Culligan, board meet privately

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By Dan King

The Whitehall Board of Education invited fired head football coach Justin Culligan to a closed-door meeting Monday.

After a half hour of talk, a school official who asked for anonymity said Culligan was “told no to coaching in the future.”

Board President Virginia Rivette refuted that claim, saying that the board “just listened to what Justin had to say” during the session. No public action came out of the session, which followed on the heels of an 80-minute closed-door session by the board.

Culligan declined to comment on what was said during his appearance before the board but he confirmed the discussion revolved around his Oct. 20 termination for “foul language.”

Culligan said that he had asked to meet with the board about the issue several times before; board members said that Monday was the first they had heard of Culligan’s requests.

Upon opening its regularly scheduled meeting, the board immediately moved into executive session to discuss “specific personnel and potential legal issues,” with Rivette stating the session wouldn’t be “too long.”

An hour and 20 minutes later, board member Sam Kingsley returned to the room where Culligan was waiting; much of the capacity crowd had dispersed by then. Kingsley told Culligan that he could enter the executive session, but she said that Ben Reynolds, Whitehall Teachers’ Union president, would not be permitted to join him. Culligan 2

“Justin, you can come in now, but Ben cannot,” Kingsley said.

Rivette said later: “Our discussions about coaching are not a union issue, these are annually appointed positions.”

New York State’s Open Meetings Law states that a public body ultimately is allowed to decide who may and may not enter an executive session.

Rivette said that the 80 minutes of the executive session that occurred prior to Culligan’s admission was about an entirely different topic.

“We discussed unrelated potential legal issues for the first portion,” she said.

After meeting with the board, Culligan spoke briefly with Reynolds in the hallway, as board members returned to public session.

Culligan, who also is a teacher in the district, was fired from his coaching position in the wake of a game that was marred by scuffling and foul language and ultimately stopped early by officials.