Human Resources Executive Director To Retire

Lisa E. Crowley
BrocktonPost
BROCKTON--Human Resources Executive Director Kathy Sirois, a long-time employee in the school system, will retire at the end of June.
Jocelyn Meek, the school department's spokeswoman, said Sirois submitted her letter of retirement to Superintendent Matthew Malone Tuesday afternoon before the School Committee's meeting Tuesday night when Malone had to apologize to the committee and parents for providing for the second time erroneous information about the school department's compliance with state Criminal Offenders Record Information, or CORI, background checks.
"She had been thinking about retiring and it was a decision she made," Meek said Thursday. "Dr. Malone accepted her resignation and is sorry to see her go," she said.
Malone could not immediately be reached for comment.
Sirois, who Meek said has worked in the school system since 1967. Sirois will retire on June 30.
Meek said she did not know if Sirois' retirement had anything to do with the recent spate of misinformation about CORI checks that followed when 21-year-old Kevin Treseler, a Stonehill College student who worked as a tutor in Brockton, was charged with rape and assault of a third-grader at Angelo Elementary School.
Tuesday night, Malone again took responsibility for the second instance of erroneous informaton provided to school committee members and parents since Treseler's arrest.
Tuesday night Malone said he could not trust information from the school department's human resources department because the systems to check information, such as CORI compliance, are outdated.
The first instance Malone said Treseler and other Stonehill tutors had received background checks before working in the schools.
The second instance Malone told school committee members during a closed session meeting employees in the schools had been rechecked every 3 years as state law requires.
Both instances turned out to be wrong.
He said the system consists of paper and file cabinets that with thousands of pieces of paper is too time consuming to confirm who has been rechecked and who has not.
Malone said all 2007 and 2008 employees will be rechecked and that process began this week and could take 6 to 8 weeks to complete.