Author Archives: Steven Wilson

Letter to the Editor: Re-elect Powell-St. Louis as Lyme Member of Region 18 BOE; She Has ‘Remarkable Set of Attributes,’ Making Her ‘an Exceptional Candidate’

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To the Editor:

I am writing this letter to express my wholehearted and enthusiastic support for my esteemed colleague, Mary [Powell St. Louis], who is running for reelection to the Board of Education. I have had the privilege of working closely with her on the Board of Education for four years (one year as Chair with her serving as Vice Chair) and on the Facilities and Finance Committee and have witnessed her outstanding qualities and unwavering commitment to our community and the education system. 

Mary possesses a remarkable set of attributes that make her an exceptional candidate for reelection: 

Mary is known for her unwavering honesty and direct communication. Her integrity is unquestionable, and she always speaks candidly, making her a trusted and transparent leader who can navigate complex educational issues with clarity and forthrightness. She enthusiastically studies related research and material for all topics under consideration and accurately relates the material in a relevant, accurate, and easy-to-interpret fashion. 

Mary has demonstrated a deep understanding of the fiscal challenges that our school district faces. Her commitment to responsible budget management ensures that our community’s resources are allocated efficiently, benefiting both the taxpayers and the students. 

It is obvious that Mary possesses a high level of intellect and a sharp analytical mind. Her ability to grasp complex educational issues, assess potential solutions, and make informed decisions is invaluable to the Board of Education. 

Mary’s resolute dedication to our community is truly commendable. Her tireless efforts to improve the quality of education and the overall well-being of our students demonstrate a profound sense of duty to our community’s future. 

In her previous term, Mary has been instrumental in bringing positive changes to our school district. Through budgeting, project planning, and contract negotiations, she has proven herself to be an invaluable team member in the way she notices details that others miss and offers solutions that others hadn’t imagined. 

As a colleague who has had the privilege of working closely with Mary, I can attest to her exceptional qualities and the positive influence she has had on our educational community. Her dedication to the betterment of our schools and her commitment to the well-being of our students are qualities that we need on the Board of Education. 

I wholeheartedly endorse Mary for reelection to the Board of Education and encourage our community to support her in this endeavor. Her proven track record, steadfast honesty, fiscal responsibility, high intellect, and strong sense of duty to our community make her the ideal candidate to continue leading our school district toward a brighter future. 

Sincerely,

Steven Wilson,
Old Lyme.

Editor’s Note: The author is the current chair of the Region 18 Board of Education, a registered Republican, and endorsed by the Old Lyme Republican Town Committee for re-election to the board in the upcoming election. Mary Powell St. Louis (R) is endorsed by the Lyme Republican Town Committee for re-election to the board in the upcoming election

Op-Ed: “Parental Rights Do Not Negate Teachers Being Free To Teach in Their Own Style”

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Editor’s Note:This op-ed was submitted by Steven Wilson, who serves as chairman of the Region 18 Board of Education. The opinion he expresses here is entirely his own and not related in any way to the board of education.

“Children Should be Taught to Think – Not What to Think”

I have read several letters to editors regarding a recent [Old Lyme] RTC [Republican Town Committee] letter apparently mailed to all residents of Lyme and Old Lyme and I’d like to share a third perspective on the matter which I hope and expect will appeal to the majority of our citizens – the all too often overlooked and forgotten Moderate voters. However they’re registered, they vote with their own minds and have no misplaced loyalty to one party or the other.

I felt compelled to participate in this conversation because there are myriad parties sharing very biased opinions and while speaking under the guise of wanting what’s best for the towns, finish their statements with telling us what to think and for whom to vote in November. I would say ignore them all and instead listen to friends and associates you know and respect.

For the sake of time, I’ll focus on the “dog whistle” of “parental rights”. In my experience the term “dog whistle” is cut from the same cloth as any other strawman fallacy wherein someone misinterprets what you said and ignores your intent and replaces it with their contorted version and then attacks that instead.

“People who invoke the term ‘parental rights’ have different things in mind and different aspirations,” said Neal McCluskey, the director of the Center for Educational Freedom at the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington. “My general impression when I see people invoking ‘parental rights,’ it’s been connected to a general idea that parents have been cut out of decisions made by schools.”

“Parental rights” is being represented as a dog whistle for banning books and censorship and anyone who utters the phrase should be summarily ignored. This is beyond ironic. The idea of dismissing anyone’s opinion based on opinion, perspective, or association is the type of bias we should all be fighting against.

The antithesis of parental rights is parental apathy and school districts that lack parental interest have suffered terribly because of the inevitable trickle-down of apathy, disinterest, and lack of motivation experienced by students when their parents “leave education to the educators”. 

We have the greatest teachers in Region 18 and are lucky to have them. I have dealt directly with many of them on a variety of topics and venues and have personally observed their excellence. I have made a point to stress my personal belief that the purpose of school is to educate rather than indoctrinate and to my eye, the faculty, and staff overwhelmingly agree with this perspective. 

Strong communities are built when everyone is involved and works together. Parental rights do not negate teachers being free to teach in their own style – they only keep the door open so that parents can remain involved in the education of their children. We should avoid at all costs the idea that one group or another is prohibited from expressing their perspective due to “dog whistle” words/phrases or group affiliation.

It has been my experience that when people have questions and are allowed to ask them, they find the answers to be quite agreeable. When those doors of communication are closed, the rumor mills take over and the worst and most sensational ideas take over the conversation. 

There will always be ideas, classes, and curricula being taught in school with which we will disagree but after school, we’ll have co-workers, bosses, and supervisors with whom we’ll disagree too. The purpose of school is to prepare us for working together in spite of difficulties and to learn to disagree pleasantly, respectfully, and productively. Children should be taught to think – not what to think.

Let’s keep things simple and look at people based on the content of their character above all other elements. I’m sure if we do that earnestly and honestly, we’ll all find that we agree with each other far more than we’re being led to believe.

Letter to the Editor: Region 18 BOE Chair Says Board Understands Residents’ Concern, Frustration Over Lyme-Old Lyme MS Oil Spill; Details Chronology, Remediation Process (UPDATED)

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Editor’s Note: The statement below has been updated minimally by the author regarding information on PAH’s and a comment about Kropp Environmental.

To the Editor:

With the ongoing desire to provide transparency and accountability of the Board of Education and due to conversations with citizens both officially and unofficially, I submit this accounting of both the chronology and process of dealing with the oil spill at the Middle School on August 1, 2022. [Editor’s Note: The statement is published in its entirety below]

With 20/20 hindsight, our consensus is that while we on the Board are residents, we understand the concern experienced by other residents and appreciate the frustration felt. We will work toward minimizing both going forward. 

It was never the intention of the Board or any of our employees to withhold information, but to some, it may have felt that way.  It is important to understand that the decisions made were based on the best available information at the time in what was, and is, a very fluid situation. We conscientiously followed the direction of the environmental experts involved and, if at any point we had any suspicion that this issue posed a health risk to students, staff, or our neighbors, we would have notified them immediately.

We have relied upon and will continue to rely upon the competency of those experts and will increase our level of communication regarding their actions, progress, and findings.

This particular issue will be resolved with time and we will continue to improve on our sense of community. Too often we presume that our public meetings, minutes, and website are regularly reviewed by the public. We will be more aware of this in the future when it comes to issues that may impact the larger community beyond our school walls.

Sincerely,

Steven Wilson, Chair, Region 18 Board of Education (BOE),
Old Lyme.

Editor’s Note: This letter was co-signed by Suzanne Thompson, BOE Secretary; Chris Staab, BOE Treasurer; and BOE members Laura Dean-Frazier, Jason Kemp and Jennifer Miller.

Statement on the Chronology and Process of Dealing with Lyme-Old Lyme Middle School Oil Leak
Editor’s Note: This statement was signed by Steven Wilson and all the BOE members who co-signed the Letter to the Editor above.

August 1, 2022

At 8:00 AM a notification was received from our Building Management System (BMS) which is a computer-based system that alerts maintenance staff of issues related to the HVAC system. The alert indicated that a boiler failed to fire when the system called for heat. Upon inspection, it was discovered that a fuel line ruptured at a fitting and was spilling oil onto the boiler room floor.

Cleanup began under the supervision of CT Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) around 8:30 AM that same morning.In addition to vacuuming up the spilled oil, 40 tons of contaminated soil was removed from the area and the boiler room was cleaned of all residual oil.  This incident was discussed at length at the August 3, 2022 Board of Education meeting which is available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlkZvwMJnEc

August – January

Under the advisement of DEEP, Kropp Environmental, a Licensed Environmental Professional (LEP), and CIRMA, our insurance company, we continued to extract any possible remaining oil from the ground via a vacuum truck and drilled eleven monitoring/ recovery wells as a way to determine if any petroleum product was migrating from the spill site. The consensus among these professionals was that there was no evidence to support that the spill would impact neighboring wells or our potable water wells.

Results from one monitoring well (MW7) on December 1, 2022 showed evidence of petroleum products in the groundwater. This result required Kropp Environmental to notify their client (Region 18 Schools) and DEEP.

DEEP was notified by Kropp Environmental on Jan. 11.

February

The initial tests of private wells on Lyme St. came back showing no contamination due to the spill. One well did show some levels of contamination, but it has been determined that it was not in relation to the spill.  A retest of that well did not produce any detectable contaminants.

As a public supplier of water, we are required to test our water supply on a quarterly basis. On February 2, 2023, Whitewater (our certified water system administrator) collected a full suite of samples from each of our active potable water wells utilizing additional parameters as recommended by DEEP based on the oil spill that occurred at the Lyme-Old Lyme Middle School in August.  

Chemicals were detected in potable water well number seven that belong to a class of chemicals called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH’s). As a result, potable water well number seven was taken offline and water to our main campus was temporarily shut off.  PAH’s are present naturally in coal, crude oil, and gasoline. They are also formed when organic materials like coal, wood, garbage, and tobacco are burned.  We used the available health-based guidelines to inform our decision-making. 

While not impossible, based on the distance, the direction of groundwater flow, the depth of the well, the time period elapsed, and the location of our potable wells, the probability that this contamination is related to the August oil spill is extremely low if not nonexistent.  It is much more likely that the PAH’s found in well number seven come from a different source which we are actively working to identify. 

The test that resulted in us turning off the water was a test of undiluted potable water directly from well number seven. The water from well number seven would generally be mixed with water from three other wells and then pass through a chlorinating and pH adjusting system before being used on our campus.

Since the spill, we have tested our water for Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC’s) at the entry point (such as a faucet) on two separate occasions. VOC samples were collected from the entry point on 8/8/22 and 10/14/22 with no detections of oil-related compounds. 

On February 14, 2023 entry point test results were received showing that the water meets all regulatory standards for consumption with no detections of PAH’s.  Water to the main campus was turned back on with approval from the CT Department of Public Health.

Costs

Region 18 has expended approximately $75,000 out of the contingency portion (which is reported monthly at each Board of Education meeting) of the regular budget and has subsequently met the insurance deductible.  These monies have covered the cleanup, installation of 11 underground monitoring wells to measure any activity in the ground near the site, disposal, testing, and other costs associated with the cleanup and monitoring. 

Our insurance carrier is now funding the ongoing process.This timeline is also  posted on our webpage dedicated to the oil spill (https://www.region18.org/district-information/central-services/facilities-department) under the heading “Main Campus Oil Spill Updates”.