Thacher Community Letter Questions Actions Of The Thacher Board Of Trustees

OJAI, Calif., Aug. 25, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Members of The Thacher School community, including former trustees, alumni, and parents, today sent the following letter to The Board of Trustees of The Thacher School, questioning, among other issues, the credibility of a so-called impartial Report by the law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP, commissioned by The Thacher School Board, and the Board's subsequent handling of the Report with The Thacher School community. The letter requests the Board make public to the community certain information.

The Letter follows:

Dear Board of Trustees of The Thacher School,

We have been concerned for quite some time with the ongoing impairment to the reputation of The Thacher School as a result of the Board's handling of the Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP ("MTO") Report with the Thacher community. The Report, commissioned by the Board with School funds, was supposed to be "impartial," but to many of us, it and the Board's subsequent reaction to the Report's narrative are anything but impartial. Rather the Board's subsequent actions smack of not learning from the past but rather of concocting a revisionist past under the guise of the Report to avoid accountability and responsibility by the current Board and administration for The Thacher School of the present.

Taking the Mulligan name off of the dining hall building, for example, makes no sense. Michael Mulligan is viewed by most of the Thacher community of the past three decades as a former sterling Head of School and as instrumental in building a supportive, positive community and healthy environment for teenagers' growth at Thacher. He is not responsible for whatever cultural problems Thacher may be experiencing today. He brought Thacher to a level of national recognition for a healthy learning community, which, in turn, resulted in an exceptionally high admission selectivity among boarding schools. Indeed, the MTO Report itself does not describe him as a wrongdoer but rather is written in a way to unfairly depict him in certain situations as not doing enough or acting in a timely enough manner - all of which is bunk based on the governance and procedures at Thacher during his time there. In addition, the removal of Joy Sawyer-Mulligan's name from the dining hall without explanation is neither justified by the Report nor warranted in light of her decades of contributions to the Thacher community.

Since the Board began this past June to use the revisionist history it commissioned to position its actions, we are aware that the Board has received significant pushback and cries of "foul" from a cross section of the Thacher community – a community whose entire interests the Board has a responsibility to represent. We, therefore, ask that the Board publicly inform the community of the quantity of letters, e-mails, and phone calls it has received protesting its handling of the MTO Report.

In addition, we have numerous questions for the Board and current leadership of The Thacher School, to which the entire Thacher community is owed honest answers.

The Thacher community deserves answers to these critical questions.

Respectfully,

Philip L. Pillsbury, Jr. CdeP '67, (Son CdeP '32, Parent of CdeP'2008)
Parent Trustee 2007-8, Trustee 2009-2018, Board Vice Chair (2016-18), Chair, Audit Committee (2009-2018), Co-Chair Search Committee (2017-8)

George and Ann Smith (Parents of CdeP '86 and CdeP '87, Grandparents of CdeP '16 and CdeP '19)

Lauren McClosky Elston CdeP '98

Edward ("Ward") Waltemath (Parent CdeP '18 and CdeP '21)

Janice and Jim Day Parent Trustees 2019-2020, Parents CdeP '20

Edmund T. ("Ned") Banning CdeP '74

Ann G. and Tom Oliver, Parents CdeP '08

Media Contact:
Philip Pillsbury
ppillsbury@pillsburycoleman.com, 415-710-7985

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SOURCE Members of The Thacher School Community