Access Counselor: Carmel Schools Should've Reported Why Superintendent Resigned

The Indiana Public Access Counselor says Carmel Clay Schools should have explained why it placed its superintendent and another senior staffer on a three-month paid-leave last year that ended in their resignations.

Carmel Superintendent Nicholas Wahl and Human Resources Director Corrine Middleton were placed on paid administrative leave by the school board in October for alleged management issues.

Yet district officials have refused to say why they faced an internal review process during the leave or reason for resigning in January.

But state counselor Luke Britt writes in a 16-page non-binding opinion that the district and their attorney tried to bypass the state open records law by claiming state law prevented them from releasing disciplinary details. Rather, Britt says, state law requires basic facts of why public employees, like school staff, face disciplinary action that leads suspension, firing other actions.

“A factual basis, no matter how uncomfortable or inconvenient to craft and produce, will eventually have to be rendered by a public agency of any significant size,” Britt writes. “No amount of clever statutory maneuvering can overcome that inevitability."

The Indianapolis Star and WTHR-TV filed complaints with the state’s public access counselor about the district’s refusal to provide documents related to the resignations.  

Carmel Schools Board President Layla Spanenberg previously told the Indianapolis Star that Wahl's review was related to his relationship with Middleton but provided no other details.

The school board subsequently passed policy prohibiting workplace relationships with subordinates.

Britt noted that the new policy “lends even more weight to the contention that the administrative leave and eventual coerced resignations were disciplinary in intent.”

Wahl was hired as superintendent in August 2013 to lead the A-rated suburban district of around 16,000 students. Previously, he was superintendent of Hinsdale Township High School District 86 in Hinsdale, Illinois.

Carmel School officials did not respond to a request for comment.

Wahl will receive his contract salary and partial benefits through June 30, 2018, according to the board. He was under contract through June 30, 2022.

Wahl's current base pay is $209,000. His contract provided incentive pay up to 12 percent of his base salary.  He received the full amount of incentive pay, or $25,080, for the 2016-2017 year.