'Pappas doesn't want school board to talk. It's his voice he wants board to hear'

From left, Rochester school board chair Matt Pappas and former board member Paul Cormier. (Courtesy photos)

ROCHESTER - Paul Cormier wanted to be a change agent when he ran for the Rochester school board in 2023, but what he found out quickly was that few on the board were ready for a change.
"When I joined the board I wanted the schools to go back to the basics: reading, writing and arithmetic, but no one paid much attention to that," he said on Thursday. "All they did was want to do these social classes. I mean you need math your whole life, and these kids these days can't do basic math in their head. It's not good."
Cormier also said that recent comments by school board chair Matt Pappas instructing board members not to "put stuff on Facebook" was problematic in that it chokes off board members' ability to communicate with their constituents.
"Pappas doesn't want the school board to talk," he said. "It's his voice he wants board members to hear. He's always last to speak (during board meetings), because he thinks if he speaks last, it's what board members will remember."
Cormier also said many board members were inconsistent with their approach to Facebook.
"I remember one time I saw some comments on Facebook that I thought we as a board should discuss, and they said 'just ignore Facebook comments' and then a few weeks later they brought something they'd seen on social media and said the board needed to address this."
The "they" he was referring to were a group of three or four school board members that he didn't want to name who he viewed as decidedly "not change" agents whom he characterized as bullies.
"I went home from a lot of meetings feeling so agitated it would take a couple of hours to calm down, and sometimes I couldn't even get to sleep," he said.
Cormier resigned from the board of his own volition last July, due to "the board's "backstabbing."
"I cannot continue with the personal vendettas, holier than thou attitudes, backstabbing and double talk, which seem to be the norm from the board," he said during his resignation speech.
But what frosted him the most was that soon after former School Supt. Annie Azarloza was suspended, he and a group of friends wanted to cheer her up, so they invited her to come out with them to a comedy show.
"When they (the same group he didn't want to identify by name) found out I'd done that, they came after me, saying, 'How dare you take her out during the investigation?' Well, we never spoke about the investigation, we were just friends. They were questioning my integrity," he said. "That was wrong."