Mineola’s Board of Education voted on Monday, Jan. 12, to formally suspend Superintendent Michael Nagler after a board error during their last meeting prevented his suspension from being official.
At the Jan. 8 meeting, board members moved to suspend Nagler but misread his employee number, rendering the suspension unofficial due to the technical error.
The board unanimously rescinded the earlier action and officially suspended Nagler using the correct employee number, 01665.
Nagler was suspended with pay through the next board meeting on Jan. 22, following a report from Nathaniel Nichols, an attorney at Whiteman, Osterman, and Hanna LLP, who worked on the investigation, that found Nagler violated his employment contract and the district’s code of ethics.
The investigation followed controversy from the superintendent’s implementation of the Build Your Own Grade program. It found that he violated the code of ethics through his investment in Quave LLC, the company responsible for the program, and his failure to notify the board of his involvement in the LLC.
“The Board of Education of the union free school district was made aware of a technical error within Resolution #58, and desires to correct that error,” said Cheryl Lamoasona, the board president.
The board appointed Deputy Superintendent Catherine Fishman as the acting superintendent through the Jan. 22 meeting, in accordance with the district chain of command.
The meeting was held without the standard 24-hour notice, and the trustees voted to waive the notice requirement.
Build Your Own Grade was a highly contested learning and grading apparatus that placed technology at the center of Mineola’s eighth-grade curriculum. Through the program, students had to rely on digital resources rather than teachers to build a grade from zero.
Parents and students reported high stress levels due to Build Your Own Grade, and community members circulated a petition to remove the curriculum.
“I’ve witnessed firsthand the detrimental effects this program is having on our eighth-grade students,” Alicia Devins, a parent, said in a statement for the petition. “Teachers, who once passionately engaged with and inspired students, are now reduced to instructing them to simply watch videos.”
Nagler was under a third-party investigation sanctioned by the board of education to determine whether his involvement with Quave LLC, the company responsible for the learning management system, was a breach of his contract or the district’s code of ethics. The investigation said that Nagler founded the company with his son James, 19 at the time, who was a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
According to the investigation, Nagler did not disclose his personal or monetary interest in Quave, which he said he founded to maintain James’s ownership of the intellectual property, and to claim the money he spent on the LLC as business expenses on his taxes.
“Based on Dr. Nagler’s interest in Quave, he was required by this policy to inform the Board of said interest in writing. Although no financial gain was to be had at present, the interest is no less present,” the investigation said. “As such, by failing to notify the Board of his interest in Quave, Dr. Nagler violated this provision.”
Community members continued to question the investigator about procurement policies and data protection at the Jan. 8 meeting, but the investigator said no procurement violations were relevant because no district funds were expended.
Nichols also said that the data privacy issue was not included in the findings because the investigators did not review the relevant data contained in the learning management system. He said that the regulatory agencies notified are expected to weigh in after their reviews.
Community members said that they believe Nagler should resign.
The board will meet on Thursday, Jan. 22, the date through which Nagler’s paid suspension was originally scheduled.
