Barnstable County Report

Has DY School Superintendent Carol Woodbury been truthful?

There were grim words spoken at the Dennis Yarmouth Regional School District's district meeting held last Monday night under a huge white tent at the Dennis Yarmouth High School. Yarmouth officials and department heads spoke of the need to cut personnel and services in order to comply with the school district's demand for $1.5 million to top off the district's fiscal 2009 budget.

Both the  Yarmouth Fire Chief and the Yarmouth Police Chief spoke of painful cuts. The fire department in September will close its one year old $4 million West Yarmouth station and the police will cut four officers as well as reducing the hours for the records division and other services. The two Yarmouth police officers currently assigned to the schools will be placed back on patrol. Other town departments will face deep cuts. Voters resoundingly rejected a proposition 2 1/2 override request at Yarmouth's town election in May.

If history is any indication of what the towns can expect from their regional school superintendent that person, Carol Woodbury bears watching. In 2007 she requested $400,000 in the school budget to hire three additional deans. When the school committe rejected her request she proceeded with the hirings anyway, using $400,000 she 'found' somewhere in a school department budget she claimed had no surplus and no extra funds. Now there may be another example of the curious definition Woodbury uses when telling the truth.

At the district meeting last week she spoke movingly of the 39 school district staff who had already been given termination notices as a measure of the budget cuttiing she had already done. She said in very clear language, "....These are 39 real people." She said that the 39, along with town employess who would lose their jobs are faced with raising families, losing their homes and other painful circumstances all caused by the budget woes faced by Dennis and Yarmouth and their regional school district. Superintendent Carol Woodbury was very clear: 39 school district staff had already been terminated in order to reduce the school district's budget.

The facts now coming to light appear to oppose Woodbury's declaration. Four school district staff members of the  39 supposedly terminated actually retired. Members of the regional school committe knew that as they listened to Woodbury speak. The retirees will not be without income as they will receive pensions. Now it appears that either 11 or 12 of the remaining staff allegedly terminated to save money were actually cut due to the district's declining enrollment. Therefore, it may well develop that 39 school district staff were not cut in order to save money but perhaps as few as 23.

All the sad stories about how Woodbury met personally with each of the fired 39 personally so that the superintendent could tell them how grateful she and the district and the towns were for their loyal service and how sad she was personally to have to let them go...what was that? Stage acting? Political dressing? Outright deception? The entire Dennis Yarmouth School committe sat with grim faces before the assembled voters at last week's district meeting and listened as Woodbury told her sad story of painful firings, knowing that the correct numbers were far different from what their superintendent publicly stated.

Also there and listening were 1600 voters and the Yarmouth selectmen and the Yarmouth Chief of Police and the Yarmouth Fire Chief. Not one person asked for this article for his/her understanding of Woodbury's words said anything other than, "She said she had fired 39 people to save money in the budget." Woodbury's salary jumped by $9,000 this year.