January 9, 2015
New Groton school chief looks to future
GROTON — Incoming interim Superintendent of Schools J. D. Pabis said he would like the district to move past a September hazing incident and focus on academic goals while the district searches for a permanentsuperintendent.
Pabis said Wednesday in a phone interview that he would also like to create cohesion within the district so that everyone is working together to reinstill pride in the district.
“I always thought it was an excellent district that I was proud to have my children in,” said Pabis, who lived in the Groton community for 20 years.
Pabis said he believes Groton officials dealt properly with the hazing incident that rattled the district in recent months.
The Sept. 10 incident in the high school boys’ locker room resulted in two students pleading guilty to first-degreeharassment, a misdemeanor, and preceded the departure of Superintendent of Schools James Abrams, varsity football Head Coach Jeff Lewis and football assistant coach Bobby Brull.
“It’s my understanding that there has been training, there has been outside resources that has been brought in and they’re continuing to work together as a community to work through this crisis,” Pabis said, referring to an anti-hazing activist and an anti-bullying motivational speaker brought in by the district for student and parent assemblies.
Pabis was employed at the Groton school district from 1986 to 1998. He worked first as the director of pupil personnel and later as the combined junior/senior high school principal and then as high school principal.
After leaving Groton, Pabis worked as superintendent of schools at Candor and Auburn. He retired from the Auburn post in 2012 and most recently worked as the interim superintendent of Onondaga Central Schools from June 2013 to November 2013. Pabis resides in Auburn.
When he goes to work as the interim Groton superintendent on Monday, Pabis said he will start getting to know his former district again and focus on what is next for the schools.
“(I plan to) reacquaint myself with the staff, the community and establish goals that both the board and the community would like to see accomplished during this transition period,” he said.
Pabis said he has a verbal agreement with the board of education to stay until the end of June.
The June time frame was selected as it will take at least three to four months to find a new superintendent and then, if that person is already a principal or a superintendent at another district, the selected candidate will have to put in a 90-day notice, Pabis said.
Pabis said he would be available after June to help transition the new superintendent into the position.
The district has also engaged theservices of Tompkins-Seneca-Tioga BOCES to assist in managing the school district.
TST BOCES has helped the district’s principals and other administrators this week and is set to leave when Pabis starts, Jeff Matteson, district superintendent of TST BOCES, said on Monday.
The vote to authorize BOCES aid took place at an unannounced and possibly illegal board of education meeting at about 4 p.m. Jan. 2. The meeting has come under fire from the public for being improper.
Mike Lockwood, a former board of education member and a parent of a football player, said in a phone interview on Tuesday that the board needs to hold the vote on hiring BOCES at another meeting that is properlyannounced.
“So BOCES should not be helping them,” Lockwood said.
Parents of football players have criticized the district’s handling of thehazing situation, saying the parents of players should have been the first notified.
Pabis declined to comment on communication issues in the district.
“I have not spoken to Jim (Abrams) regarding communication problems, so I can’t address that,” he said.
The board of education accepted Abrams’ resignation at a special meeting on Monday night. The board has not released details of the severance package.
In reply to a Freedom of Information Law request for that information by the Cortland Standard, District Clerk and Records Officer Lisa Warmbrodt wrote in an email Thursday morning the district would respond within 30 days, though she added later that the response could come sooner.
Thirty days is an unreasonably long time period for a response to a request for an easily found, public document, Robert J. Freeman, executive director of the state Committee on Open Government, said Thursday by phone.
Under FOIL, a district must release information “wherever and whenever feasible,” Freeman said.
Board of Education President Sophia Darling could not be reached forcomment.
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