisfy the community? If they are gone, how will the culprit be dealt with? There needs to be full disclosure on all accounts if the school wishes to begin to rebuild any sort of trust from their students' families.

I wholeheartedly support the idea of restructuring the board, something that can be achieved through a variety of paths. I am personally uncomfortable with the fact that this board was hand picked by Kate Mecca and strongly believe that we need to change things up, both to symbolically show that the school is moving forward away from the Kate Mecca era, but also to be certain that changes like more transparency and more dialogue with the community actually occur in the near term. Of course, a board that is trusted by the community will be better equipped to help Andrew Davis successfully transition into the school.

It's unforgivable what has happened here. Outrageous and unacceptable. Extremely disappointing! The only just solution is to have at least 50% of the board step immediately. We must have change. Without change we support all the wrong that has happened!

This is an exceptional situation, asking for a total board replacement. I have 20 years in recruitment, executive search, and succession planning through strategic hiring. My $.02 is as follows if we vote to replace board members or replace an entire board of directors while a new Head of Schools is incoming, we treat this like an executive search. Andrew interviews the entire existing board as if they are interviewing for their job Andrew selects board members he see’s fit for the job, or none at all We look at best practices in a non-profit/ school board and recruit a balanced board in to place from our community Clearly this board should have CPA, Attorney, Finance professionals on it as well as Communications professionals. Easier in theory, harder in execution. It may also make sense to have the outside Auditor’s (do we have those) interview candidates as well. Its not out of the question, but simple background checks could be run. This one may take heat, but we are not in a position waiver. I respectfully ask that if you agree or disagree with me, please message me privately so as not to take this suggestion and turn it in to a email chain that gets debated, diluted, and turns many of us against each other as we work to solve a very difficult issue as a class. My hope is this message gets thought and consideration as part of the whole situation and used to turn this in to a positive outcome. Respectfully, Coleman Brinckerhoff

Totally agree.

I agree – especially since I heard one board-member is pulling their child out of school and was interviewing at other schools this winter – months before any of us were informed of the situation. They had an unfair advantage when applying to other schools because they had advance notice. The announcement was made too late for any of the fifth-grade class to get into another private school for sixth grade.

One of the major problems of Kate's administration was a lack of transparency. That continues to be a problem. While I agree with much of the sentiment in Stacey's letter, it does not go far enough. The bylaws of the school are being rewritten. They should not be rewritten by members of the current board. I would propose a committee outside the current board study the best practices in the industry. The bylaws would include the nomination and election practices that best assure the long run robust health of the school. Once agreed upon by the bylaw committee (which might have representation from current parents, donors, head of school and faculty- but members should be debated), the proposal ought to be put to review by all of the schools important constituents. This may require some rework until an ideal proposal has been hammered out. The role of the current board, regardless of resignations, should be to support this transition and to run the school in the interim as they have recently with the best interests of the school in mind. Once the board has adopted a new set of bylaws which was not written by them- but should include their insights and knowledge, all current board members will resign on schedule. I am sure this will seem unfair to some current members of the board who have worked only to help with the problems. However, the current board has chosen to be judged as a unanimous group, speaking as one while failing to provide basic oversight. The only clean outcome for the community will be for no member of the board to remain after a scheduled service period has elapsed. Mitch Cantor (4th and 5th grade parent)

The entire board needs to be dismissed. The board continues to operate with a lack of transparency. All Kate appointed board members were complicit in this crime. All newly appointed board members were appointed by Kate's board members. To move on, they all must go.