“06880” founder and executive editor Dan Woog writes:
I told the 50 or so Staples High School students who gathered in Town Hall on Monday morning that they would get a far better education about the real world that day than if they were sitting in class.
I did not know that 14 hours later, that lesson would be how heartless the world can be.
And how little some adults care about them, compared to their own desire for power.
Staples students — boys and girls soccer players, and many others — came early for Monday’s hearing.
Staples boys soccer coach Russell Oost-Lievense’s appeal to the Board of Education, to overturn superintendent of schools Thomas Scarice’s decision to not renew his contract, had all the makings of a TV drama.
There was procedural jousting between attorneys over the admissability of evidence; witness testimony and cross-examination that was at turns riveting and rambling; and a raw, emotional explanation by Oost-Lievense about why — after all he’s been through — he still wanted to lead Staples soccer.
Discussing his work as a special education teacher, his own journey through Westport schools with a learning disability, and his father’s death during his junior year, he described his love for the soccer program, and his desire to give back.
The dozens of athletes in the front rows, there to support him, sat riveted. They’d been sitting for 8 hours already. They’d heard back-and-forth about a verbal argument at a preseason retreat they’d attended.
And they’d heard a discussion about an investigation into it, during which not one of them had been questioned.
They watched as administrators sat smugly on their side of the stage, and Board members sat stone-faced, even during the most powerful testimony.
Staples principal Stafford Thomas, athletic director VJ Sarullo, and superintendent of schools Thomas Scarice.
“I think their minds are made up already,” one player said.
“No, they’re supposed to listen to everything, and be impartial,” a teammate countered.
As the night wore on, and the Board of Education retreated upstairs into executive session, the teenagers remained. They ate pizza. They chatted with Oost-Lievense and freshman coach Chris O’Dell.
They waited for word — after testimony, they and many others in the room believed, that showed Scarice’s decision to be “arbitrary and capricious” — that the coach who loved them, and who they loved back, would return to the program they and he adored.
At 11:15 the verdict came, with stunning finality. Five BOE members voted to uphold Scarice’s non-renewal recommendation. Only Robert Harrington voted against it.
At 11 p.m., dozens of Staples students waited for the Board of Education decision. Many left during the day for a class or two, or sports practice, then returned. All watched the proceedings closely. (Photos/Dan Woog)
The Staples players got a lesson in how the world works, for sure.
The world is not fair. It’s not always what they want. It can be arbitrary and capricious.
And so they — and Oost-Lievense’s many supporters, and other Westporters involved with all sports — wonder what’s next.
Why, for example, would any man or woman want to coach in a school district that does not support its coaches — that, in fact, casts them aside with little regard for their longtime contributions, personal reputations and heartfelt emotions?
Why would any coach not fear that an accusation of bad judgment could lead to non-renewal, without even a suggestion of working together to find a solution?
But why, on the other hand, would some coaches fear any discipline at all, knowing that in some programs, serious lapses of judgment lead to no sanctions whatsoever?
Why would any educator want to work in a district that seems so callous? Oost-Lievense testified that in Darien, where he is a special education teacher, supervisors cared deeply about how he was feeling, throughout his ordeal.
No one in Westport ever asked.
And why, in a district that so often pats itself on the back for its achievements in the classroom and beyond, is there such disregard for the very reason any school exists: the young people in it?
On Monday morning, I thought the many teenagers in the Town Hall auditorium would get a lesson in justice, fairness and compassion.
On Monday night, they got that lesson. They learned that some people care more about power than about those very human bedrock values.