Special Suffern Central School District Board of Education meeting that prefaced the Thursday, March 7, special board meeting during which Superintendent Dr. Douglas Adams was suspended.

The sudden suspension of Dr. Douglas Adams as Superintendent of the Suffern Central School District looks mysterious from the outside. The increasing animosity between current School Board President Amany Messieha Dgheim and Dr. Adams finally prompted legal action for relief on the part of Dr. Adams.

Dr. Adams recently petitioned the NYS Department of Education to have the SCSD board president removed for interference in the superintendent’s authorized and contracted operation of the school district. The board’s general responsibility is one of oversight, advise and consent, but not execution.

To review one or many hours of SCSD Board of Education meetings is to witness a progression of contentious behaviors. It’s hard to know what’s at the heart of this obvious clash of personalities and offices, but Dgheim, in particular, has exhibited a pattern of increasing dissatisfaction with Dr. Adams.

Dr. Douglas Adams was hired on in the district as Superintendent in or about 2011 from South Conway County School District in Arkansas, just outside of Little Rock. He was recruited by the then Ramapo Central School Board, with Craig Long leading the recruitment for the new superintendent.

Adams has a Ph.D in administration from the University of Arkansas’s College of Education and a law degree from the University of Arkansas, as well. He wrote his dissertation on efficiency and effectiveness in public schools and came to the district to put that knowledge into practice. Adams took over a district that was at a financial crossroads and faced a ballooning budget gap and district (and surrounding area) demographics shift that would have impacted budget planning and policies. Area real estate values were fast receding, and the NY State education budget contributions to the district were in jeopardy. The dynamic duo of cuts in state aid and property-tax caps had arrived. Additionally, district administration practices were stuck in a pre-digital era and the district also faced a retirement/benefits spike, along with an impending Ramapo Teachers Association contract renewal process.

The district letter sent out Friday, March 8th, by Lisa Castaldo, appointed Thursday night by the BOE as acting superintendent, references an “experienced administrative team” and “forward momentum”, both initiated and managed under Dr. Adams’ tenure. The current administrative staff was almost entirely put in place by Dr. Adams. Additionally, the content-rich, innovative learning experiences, improved academic performance, safe and healthy school, and positive learning culture have all been achieved on Dr. Adam’s watch.

Why is this board, led by Amany Dgheim, dissatisfied with Dr. Adams, especially as the district’s appointed interim superintendent introduces herself by citing achievements reached under Dr. Adams’ leadership?

Following is the latest Suffern Central School District budget workshop presentation, which took place on Tuesday, March 5. The presentation and workshop practices were implemented under Dr. Adams’ tenure.

Adams came to the school district in 2011 and went to work implementing top to bottom practices that have resulted in an enormously attractive school district both to students and teachers. SCSD has high-achieving students, highly competing student-athletes, expanded STEM programming and science and engineering-related clubs and activities, ever-evolving, sophisticated communications practices across platforms, all positioning the school district as elite.

As an aside, the Suffern High School hockey team is about to play for a state championship, not to mention the Robotics team is off to the world championship in Detroit this April, and Suffern DECA members recently compete at their state competition in Rochester.

Now Dr. Adams has been suspended in a secretive executive session by the board of education.

The school board that hired Dr. Adams has changed over time, so that there is currently no board member with more than five years of service, nor any who had a hand in hiring the superintendent. Dr. Adams’ management and leadership have been the constant in the evolution of the Suffern Central School District to sound fiscal and firm educational footing. New board members, such as Angus MacKenzie, Donald Cairn and Melissa Reimer, have a very small sample size of general public policy accomplishments for them to be advocating for such provocative changes to the school district.

So the question becomes, what is the endgame in this board’s apparent agitation with the superintendent? And how does the board usurpation of superintendent authority better serve the district parents, students and general educational practices?

Without an insider’s grasp of the entirety of board issues with the superintendent and behind the scene machinations, it is hard to know who and what is justified in this matter.