The appeal hearing for the three fired Barrington teachers has been postponed.

The hearing had been scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 10, but there was a disagreement about the venue used to hold the hearing — the school committee wanted to hold it online, while the teachers were requesting an in-person hearing. 

On Wednesday night, Greg Piccirilli, the attorney for the teachers, confirmed that the hearing had been postponed. 

The Barrington School Department’s attorney, Sara Rapport, shared a message with school committee members regarding the situation:

“The Governor’s Executive Order allowing for virtual meetings has been extended through February 14th. From the inception of the COVID-19 pandemic, the practice by this Committee has been to convene virtually for all meetings if the public health situation had worsened to the extent that such practice was permitted by the Governor or mandated by the Town Manager. On Monday, I conferred with Gina (Bae) who as Chair has the responsibility of making decisions regarding the logistics of Committee meetings. She made the call, after consultation with both Mr. (Jon) Anderson and me, not to alter the Committee practice for now. We are hopeful that the Governor will soon deem the situation safe enough to require a return to in person meetings.”

The Governor’s Executive Order 22-01 allows public bodies to meet remotely or in-person, provided there is also a remote option for the public. The town manager has also issued an executive order that allows public meetings to be held in-person, as long as there are ways for people to also access the meeting via the phone or online. The order also allows for meetings to be held remotely.

Background

The fired Barrington teachers — Brittany DiOrio, Kerri Thurber and Stephanie Hines — requested religious exemptions from the district’s vaccine mandate, but at a pre-termination hearing in Oct. 2021, Barrington School Committee members Ms. Bae, Erika Sevetson and Megan Douglas followed the superintendent’s recommendation to deny the requests, citing an “undue burden” the teachers’ unvaccinated status would place on the school department.

The terminated teachers also filed a lawsuit against the school committee, alleging that the school committee did not properly notice the meeting during which the committee voted to approve the vaccine mandate for all school department employees.