GMUSD board hears of bullying, threats to inclusion at high school Board accepts resignations of two principals

By Shawn Cunningham
© 2026 Telegraph Publishing LLC

While new GMUSD board chair Lisa Sanders played catch-up on a backlog of work by splitting the agenda and scheduling an additional meeting for May, the board got an earful from the public and continued its combative internal dynamic at its May 21 confab. The board will take up the second half of the agenda on Thursday ,ay 28.

One problem that the board of the Green Mountain Unified School District has wrestled with has been the change from a recording secretary who provided highly detailed minutes to one whose minutes are less detailed and who is still getting used to the players. So, on Thursday, the board discussed what it wants from the minutes and approved five of the six meeting minutes on the agenda, putting one off until the next meeting.

Public addresses bullying, inclusion and board attitudes

The overriding theme of the comments made by the public dealt with assertions that bullying and harassment continues to plague the high school, that it is not being addressed by the administration and that measures such as a proposed flag policy could lead toward censorship of inclusion messages in the classroom.

Beverly Hart spoke on behalf of her granddaughter Honore, as she has several times in the past. She noted that she went before the board two years ago asking for help with incidents of racial bullying and that she’s back because nothing has been fixed.

“A couple of years is a long time to come back with problems again with no results,” said Hart, noting that two years ago the n-word was written on the inside of a school bus and she recently heard that it remained. “That is not acceptable,” said Hart.

Honore also spoke to the board, saying that she has been disappointed with the lack of help she received after what she said was a failure to follow protocol around a head injury she sustained in a soccer game. She told the board that Superintendent Layne Millington had “made it seem like he was going to take care of it and it never happened.”

Just before the meeting ended — and during the second public comment period — Honore stood to call out Millington for his reaction to her earlier statement. She said, “I was pretty disappointed to come up here, no attention from my superintendent, him shaking his head when I’m asking for help.”

Calling the board dynamic “troubling” Hart said, “It’s very hard to watch (board members) leaving at 8 o’clock, rolling their eyes at others, people talking. That’s horrible, that’s rude. You want people to come and participate, but when you act like that, it’s hard to participate — or watch.”

Mary Gannon, who works for the NAACP addressing school culture and climate, offered to help the board deal with the problems. Gannon said that the issue is “not just around race or gender or disability, but around school culture and ideas of belonging.”

Robert Nied of Chester said that recent suggestions that schools ban messages of inclusion within classrooms because they aren’t part of a curriculum fail to realize that LGBTQ issues are part of world history, American history and Vermont history and many other subjects.

“The only way to separate LGBTQ from curriculum is to censor,” said Nied.

Nick Boke, also of Chester, agreed, saying, “Among the most important things a good school does is trust teachers to bring kids into the world.”

Chester resident Ann Lamb asked the board, “Don’t you want to better?” She said that an improved school, community and education system would “support children for who they are.”

GM teacher Brett Mastrangelo told the board that he was upset that information he had shared with them regarding the temperature in the school and a chemical odor was made public and ended up on social media. Shortly after, Chester parent Zachary Muguira complained that Mastrangelo has harassed his son and called him demeaning names.

According to board protocol, members do not respond or engage in conversation with those making public comments although there was some back and forth regarding Gannon’s offer of her services.

Moving forward against bullying

Later in the meeting, under an agenda item for discussion of Hazing, Harassment and Bullying, the board talked about ways to get a handle on how prevalent the problem is. Board members talked about the kinds of reports that could shine a light on the situation and about the need for confidentiality.

According to Gannon, she has worked to help changes to a school’s culture that allow everyone to feel comfortable and safe.

Board member Adrienne Williams of Baltimore suggested that in addition to someone from the NAACP, there could be representatives to talk about LGBTQ issues, the Anti-Defamation League in response to anti-semitism, and some discussion of religious liberty. “Maybe we balance this,” said Williams. “If we’re going to have one group come, let’s have them all.”

Williams, the former head of the GM board, has made it a “personal boundary” of leaving the meetings around 8 p.m. Board member Katie Murphy of Chester often leaves around the same time. This meeting ended around 8:30. In her remarks to the board at the end of the meeting, Gannon said she was disappointed that they had left.

The board voted to ask Gannon for a description of the presentation she proposes for the board to look at and decide whether to invite her to a subsequent meeting.

Principals’ resignations accepted

Toward the end of the meeting, the board entered into an executive session to discuss whether to release two of the districts four principals from their two-year contracts after one-year of service each. Both principals had submitted resignations on the same day — May 12. The board came out of the session after a short time then voted to release both Cavendish Elementary Principal Emma Vastola and GM Middle School Principal Kate Leathe from their contracts.

While there isn’t a specific exemption in the Open Meeting Law for such deliberations, the board entered the closed door session under a section that allows a board to talk privately about “the appointment or employment or evaluation of a public officer or employee, provided that the public body shall make a final decision to hire or appoint a public officer or employee in an open meeting and shall explain the reasons for its final decision during the open meeting”

Board chair Sanders asked if the executive session was necessary to which Millington replied that it was “safest for the board to be in executive session.”

No hiring or appointment took place, and the safety of the board is not cited in statute as an acceptable use of an exemption allowing the board to shut the door on the public.

The Telegraph has a story on the resignations here.