The board of Bremen High School District 228 voted Monday night to remove Debi Stearns as president, with the action coming three years after her predecessor was ousted as board president.
Kristine Resler, who had been vice president and was named president following a lengthy hearing, said Stearns had violated board policies by “micromanagement of district staff” and “creating an atmosphere of uneasiness” between staff and board members.
Resler, Larry Canning — who had been removed as board president in July 2015 — board Secretary Evelyn Gleason and board member Kim Kampwirth had called for the meeting.
The four voted in favor of unseating Stearns as president, with Stearns and board member Leslie Jones abstaining and board member Mark Johnson voting against removal.
Before the hearing got underway, Stearns said she believed the proceedings were “illegal,” and just prior to the vote to remove the president, Johnson referred to the allegations as a “bunch of trumped-up charges.”
In a July 5 letter to Stearns, Resler asked that she voluntarily step down as board president by July 9, with a hearing on the charges scheduled for July 11 if she didn’t.
It was rescheduled to Monday after Stearns asked for more time to prepare. She also asked that the district hire and pay for legal representation for her to defend herself against the charges, a matter that would have had to have been approved by the full board, as well as for an independent investigation of the charges brought by Resler.
Resler said some of the board policies regarding ethical conduct of board members, that she had accused Stearns of violating, were adopted after Canning was removed as president by a 4-3 vote.
Johnson, who was Stearns’ most vocal backer during the meeting, said he felt it was “unfair” that Stearns was not provided representation, noting she is “not a woman of means” who could hire her own attorney.
Board attorney Raymond Hauser was asked to be at the hearing by the board members who called for the meeting, Gleason said, and the attorney elicited testimony from board members, Supt. Bill Kendall and others during the hearing. Johnson accused Hauser of “attacking” Stearns, which the attorney denied.
In an outline of allegations by Resler, she said Stearns had been unduly interested in the operations of the district’s maintenance and custodial department since her husband, Will Stearns, was hired by the district.
Resler said that in attempting to micromanage the department her husband works in, Debi Stearns had violated a board policy to avoid a conflict of interest or the appearance of impropriety.
He had been hired on a part-time basis last October, then moved to full-time this past March. In each instance, the board was in favor of the actions, with Debi Stearns abstaining, and the hiring and promotion recommended to the board following an evaluation process that included district administrators, according to testimony during the hearing.
Testimony also showed that Debi Stearns played no role in influencing a decision to hire or promote her husband. The board, at its regular meeting Tuesday, was scheduled to vote on moving her husband, now at Bremen High School in Midlothian, to a groundskeeper/maintenance position at the district’s Tinley Park High School.
Canning said that Stearns’ husband was “moving up the chain faster than anyone I have seen move up the chain,” and that he did not “understand the rapidness of his advancement.”
He said that while Debi Stearns exerted no influence regarding her husband’s job, the perception, with him receiving another job change, might suggest otherwise.
“Let’s face it,” Canning said. “That doesn’t look good.”
Following the vote to remove Stearns, Johnson nominated Jones to serve as president, but the motion failed on a 4-3 vote. Resler was then named president on a 4-3 vote.
Stearns has been on the board since 2006 and Resler was first elected in 2015. Canning was elected to his first term in 2013 but was not a candidate in 2015, instead backing his Parents for Progress slate of Johnson, Kampwirth and Resler. Canning was again elected to the board last year.
