Friday, December 20, 2019
Dear Parents/Guardians,
As we head into the winter break, we want to acknowledge that the past few months have been challenging for Lake Forest School District 67 and particularly for students, staff, and families at Deer Path Middle School following the resignation of longtime principal Tom Cardamone.
Our many communications during this time focused on two things: the important steps being taken to ensure that we have a strong interim leadership team in place at Deer Path for the remainder of the school year and providing updates on the status of our search for the next principal.
It is always our intent to balance the District’s legal responsibility to maintain the privacy and confidentiality of personnel matters with the desire to respond to parent, staff, and student questions. We regret that we didn’t figure out a better way to accomplish the second part of our goal. While we have previously publicly released Mr. Cardamone’s resignation letter, we recognize that you may be thinking, “You still haven’t told us why he left…” Our practice is to discuss personnel matters in closed session, which is consistent with Illinois law and the advice from our legal counsel. This is why we do not share more. It appears that our inability to address this specific question may have created concerns among some parents, faculty, and staff. For that, we are deeply sorry.
As discussed at our Board meeting on Tuesday night, we have carefully reviewed the District’s handling of this matter and will use this as a learning experience to improve our processes and procedures regarding personnel matters. We will also continue to collaborate with the Lake Forest Education Association (LFEA) to review our investigation protocols and practices for teachers and paraprofessionals. We affirm our intent to provide timely and transparent (to the extent allowed by law) communications that maintain the culture of trust, support, and respect that has long been the hallmark of District 67.
We are grateful to our parents, the LFEA, our faculty, staff, and community for their sincere commitment to and interest in District 67, our schools, and students. Providing the highest quality education in a safe environment will always be our top priority. It is our hope and intent that 2020 will be a year of collaboration as we continue to work together to ensure that our learning community is one that maintains the highest levels of professionalism, compassion, and integrity.
Best wishes for a wonderful, safe holiday season.
