The Brookfield Board of Education’s most recent meeting, on March 5, was a family affair. The meeting started with a ninth grader at Brookfield High School, Melanie, asking the Board of Education (BOE) to review her in-school suspension. She believes she was unfairly targeted because of her father, Andrew Corea’s, advocacy. 

Melanie was suspended after secretly recording a meeting between her, another student, and four adults that took place at Brookfield High School, Melanie said at the BOE meeting. The other student in the room with Melanie had said “bad words” about her and edited a photo of Melanie to put an eggplant over her face, then posted that photo on Snapchat. 

Melanie claimed that in that 45-minute meeting, the other student continued to denigrate her and said they were proud of the photo. As this was happening, the four adults, including Brookfield High School Assistant Principal Katherine Abrego, did nothing, Melanie’s father, Andrew Corea, said in an interview.

“I want to know why the principals hate me. I want to know what the Board of Education (will do) to make this stop,” Melanie said. 

Before Melanie could hand out copies of the photo to the every member of the BOE, Board Chair Wendy Youngblood intervened and said it was out of order, because student matters were outside of the purview of the BOE, and it would be inappropriate for members to look at the photo. 

Andrew Corea, who spoke after his daughter, disagreed.  

“It is your job to manage the one employee to ensure that they manage the rest of the employees,” Corea said at the meeting. 

In an interview with Inside Investigator, Corea said Melanie had been subjected to sexually degrading insults for weeks by the student she was meeting with, among other allegations of bullying, but said that teachers would not get involved. He placed the blame on Superintendent John Barile, was the “one employee” Corea said the BOE had to manage, and claimed that Democrats on the Board refused to do their job. 

In the past 12 months, at least six formal complaints have been made against members of the BOE, and there have been two attempts to remove Youngblood from her position as chair. And in the past three years, the Democrats on the Board of Education have been accused of silencing critical parents and other board members, and acting as a yes-men for Barile. On the flip side of the coin, some Republican board members are accused of wasting time with petty complaints, overreaching their responsibilities and partisan decision making. 

Three events triggered some of the largest the conflicts in the past year: Youngblood acting on her own to cancel the livestream of a meeting in March; a meeting between Youngblood, Vice Chair Rosa Fernandes and the head of the teachers’ union, Dennis Petrino, in October; and debates about the school budget, including the process by which it was approved.

However, no two people agree on how simple problems turned into deep-seated divisions and hostility.  

If you ask Matt Grimes, it started last March after Youngblood decided to cancel the livestream of a meeting without meeting with the rest of the board. If you ask board member Joy Greenstein, the problem started at the meeting between Youngblood, Fernandes, and the head of the teachers’ union. If you ask Sarah Devine, it started a week after her first meeting as a member of the BOE with text messages she received from Fernandes. If you asked Denise Rice and Corea, who both have children in the district, it started years ago. And if you ask Youngblood, there isn’t really a problem at all.

Matt Grimes’ believes that today’s troubles began last March. It starts with a conviction that there are specific processes that BOE Chairs need to follow, as he puts it, for the sake of the town and the district.. 

Grimes has lived in Brookfield for over 40 years. He used to serve on the Brookfield BOE, and was the chair in the early 2000s. He says he knows how things should be done, and in his eyes, Youngblood is not doing them the right way. 

“She has been what I consider to be the most incompetent Board of Education chairman I’ve seen in my lifetime, and she’s shown absolutely no willingness to learn in the position,” Grimes said in an interview. “She’s shown no willingness to improve, and she seems to double down when she when she gets criticized. She has failed completely at bringing that board together.”

To Grimes, this became evident in March, 2024, when Youngblood made a decision to cancel a livestream of a BOE meeting. There had been a bomb threat earlier that month, and while it turned out to be a hoax, it was thought to be credible at the time. By that point in time, multiples schools, businesses and the Town Hall in Brookfield already received non-credible bomb threats.

Youngblood cancelled the livestream after a conversation with Barile, who claimed that he was given this advice by the chief of police. The meeting proceeded and a recording it was still put online after. 

“The Board of Ed has authority as a Board. What the chairman does is very limited, according to the bylaws,” Grimes said. “(The problems) started with her thinking she had authority to make a unilateral decision about live streaming the meeting back in the spring. And from there, it’s been downhill.”

So, Grimes filed a complaint. 

“She could have said, ‘I’m sorry. I should have consulted the Board, I will never do it again,’” Grimes said. “And instead, she’s doubled down.” 

At the BOE’s next meeting in April, his complaint was dismissed, so Grimes filed two more. One of these complaints called for Youngblood’s resignation. The other called for “the BOE to take Rosa Fernandes to task for her inappropriate and incorrect interpretation [of policy] leading to the dismissal of a valid complaint” and a promise that she would not do this again. 

Grimes isn’t the only person who believes that Youngblood makes too many unilateral decisions.

Devine says she wishes she knew why Youngblood changed procedures. In addition to cancelling the livestream of the March 20 meeting, Youngblood also removed the second comment period from BOE meetings for a few months and changed the way that she announced written correspondences. When Youngblood took office, she used to say the name of the person who wrote in, how many times they wrote in and what they were writing about. Now she no longer says what the person is writing about. 

Devine said that if a neighbor asked her why these decisions were made, she couldn’t tell them why.  

“I feel like I’m in the dark, which is really disheartening, because I’m trying to be able to back her up too, the same way I’d want her to back me up,” Devine said. “Literally, there are many items where we changes are made, and I really don’t know what happened or why.”

At one point, Devine claims she sent an email to Youngblood, asking if there could be a special meeting to address these decisions. Devine was told that, since she didn’t have “action steps,” there couldn’t be a meeting. 

Grimes sees the alienation of Devine, Greenstein and Erin Scalera, three of the four Republicans on the BOE, from the rest of the Board as failure of Youngblood’s leadership. 

Part of the problem is Youngblood’s inexperience, Grimes said. Youngblood was appointed to be the chair of the BOE in December, 2023, after only two days on the job. In contrast, both Fernandes and Greenstein have been on the BOE since 2017.  

 “I think that Wendy Youngblood should not have become the chairman of the Board of Ed,” Grimes said. “She was a brand new Board of Ed member. She was somebody that didn’t have to be elected by the people.”

In Brookfield, only four of the seven BOE members can belong to the same party. That means that during certain elections, unless there is a popular independent candidate, each party is guaranteed a certain number of seats. The year Youngblood was elected, the Democrats were guaranteed two seats on the BOE, and they only put forward two candidates. The Republicans also only had two seats, but they had four candidates. 

The way Grimes sees it, it was a given that Youngblood and Stephanie Sikora would be on the BOE.

“Wendy Youngblood was not elected by the people, she’s never held a public office, and she has never served on a Board of Education. That’s a very, very bad recipe for a first time Board of Ed Chairman,” Grimes said. 

The votes to put Youngblood and Fernandes in their current positions were close, but not partisan. Hala Hourani, who was a Republican board member at the time, voted for both Youngblood and Fernandes against Greenstein, who was nominated for both positions as well.

Hourani has since left the BOE—she resigned for “personal reasons” after serving for only a few months—and Scalera was appointed to fill her position. 

Greenstein and Devine both reject the idea that the discord on the BOE is based on political divides. They both say they can put their differences aside and solve problems, if they are given the chance to participate and be listened to.

While Greenstein, Devine and Scalera have voted to remove Youngblood from her position in the past, Republican Board Member Robert Fischetto has repeatedly voted to keep her in place. 

Similarly, Fischetto has voted with Democrats on several other matters that Greenstein, Devine and Scalera have strong objections to, such as the school budget. 

Fischetto, Fernandes, Sikora and Scalera could not be reached for questions.

Youngblood’s leadership was challenged again only seven months later.

The Brookfield School District conducted a school climate survey in the Spring of 2024. Though the survey found that, overall, students and parents had positive interactions with teachers in the district, but a large percentage of staff at Candlewood Lake Elementary School have problems with leadership.

The local teacher’s union president, Dennis Petrino, reached out to the BOE’s shared email address in October saying that he wanted to meet with the head of the BOE to discuss “climate issues directly related to actions by the board (sic) of Ed.” Youngblood agreed to meet with him before consulting the BOE’s attorney.

Youngblood did speak with the attorney after, and upon being advised to bring someone to the meeting, extended an invitation to Fernandes, a fellow Democrat.

Greenstein, the third member of the BOE’s Personnel and Negotiations Committee (P&N) and a Republican, was not invited.

“She broke our trust when I asked her specifically to meet with her and the union president when he requested the meeting, and at no point did she say that she was bringing Ms. Fernandes with her,” Greenstein said. “That really broke a lot of trust with the Board. It really fractured us from that point on in a real negative way.”

Shortly after that meeting, Greenstein, Devine and Scalera got a letter stating that someone had used the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to request documents from them. Protestors showed up to the next BOE meeting, on Oct. 16, holding signs that said, “Respect Our Teachers.” Greenstein and Devine, who are both teachers, felt attacked. 

“One could speculate that what was discussed during that meeting wasn’t their concerns, more their concerns towards us three,” Greenstein said. 

Greenstein believes that Youngblood did not defend her, Devine and Scalera, like Youngblood should have. 

A month later, at the Nov. 20 BOE meeting, the board heard another complaint against Youngblood. This one came from Rice, who believed that Youngblood violated the proper protocol when she agreed to meet with Petrino before consulting the BOE’s lawyer. Rice called for Youngblood to be removed from her position as chair.

The four Republicans on the BOE voted to review and discuss the complaint. The three Democrats—including Youngblood, who only recused herself after the complaint was being discussed—voted against discussing it.

After some discussion, there were three rounds of votes. Two were made to dismiss the complaint. Both motions were proposed by Democrats, and in both motions, Fernandes, Sikora and Fischetto voted to dismiss, while Greenstein, Devine and Scalera voted to continue the discussion. Both motions failed.

Greenstein then introduced a motion to strip Youngblood from her position of chair, which Devine and Scalera voted in favor of, while the rest of the Board opposed. That motion failed as well. 

The meeting between Youngblood, Fernandes and Petrino wasn’t the only teachers’ union controversy that happened that year. 

After the Oct. 16 protests, Devine reached out to a member of the teachers’ union and asked if there were any emails or statements going around about her, Greenstein and Scalera.

In the state of Connecticut, boards of education are involved in negotiating collective bargaining agreements. Board members are assigned the same responsibilities as employers would be, and are therefore subject to the same regulations. 

During periods of collective bargaining, employers, or in this case, BOE members, are not allowed to contact individual union members with questions about the union, without going through the head of the union first. 

 “It’s one of those ‘mountain out of a molehill’ type of thing,” Devine said. “It was literally like, I know a teacher and I had a question for a teacher, ‘Hey, what’s, what’s up?’ Literally as casual as if I saw the person in the supermarket.”

It took months for this brief communication to come to light. Similarly, Greenstein did not find out that Fernandes had attended the meeting with Youngblood and Petrino until a Brookfield resident released information from Freedom of Information (FOI) requests. 

At its meeting on Jan. 15, the BOE approved a proposed budget after a serious conversation, but no modifications. Youngblood, Fernandes, Sikora and Fischetto voted in favor of the budget, while Devine, Greenstein and Scalera voted against it.

This happened after 55 minutes of discussion at the Jan. 15 meeting, a public town hall about the budget the month before, and a period where Board members were able to leave comments on the proposed budget, which was put forth by Barile. Only two members—Devine and Sikora—didn’t leave comments. 

“This was only my second budget season, and I just feel like it wasn’t given a fair airtime,” Devine said. “I just think we could have had more conversations about it, rather than just going, ‘Okay, we’re done.’”

Last year, according to Devine, the budget process was more robust. She didn’t leave any questions on the proposed budget document that was shared with the BOE before the meeting, because she says that Greenstein and Scalera asked the pertinent questions on her mind, and she assumed that she would have time to discuss her concerns at a meeting. 

Instead, Devine felt like her concerns were dismissed. At the Jan. 15 meeting, she wanted to see more math interventionalists, or teachers who provide specific help to students with Individualized Education Programs (IEPs).   

More than a year before this meeting, Devine and Fernandes got into a fight through text messages. Fernandes mentioned Devine’s concerns for special education during this spat.

In a text exchange that happened two days after Devine’s first meeting as a BOE member, Devine accused Fernandes of laughing at a woman during public comment. Fernandes said she “did gruffle in frustration for the utter lack of understanding regarding how budgets have been constructed regarding special education but I NEVER (sic) laughed”. 

An argument ensued. 

Devine went on to claim Fernandes used the word “gruffle” incorrectly and tell Fernandes that she should just “own” her actions and move on. Fernandes responded, saying that she does “own” her actions and that Devine should not “question her integrity” and then wrote “Go ahead sarah (sic), you’re so in favor of padding the budget for special education, go out and advocate for it…..or maybe, just maybe, go educate yourself.”

Fernandes did not respond to multiple requests for interviews.

Toward the end of the budget discussion on Jan. 15, and more than two and a half hours into the meeting, Barile proposed that the Board make a motion to approve the overall cost of the budget—which was not contested—and come back in the future to get into how money should be allocated.

However, Youngblood and Fernandes didn’t think that was necessary. Fernandes proposed voting on the budget as it was written, stating that, while she might disagree with some parts of it, she trusted the expertise of Barile, Assistant Superintendent Anna Mahon, and the other people who put it together, and that it was important to stand by them. 

Youngblood, who is a high school teacher at another district in Connecticut, agreed. 

“I think that we, in these deliberations over the last hour, we got into some serious weeds to get some questions answered, but… that’s really not where we belong as a Board of Education. That role belongs to the educational leaders at this table and at the other tables and to the professionals who work with them,” Youngblood said at the meeting. “It’s not our job… to tell these folks operationally how to manage these things, for a host of reasons. But fundamentally, that is not the role of the board.”

Youngblood, Fernandes, Sikora and Fischetto voted in favor of the budget, while Greenstein, Devine and Scalera voted against it. 

Greenstein, who is also a teacher in another school district as well as the vice president of a teachers’ union, disagreed with Youngblood’s assessment of the BOE’s responsibilities. 

“That’s completely false,” Greenstein said. “I mean, the crux of what we do is to set the budget, do policies, to evaluate the superintendent, and how can we not look at district operations if we’re not evaluating them appropriately.”

In an email to Inside Investigator, Barile stated: “I do not comment on the politics of the Board of Education.”

Devine, Greenstein and Scalera took their complaints public. According to Devine, the NewsTimes reached out to the Republicans and asked for a statement. So, the three of them issued a letter that ended up on a local Facebook page and sparked another controversy at the next BOE meeting. 

The letter stated that they believed that there should have been more discussion at the Jan. 15 meetings and that the Board should have spent the rest of the month in January in special meetings—something Grimes said was standard when he was on the BOE—so they could refine the budget as much as they could before Feb. 1, when it was required to be submitted to the First Selectman. 

This may have violated a rule that the BOE had unanimously implemented at its Jan. 15 meeting, which limits how Board members can speak to the press. 

However, Devine believes it doesn’t. She said the three of them filed paperwork to have a Republican caucus, sent a statement in response to a question, and they were not trying to speak for the entire Board, just for themselves. 

On Feb. 19, a number of community members showed up to public comment and lambasted the three Republicans for their statement. Many of them also praised the Democrats for not responding to these statements. 

Youngblood did not respond to questions or requests for interviews about the Greenstein, Devine and Scalera’s statement, nor the political situation at the BOE. Instead, she made a statement which acknowledged that there have been conflicts in the past few months and went on to say, “However, we are committed to working together to solve problems, update policies, steward the budget through to referendum, and support our district leaders. We have a great leadership team in place, and they are likewise committed to listening to and supporting the teachers and staff who work with all our students. I know it’s not a flashy news story, but that’s the bottom line in Brookfield. The Board composition reflects the political and ideological profile of the town… I wish the focus were more on what we are accomplishing and less on the few—but loud—voices determined to highlight division.”

These conflicts, and their consequences, aren’t confined to Board of Education members. Some of the most vocal critics of the BOE are parents who have long-term struggles with the district and believe that Board members are complicit, like Andrew Corea and Denise Rice. 

Corea, who once filed for an ethics complaint against Greenstein after she requested the disciplinary records of his oldest daughter, believes that his daughters have been systemically discriminated against. 

Corea has been in conflict with the BOE, Barile and other administrators in Brookfield for years. It started with his older daughter, who he claimed was harassed by an administrator, and was not helped. Now, he believes that Melanie is being treated unfairly. He has shown up to BOE meetings regularly and sent email complaints to administrators and BOE members. He told Inside Investigator that statements that he thinks are harmless, like talking about potentially making police reports, have been interpreted as threats, and he has been labelled as “aggressive” at meetings. 

He thinks that his advocacy for his daughters, and the fact that his daughters were potentially used as witnesses into an investigation of a former cheer coach, caused administrators to deny his youngest daughter a proper IEP and employees of the district—including teachers and administrators—to disparage him in front of his daughter’s friends.  

More recently, Corea is upset about how Melanie’s bullying investigation was handled. He says high school officials broke their own policies by suspending Melanie after telling her she only had a warning for recording the meeting. Corea sent multiple emails to high school and district administrators and even spoke to a police officer, but did not file a criminal complaint. 

In Barile’s email, he stated, “A parent can make any accusations or statement that they wish. Educators are obliged to student confidentiality, and therefore, I will not comment on any specific student matter.”

Rice also believes that the Brookfield administration, and Barile in particular, is trying to silence her. 

Rice has struggled for years to get the appropriate accommodations for her children with special needs. In 2022, Rice was offered a contract to send one of her children to another school for 11 years, under the condition that she would stop talking to anyone in the Brookfield Public School District, the BOE and stop talking to the media about her experiences in the district. Her story was the subject of a separate investigation by Inside Investigator.

She declined the offer—which she never asked for in the first place—and continued to keep her kids in the district.

Since then, she has received other forms of pushback.

Rice has made multiple FOI requests for information about communications with the BOE. She says it can take months to hear back from the school district—which isn’t an unusual time frame—and she has sometimes been met with hostility by administrators and staff. 

Rice received results from the district-wide climate survey that revealed teachers had serious problems with the administration, especially in the Candlewood Lake Elementary School; and it was one of her FOIs that revealed that Youngblood brought Fernandes to her meeting with Petrino.

But it’s one thing to gather information, and another to speak out about it.

Rice used to work as a substitute teacher for the company ESS Education, which serves the Brookfield Public School District, as well as other areas in Connecticut. Since her children were in Brookfield, Rice made the decision to never sub classes there. But when she sent an email to the BOE, she was told by a representative from ESS that she could not contact administrators directly—so she quit.

Then in January, she reached out to an administrator and cc-ed the members of the BOE on the email. Her email praised certain faculty in the Brookfield School District, while claiming that there were others who did not do their jobs well. She named names.

In response, Youngblood sent her an email stating “It is absolutely inappropriate that you should include the Board in this type of email. You know that. Please stop. We are not meant to be included in the specific details and allegations you entail here. Per our legal requirements we must remain impartial and can therefore not be privy to one party’s version of details relative to personnel issues. Further, under FERPA we are not entitled to read the details laid out here.”

In response to this email, Rice reminded Youngblood that, as a parent, she is allowed to disclose whatever details she wants to about her child. 

Despite the School Board hiring Barile and firing his predecessor, Anthony Bivona, Youngblood has remained adamant in emails and public statements that it is not the Board’s job to discipline the superintendent in this case.

“There are processes within our policy manual that allow for formal complaints of personnel or for appeals when applicable, and for the mature resolution of conflict. For most of these processes, the Superintendent is and should be the last stop,” Youngblood said at the March 5 meeting. “The Board is not an appellate body for everything people are dissatisfied with. We have a very narrow scope and a very narrow appeals purview. The board does not have a role in undermining the superintendent or school administration on student discipline matters.”  

On March 10, Barile announced that he accepted a job as Dean of the School of Education at Central Connecticut State University (CCSU). He will finish out the year at Brookfield before moving to his next position.

“The BOE has a big job finding a replacement,” Irene Corea said. She is Melanie’s mother and Andrew Corea’s wife. “That person has a very big job to do when they come in. There’s a lot of things to fix in my opinion.”

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