Every Friday during election season, GOOD Morning Wilton publishes letters to the editor regarding the election and candidates. We are publishing this letter separately because it directly addresses information published in a sponsored post about the 2023 election and candidates running for the Board of Education who are married to teachers employed by the Wilton Public Schools. The letter writer is one of the teachers married to a candidate and says information in that sponsored post specifically referencing him was “false and misleading.” We are publishing his letter separately because GMW failed to accurately fact check what was written about him. Below his letter, we’ve included additional Q&A with him to address and review particular points.
An Oct. 5 Statement from the Democratic Town Committee was recently published in GOOD Morning Wilton with false and misleading information. I do not want to add to the toxicity of this political environment so I want to state that I do not believe that this was done with unethical intentions. Rather I think that, in an effort to question ethics and motivations, the author rushed their messaging and did not check facts.
In their Oct. 5 sponsored post in GOOD Morning Wilton, the Democratic Town [Committee] leadership wrote, “Last year the Board debated and enacted a new schedule at Middlebrook, combining the reading/writing programs, and eliminating nine positions. At one point those eliminated positions included the spouse of one of these two candidates, and in a prior year, our schools adopted a program that happened to eliminate an annual stipend for the spouse of the other candidate (who has since become a leading opponent of that program). The conflicts are broad and unavoidable.”
While the letter falls just shy of naming me explicitly it wouldn’t take much effort to figure out who the spouse was that had their stipend “eliminated.” The problem is that I did not have a position or stipend eliminated.
The author of the DTC letter is referring to department heads (classroom teachers in social studies, science, math, reading….) at Middlebrook who lost stipend positions during the adoption of the instructional coaching program back in 2013. I was never a department head. I was a team leader and served in that capacity until 2020 when I left the position to help at the Trackside Teen Center. The author of the letter probably assumed that I was the social studies department head, or they just don’t understand the details of this situation. Either way, I do consider this a personal reference and an attack on my professionalism based on assumptions rather than research.
I have been working with kids… and in our wonderful community for over 20 years. It’s what I live for.
My wife Heather loved teaching at Middlebrook for the eight years she was there and kept talking about wanting to do something for the school community after starting work at Pepsi in 2021. Now we are defending our character and commitment to that same community. It’s ugly and leaves me saddened.
I am friends with and think highly of community members on all sides of the topics including [Board of Selectmen candidate] Farah Masani, [BOE member] Nicola Davies, [BOE Chair and current candidate] Ruth DeLuca… whose intentions focus on the good of the community and whose convictions sometimes differ from mine.
I do not know where this is going to end up, but I wanted to make you aware.
John Priest
Q&A
GMW: Did you ever hold a position or responsibility that was eliminated by the coaching program?
J. Priest: I never held a position or responsibility that was eliminated by the instructional coaching program.
GMW: Did you ever lose a stipend or remuneration due to the implementation of the coaching program or any other program introduced by the superintendent or another administrator?
J. Priest: I never lost a stipend or remuneration due to the implementation of the instructional coaching program or any other program introduced by the superintendent or other administrator. I also did not lose a stipend club position when the final round of cuts occurred in the budget season last year.
GMW: Was it your choice to step away from the position of team leader, willingly?
J. Priest: In the summer of 2020, during COVID, I stepped away from the instructional team leader position. I chose not to apply in the fall so that I could spend more time trying to keep Trackside Teen Center open during a challenging reconfiguration due to COVID. This was done completely willingly.
GMW: Did you ever work as an instructional leader at Middlebrook or in Wilton?
J. Priest: I worked as an instructional team leader for Team 6 Red beginning in 2005-2006 and it continued until I chose to not reapply in the fall of 2020.
GMW: Was your current position ever in jeopardy due to the reductions or changes made as part of the Middlebrook schedule change?
J. Priest: My current position was never in jeopardy due to reductions or changes made as part of the Middlebrook schedule change.
Cool. Care to comment on your relationship with Michael Kaelin and what role that may have played in last year’s Board of Education budget cuts? Or your feelings about Kevin Smith?
I don’t know why Tom’s letter focused on the stipend specifically – maybe because it lined up neatly with the Council on Ethics opinion – but there’s a whole lot of other stuff going on in your relationship with the district and the instructional coaching program that people deserve to know about.
(of course, even ignoring all of that, the conflict of interest situation is utterly untenable and your wife should have known better than to run in the first place, but it galls me to see you so neatly tiptoeing around all of the other conflicts you’ve had with the district)
No love for Michael, who clearly has his own agenda with his repeated disparaging and misleading posts on this topic. Shame. The Priests have done more good for this community than he could ever hope to. He and others should be applauding the repeated willingness of this family to lean in for the betterment of everyone who lives in Wilton – no matter their affiliation or perspective. Just as they always have; and I know they will despite the vitriol.
Looking forward to voting for Heather and Mark!
Personally, I feel that I’m doing a great deal of good for this community, but you’re welcome to disagree. By necessity, doing what I do entails antagonizing a lot of Republicans, and I’m totally comfortable with that tradeoff; it’s an ugly job but somebody’s got to do it. And frankly, if you’re OK with the prospect of your future great-grandchildren discovering that you ran for office as a Republican in 2023, you’re probably not someone who I was going to be friendly with anyway.
It remains the case, however, that Priest’s and Shaner’s conflicts of interest render them totally unfit to serve on the BOE, regardless of anything else they may have done; plenty of people who are much more polite than me and well above any accusations of harboring a particular agenda concur on that, including a lot of Republicans. In fact, I regret that this very minor error on the DTC’s part has given Republicans an excuse to make this discussion about something other than those disqualifying conflicts of interest, and I hope that in the remaining weeks of the campaign we can refocus on that (and the BOF race, which has been sorely neglected).
Any parent of a Wilton student knows you get a unique perspective on what’s going on at Cider Mill, Middlebrook, and the High School from the kids who are there every day. I imagine the spouse of a teacher has an even deeper understanding of what practices are working and what initiatives are failing in our schools. Heather Priest and Mark Shaner are both parents of students and spouses of teachers, which gives them unmatched combination of perspective and understanding.
Far from having interests in conflict with those of us who value high performing schools, we have a confluence of interest. We actually need more people on the Board of Education who know what’s going on in the classroom as well as the boardroom, and who can add valuable insights in a collaborative and collegial way.
The Board of Education is not a private club, it is accountable to the citizens and efforts to restrict the choices of voters by attempting to knock good and decent people off the ballot is unbecoming of a self-governing town like Wilton.
Thank you, John, for clarifying this. The DTC apologizes to you and to Heather for indicating that you lost a stipend during that program adoption. You are correct, we’d been informed you were a Department Head at the time the changes were made.
– Tom Dubin, Chair, Wilton DTC
True to form, the DTC toxifies the politics of our small town. Apologizing in the comments is the typical feckless behavior that has now come to be synonymous with the DTC’s modus operandi. Does the DTC intend to put out a paid op-ed retracting the false slander? If not, save your apology, because after all…mission accomplished, right Tom?
Where was the GMW “fact-check” before the original lies were allowed to be published?
Tom’s apology was perfectly gracious, and as far as fact-checking, this was a minor error in a larger editorial that was mostly focused on the conflicts of interest. Conflicts which are, in and of themselves, utterly disqualifying, and which the Republicans have no answer for.
Wilton residents – Republican and Democrat alike – should unite in rejecting these two irredeemably conflicted candidates; the fact of their conflicts of interest is not under dispute.
Thank you, John and GMW, for clarifying and correcting earlier statements that were misleading. Heather’s experience as a teacher makes her voice a positive and necessary point of view which can promote a broader understanding within BOE conversations pertaining to school policy and the effects of their decisions on the employees they represent.
I think it’s also worth noting here that Ms. Priest’s opponent, Sara Sclafani, is an unaffiliated petition candidate – not a registered Democrat or a DTC member – and had absolutely nothing to do with the DTC’s letter; as far as I know, her messaging on this has focused solely on the contents of the Council on Ethics report, which is thoroughly disqualifying for Ms. Priest on its own (and the facts of which do not appear to be in dispute).
Before the inevitable accusations of “partisan politics” or whatever get thrown around, it seems important to emphasize that point.
“Before the inevitable accusations of “partisan politics” or whatever get thrown around, it seems important to emphasize that point.” Um Michael Love – You seem to be trying to throw mud and partisan politics around with the worst of them ! Parents of Wilton students should be thankful and grateful for all that Heather and John Priest have done for Wilton’s student body and their parents over the years. Their generous contributions of their time, skills and efforts to the school system and Trackside should be praised – not used as some kind of bludgeon to whack them with. When compensation issues are discussed – of course Heather should recuse herself from voting. But her insight as former educator and involved Mom should be embraced by the Wilton community in the important role as a member of the BoE. Both my sons were fortunate to have been a part of Red Team 6 and my wife and I could not be more thankful. Let’s raise the level of discussion Michael and perhaps exhibit a bit of grace while you are at it.
I was specifically referring to potential accusations of partisan politics concerning the DTC + GMW’s actions here. I’m unashamedly partisan myself, and you’re more than welcome to attack me on that basis all you like.
Again, though, the conflicts of interest are what they are and Heather Priest has no business running for the Board of Education.