Stamford School District board rejects censure of member over handling of confidential student report

The Stamford School District Board of Education on Thursday considered but defeated a motion to censure board member Dr. Becky Hammond over the forwarding of a confidential student report.

The special meeting, called to order at about 7:15 p.m., focused on an email chain and attached report the board chair said had been marked confidential and was intended to remain in the recipient board member's possession. The chair read provisions of the board's bylaws and said members had been asked on July 21 to confirm they would keep the report private.

"When I receive your email with that agreement, I will send you the report," the chair read from the July correspondence, stressing the board's expectation that privileged material remain controlled. The chair moved "that the Stamford Board of Education would censure" Hammond, describing censure as a public reprimand.

Hammond defended her actions, saying she had a broken home printer and forwarded the report to a computer she sometimes uses at her husband's business so it could be printed. "I shared a computer with Lori Umhofer," she said, and described the forwarding and printing as an inadvertent, one-time action intended to produce a hard copy rather than to disclose the material broadly. "I handled that with utmost care," she said, and added she intended the report to be shredded after reading it.

Board members probed whether the other person had ever taken possession of the report, how long the printer had been broken and whether Hammond had a prior record of similar conduct. Several members said intent matters. One board member argued the immediate admission and the claimed lack of prior offenses made censure excessive in this case.

After discussion and a second to the motion, the board conducted a hand/roll vote, worked through connection issues for the remote member Julie Foy and recorded an abstention. The motion to censure was defeated and the board adjourned.

The meeting packet referenced an internal report prepared by "Dr. Rhodes" and an email thread from July 21 in which members were asked to confirm they would not share the report; the board chair quoted bylaw language requiring members to "respect the confidentiality of executive session" material. No further disciplinary action was recorded at the meeting.