Wilton PTA Council stages a coup

Note:  This is the second in a series of articles.  To read the first article click here.

On Monday February 13, 2012, Heather Wilcauskas, President of the PTA Council, and Tiffany Tecce, President of Wilton HS PTA staged a coup to unseat President David Crays and Vice President Robert Burkhart from the Miller-Driscoll Elementary PTA.  They were aided in large part by Miller-Driscoll Executive Board Member Heather Pettit, who is now acting President, and Sally Boske and Jim Accomando from the Connecticut State PTA Association.

The group and their cronies totaled approximately 20 out of over 400 parent members, many of whom work and were not able to attend and were not alerted that a vote was coming. The group was able to achieve their goals because they held a majority at the meeting; however, Mr. Crays noted that many of the attendees had not attended any previous PTA meetings during his term as President.

When the meeting was called to order, Ms. Wilcauskas stated that the agenda had not been voted on and thus added the following to the agenda:

1. Letter from PTA President issued on February 10th to the parents listed on Just Between Friends, the method by which the PTA reaches the parents
2. Removal of Officers
3. Bylaws
4. Additional Officers

Ms. Tecce assisted in leading the coup because of a seemingly personal vendetta against Burkhart and Crays.  She attended the meeting passing out letters and emails between herself and the gentlemen, which Examiner.com will provide to our readership tomorrow.  For more details from Mr. Crays’ perspective as to why, see Why the Vendetta from Ms. Tecce below.

Ms. Sally Boske and Mr. Jim Accomando of the CT State PTA, attended the meeting on Monday February 13th, 2012.  Mr. Accomando noted that they were there only to observe and offer guidance as to how to procedurally conduct a meeting.  (As of press time, Mr. Accomando had not responded to a request for comment.)

Following his comments as to their purpose for attending, Ms. Wilcauskas took the first step of amending the meeting agenda to include removal of officers.  Mr. Crays noted that the school’s Bylaws do not address removal of officers, to which Ms. Boske said they could rely on State procedures and/or Robert’s Rules of Order to amend the agenda and including the removal of the officers

When Dr. Sheelah Brown, Vice Principal, began to voice her concern with the direction the vocal parents were taking, Ms. Tecce’s husband, Tony Tecce, used more procedures to stop her from reading her statement, once again aided by Ms. Boske’s guidance.  The implied intent of Dr. Brown’s statement was to maintain the peace; however, it was clear Mr. Tecce had no interest in her statement.  In order for him to accomplish silencing her, he needed enough votes from attendees to silence her; the motion easily carried and she and all of the teachers and administration left the room.

After they left the room, Ms. Heather Pettit read her statement as to why she was not supportive of Mr. Crays’ letter to dismiss Ms. Tecce.  There was no effort by the Executive Board to stop her from reading her statement.

Mr. Burkhart noted yesterday, “Not once during or before the meeting did the State seek an audience with David or I to gain an understanding of the issues.”

He further noted, “Our membership revenues are better than forecasted.  Furthermore, our overall revenues are trending higher and our expenses are trending lower than we budgeted.  We have the teachers and administration’s support, what is more important than that?  We were removed for politics and a personal vendetta, not for cause.” 

Mr. Crays noted that several parents, teachers and administrators approached him at the end of the meeting, or by email and phone after the meeting was concluded, and stated that they were blindsided by the actions taken by Ms. Wilcauskas and Ms. Tecce.  They were vehemently against these actions, including Tony Tecce’s (husband of Ms. Tecce) action to suppress Vice Principal Dr. Sheelah Brown’s reading of her quickly prepared objection.  The State PTA guided Mr. Tecce how to properly follow Robert’s Rules of Order and suppress her from reading any further.  At that point, Dr. Brown, Vice Principal Pearson, and teachers in attendance left the meeting in protest.

Why the Vendetta from Ms. Tecce

The details of what happened and why will be shared more fully tomorrow; however Mr. Crays noted her main issue revolved around Mr. Crays’ attempt to remove her from the Miller-Driscoll PTA and its Winter Carnival committee, the PTA’s largest fundraiser.  Mr. Crays took these actions because her emails to him indicated she was unwilling to work with him and he feared her leadership of the Winter Carnival, the Miller-Driscoll’s PTA biggest annual fundraiser, potentially put its success at risk.  More specifically, the Winter Carnival Committee refused to invite Mr. Crays to their organizational meeting, which he was supposed to attend as their board liaison, a position which was established for all committees during Ms. Tecce’s Presidency of the Miller-Driscoll PTA.  He indicated that he spoke with Ms. Evelyn Drew and Ms. Sheila Krawitz, who are both Winter Carnival co-chairs with Ms. Tecce, at a Cub Scout meeting.  They indicated the September kickoff meeting was to be held at Ms. Tecce’s house and an invitation with time and date would be issued.  The invite never arrived and an explanation was never provided.

In an effort to find a compromise liaison acceptable to the Board and the Winter Carnival Committee, Ms. Jo Becraft was named as Board Liaison to the Winter Carnival committee.  She was selected because she had a cordial relationship with Ms. Tecce.  However, the committee continued to not keep the Board informed of their actions and status.  Their cooperation was not provided until the Executive Board informed them that a Winter Carnival Oversight Committee would be formed, with Ms. Tara Snow, PTA Executive Board Treasurer, as head of the committee if they failed to cooperate.  The sole purpose was to ensure cooperation with the Board and to keep all sub-committees of the Winter Carnival aware of their overall spending; this was necessary as last year’s committee had overspent its budget and was unaware of the excess spending by each member separately and in total. 

In addition to the Committee failing to keep the Board informed, Ms. Tecce and Ms. Wilcauskas issued derogatory emails to Mr. Crays because the Miller-Driscoll PTA provided its fully paid members a complimentary copy of the Student Directory, as opposed to the other district PTA’s charging additional fees for their directory. 

Additionally, Ms. Wilcauskas and Ms. Amy Harris sent inflammatory emails to Mr. Crays and Principal Jensen-Gerner regarding the PTA parking spots provided to the PTA by the Miller-Driscoll school.  After all of the derogatory emails, Vice President Robert Burkhart issued his resignation as President-elect to the Miller-Driscoll Executive Board, the Board of Education, Superintendent Dr. Gary Richards and copied Ms. Tecce and Ms. Wilcauskas.

Upon Mr. Burkhart’s resignation, Ms. Tecce posted profanity laced comments on her Facebook page, which were also commented on by various members of the PTA, including some of Ms. Tecce’s Winter Carnival Co-chairs, in some cases with profanity.  Mr. Crays took exception with this in his letter of dismissal.  He also noted that the Facebook posting was forwarded to him by several parents who were “friended” or had seen her posting on her Facebook page and expressed that they were appalled that she would engage in what they described as cyber bullying. 

The parents also stated they expected Wilton Superintendent Dr. Gary Richards and Wilton HS Principal O’Donnell to remove Ms. Tecce from her position as High School PTA President.  Their reasoning was that the district had offered many programs at the various schools specifically on preventing bullying in the schools. 

Mr. Crays noted that during his time serving as the PTA President, the PTA funded Miller-Driscoll’s anti-bullying program, Be Kind.  Be Wise.  Be a Friend.  This program teaches the children the pitfalls of bullying in any form.

The parents who provided the Facebook posting suggested Mr. Crays take the necessary actions to have her removed, which he did in November. 

NOTE:  An article about the events has been covered by The Wilton Patch and has many parent comments.  To view the article and comments click here.  An additional article by reporter Craig Donofrio may be reached by clicking here.

Tomorrow:  How the divisiveness began

To review the Dismissal letter issued to Ms. Tecce click here