Stoughton School Committee Votes to Censure Member Erdem Ural

Accused of exceeding authority and insulting staff and opening the School Committee to legal liability; creating dysfunction within the School Committee and wasting taxpayer money; and submitting a rogue evaluation of the Superintendent, the Stoughton School Committee voted at a special meeting Thursday night to censure member Dr. Erdem Ural. 

The 3-1 decision, with Dr. Ural casting the lone dissenting vote, came after 57 minutes of contentious back and forth discussion between Dr. Ural and the other members. 

Dr. Ural, who questioned the legality of the censure proceedings itself, maintained he is doing the job Stoughton voters elected him to do - seeking "transparency, accountability and honesty from the school administration." Multiple times he referenced his first amendment rights to be a dissenting voice on the Committee.

But the other members said his actions went beyond just being a dissenting voice.

"Please understand that as someone with a long history of speaking truth to power I deeply appreciate differences of opinion and value them, but that is not what this is about," School Committee Chair Deborah Sovinee said. 

Sovinee, Vice Chair Joyce Husseini and George Dolinsky all voted in favor of the censure, which is a public condemnation. The fifth member of the Committee, Tom Colburn, informed the other members that he had an unexpected business travel delay and would not arrive back in Boston until 7:30 p.m. on Thursday (the meeting started at 7 p.m.), but he did email a statement, read by Husseini, in support of the censure. 

"Dr. Ural is a rogue member of the School Committee who continues to do great damage to his own board, the staff and the students of Stoughton, but much worse, he has damaged a School District that has much to be proud of, denigrating the efforts of everyone involved, most especially the students," Sovinee read from a document at Thursday's meeting which supported the case for censure.  

"He has exceeded his School Committee authority and responsibilities," Sovinee continued. "He tramples on the work and ideas of his board and has damaged the reputations of other board members and staff through personal smears and allegations. He has placed his own interests above the good of the School District. He has violated codes of conduct as laid out by the Massachusetts Association of School Committees – which oversees School Committee training by State Law."

Dr. Ural was first elected to the School Committee in 2008, and served a single term, defeated in a bid for reelection in 2011. However, he ran again in 2012 and won back a seat on the Committee, defeating longtime member Allan Mills. Ural is near the end of the first year in this current three-year term.

The censure does not remove Dr. Ural from office, but rather is a way for the other members of the Committee to denounce his actions.

Censuring Dr. Ural is not a way to censor him, they said, but a way to distance themselves publicly from his statements. 

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The Case for Censure

Sovinee began the meeting laying out the case for censuring Dr. Ural. 

Dr. Ural "has continuously overstepped his role as a School Committee member, exceeding his authority by involving himself in personnel discipline, and [has] been threatening and coercive to fellow board members and staff," Sovinee said. 

An email [which can be found here] Dr. Ural sent to Superintendent of Schools Dr. Marguerite Rizzi, along with the administrative principals in the district "calling one of the principals a liar," was the "the final straw for the Chair asking for this action," Sovinee said. 

She continued:

The email went to the principals with no permission granted by the Superintendent, the Chair, or the Committee to contact them in this manner. He has no right to caution them, berate a colleague to them, or instruct them in this way.

The subject of this communication was a toy gun that was brought to the school in a backpack. It was determined to be a toy by the police and this information was relayed to the school principal. The principal acted in concert with the police, and relied upon information provided. Dr. Ural took it upon himself to publicly reprimand this principal and make untrue statements about the incident, which were inflammatory, to frighten parents. He then followed up by sending the email out to parents at the West School and reading his letter publicly on TV. He contacted neither the School Committee Chair nor Superintendent before taking this action.

Dr. Ural is accused of costing the town nearly $20,000 in fees for "continuous legal complaints and threats," many of which are open meeting law complaints. He contests this claim. "While it is true that I have brought complaints against the school committee, it is because this school committee regularly, as they are also doing here today, violates Massachusetts and Federal Law," Dr. Ural said. 

He is also criticized for inappropriate behavior during contract negotiations with the teacher's union for giving away School Committee strategy - and was removed from the bargaining team as a result. Sovinee criticized Dr. Ural's website, 02072.org, which contains many school related documents and email correspondence, for only containing "negative critical statements about the Stoughton School System." 

Dr. Ural’s evaluation of Dr. Rizzi, "veers into character assassination of the Superintendent," Sovinee said. 

"I have delayed for months laying out to the School Committee and the public the full picture of how increasingly difficult Dr. Erdem Ural’s behavior has become, how he has damaged the reputations of many fine people both on the School Committee, School Administration and staff, and how worst of all he has damaged the reputation of our town’s greatest asset, it’s school system," Sovinee said. 

"The most critical responsibility of a School Committee is to safeguard the public’s trust in public education. Through myriad actions which I have laid out, Dr. Ural has undermined that trust, damaged the school district’s reputation, the trust in the school committee and administration, and the reputation of our town."

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A Dissenting Voice

"During my tenure, I always tried to make sure that administration conforms to the law, and is also sensitive to the hardworking taxpayers of Stoughton," Dr. Ural said.

"I take pride in thinking independently from other school committee members. I wish my fellow school committee members took their responsibilities more seriously and have the school committee harness the administration better. Instead, they appear more interested in silencing the lone dissenting voice within the committee."

He added, "Maybe if they were all more honest about the performance of the administration, I would be the cheerleader here. You should commend me, not censure me."

Dr. Ural said he is pro-schools, although acknowledged he is "more critical of the administration" than other members. He said he ran for this position to help improve education quality, improve fiscal responsibility and to improve system efficiency. 

"If you find it objectionable the fact that I fully support the U.S. Constitution, then go ahead and censure me," he said. "If you find it objectionable the fact that I fully support the Massachusetts General Laws, then go ahead censure me. If you find it objectionable the fact that that I demand better student achievement, then go ahead and censure me. If you find it objectionable the fact that that I demand transparency, accountability and honesty from the school administration, then go ahead and censure me."

Dr. Ural said he was being "punished for advocating student achievement and holding this administration accountable." 

"It is true, I have frequently spoken out against the deficiencies in the Stoughton Public Schools, and I will continue to do so until those deficiencies are remedied," he continued.  

"Again, to punish me for speaking out against administration’s incompetence, underachievement, misconducts and lack of transparency is a gross violation of my right to free speech - one of the most important constitutional protections afforded to the people of this country."

He said he will not be silenced. 

Husseini said she didn't want to be reprimanding a fellow Committee member, but criticized Dr. Ural for making a "public spectacle" of his issues first, going public with it on cable or on the internet, before discussing it with the Committee. 

She said Dr. Ural has a tendency to use "snippets of data" when making these public accusations, going out with "little pieces of information to tantalize the public." She used the example of Dr. Ural going on a local access cable program following the September tragedy in front of the Hansen School where a three-year-old girl was hit and killed by a box truck on Central St., to make claims using a traffic study that was "several years old" in addition to the fact he was not a traffic expert. 

Husseini said she wanted to "distance myself from your actions," in regards to the email he sent to the principals in the school district, something Colburn echoed in his statement, read at the meeting:

"To censure [Dr. Ural] is for our board to formally acknowledge that Erdem's individual statements are his personal statements and are not reflective of the rest of the board.  He will still have a voice with the board but it will be more clear to the community that he speaks for himself alone and not for the committee when he speaks outside of the committee."

Sovinee said she couldn't "stand by and see the staff we are responsible for and fellow School Committee members...[be] abused and demeaned," citing a number of public personal attacks Dr. Ural has made.  

Sovinee said she first applied to fill a vacancy on the School Committee back in 2010 upon the encouragement of Dr. Ural and looked forward to working with him, but after becoming a member, "gradually saw that Dr. Ural's only focus was negativity."

"We all have opinions," Dolinsky added, "But it should be expressed properly and I don't think it has been done all the time." 

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Ural Questions Legality of Meeting

Dr. Ural, who had an attorney and stenographer present at the meeting, questioned the legality of the meeting itself, and questioned why his lawyer could not speak and why there could not be a public comment period, despite an expressed interest from members of the audience gathered at the T.V. studio at Stoughton High to speak.

About 15 people were in attendance, not including Dr. Ural's attorney, stenographer or members of the press.  

"I consider this meeting to be an unfortunate continuation of the illegal practices that this School Committee continuously engages in," Dr. Ural stated. "My participation in this so-called censure is for the sole purpose of protecting my reputation as a father, scientist, and Committee Member from being further slandered by the members of this committee. I cannot, in good conscience, allow my name to be defamed anymore without defending myself. 

He continued, "This Committee accuses me of exceeding my authority as a Committee member. However, on this very day, this Committee attempts to censure me outside the scope of their own authority, statutory or otherwise. There is no authority, either in the by-laws of the town of Stoughton, or in the rules and regulations that govern this Committee, which empowers the Madame Chairwoman with the power to call for the censure of another member of the Committee. I challenge this Committee to prove otherwise."

Following the meeting, Dr. Ural's attorney, John Regan, said "It was an illegitimate proceeding, not withstanding the fact that Dr. Ural was not afforded due process, the right to confront his accusers or to have an attorney represent him at this hearing, the underlying legality of this entire proceeding is questionable."

Regan continued, "This agency went far beyond its mandate with the sole purpose of injuring Dr. Ural's reputation. This was slanderous, illegal and an unconstitutional effort to chill Dr. Ural's right to freedom of speech."

Regan said they have not decided whether to pursue legal action in response to the proceedings.

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