Former Andover Superintendent Sheldon Berman said in an email he hoped a private school seeking to operate in Andover would “just go away,” according to documents filed last week in Fusion Learning Inc.’s $4 million lawsuit against the Town, school district, and the Andover School Committee.
The private school, which had its application to operate in Andover twice denied by the school committee, filed the documents as part of a motion for a summary judgement in the federal lawsuit based on facts uncovered during discovery and depositions.
Fusion is accusing the school committee of violating the Massachusetts Open Meeting law, the Americans With Disabilities, and its First Amendment rights when it denied its applications to open a private school in Andover. The company, which runs schools for students in grades 6-12 who struggle in normal school settings, is seeking $2.6 million for the 10-year lease it signed at 3 Dundee Park Drive in September 2018 and $1.4 million for its build out of the site.
By policy, the Town and APS do not comment on active litigation.
Berman’s email was sent to the superintendent of Wellesley Public Schools in April 2018, a month after Fusion notified APS it planned to file an application and three months before its first application was submitted, according to documents filed with Fusion’s request for summary judgement. Six days before Fusion’s second and final application was rejected in March 2021, Berman told the Andover Rotary Club there was no way the school’s application would be approved regardless of any changes made. In a deposition for the lawsuit, Berman said he did not recall making the comment, according to the documents.
“Should the defendants want to make the point that Berman was no longer superintendent in March of 2021, the words of his interim successor, Claudia Bach, show that a changed occupant in the superintendent’s chair did not change the hostility that Fusion faced,” Fusion said in the filing. “As Bach told [Assistant Superintendent Sandra] Trach in a January 23, 2021 email: ‘It seems to me we are losing the argument [Fusion’s] program does not meet our standards… it’s been hard to prove it’s inferior, because every statement we make, they come back with a counter argument. They are slick that way’.”
Amond the other allegations in last week’s filing by Fusion:
- In a March, 2022 email, Berman told Trach “I had no intention of recommending [Fusion] for anything.” When asked about the exchange in her deposition, Trach said “It’s my job to follow the direction of the superintendent.”
- Berman and other officials raised concerns that Fusion would impact the district’s budget by enrolling APS special education students and collecting tuition.
Among the allegations in Fusion’s lawsuit are claims the school committee violated the Massachusetts Open Meeting Law and an accusation that Berman started working with members of the committee to draft a press release announcing the denial of Fusion’s application a month before the committee voted.