By Jeff Vorva

Dancing and singing were a part of the Beecher District 200-U Board meeting on February 13.

But they were not the subjects that produced joy and fun. This was not a merry meeting.

Quite the opposite.

The meeting got started with a bang, when board member and board secretary Janet Paulmeier resigned and gave a fiery four-minute statement.

Paulmeier, who served from 2015-2019 and began a second term in 2021, said that a video of her dancing was shown on social media. That triggered an explosion of residents and a few board members asking for her resignation. She did resign but vowed she will have the last word.

“I seriously wonder what the purpose of this will serve, and what this has to do being a school board member,” she said of the video. “Maybe they are jealous people of having a good time and being a fun mom.

“Then I thought…hatred. These people who continue to talk month after month after month at a school board meeting are promoting hatred. There are people in this community with so much hate in their veins, ugliness in their hearts, and negativity in their lives that they will have to find something on someone and that someone is now me.”

She said her personal life was her own business and said unnamed people have “stepped to the lowest of lows that you could have possibly stepped.”

She also called it “extortion and blackmail of an elected official” and is seeking legal council for defamation of character.

“I will be having the last word, and you will not,” Paulmeier said. “I pray for people like you that want to promote negativity and think bashing people that are trying to do the right things in the community just to make yourself feel better.”

While she wouldn’t name anyone, she said a current board member is “in cahoots” with two former board members “behind this witch hunt.”

She said the board member is “telling kids it’s OK to bully and will stop at nothing that gets in his way attempting to destroy and demoralize people.”

Paulmeier said some board members are ruining the board and losing great people and that all of this is coming out shortly before the April 4 election.

“I’ve done good work on this board, and we may have not met eye-to-eye on everything, but the bottom line is we do what’s right for our children and for our staff,” she said.

She ended her statement with a zinger to her critics.

“Maybe you should hang out with me and let loose someday,” she said. “But then again, I don’t hang out with people who are not as cool as me.”

Paulmeier prefaced her statement that she expected members of the public to criticize her and ask for her resignation.

After she left the meeting, there was a public comment period, but her situation was never brought up.

What was brought up, however, was a parent urging the board to not cut choir from the junior high school. Because of a deficit, the board will be mulling potential cuts, including eliminating junior high choir.

Then eighth-grader Isabella Pena used her three minutes of allotted comment time to sing “Rise Up” to the board in a show of support for the choir, of which she is a member.

Board president Julie Papas said the song was moving and hopes the cuts don’t come to that.

Special meeting

The board will meet at 5 p.m. on February 28 to discuss a contract extension for superintendent Jack Gaham.

During the February 13 meeting, it approved contracts of principals Nicole Black, Michelle Kwasny, and Mike Meyer.