The upheaval in Springfield Public Schools centers around a very basic issue: Who runs the district? Is it the superintendent and his administrative staff, or the publicly elected school board?

The answer should be: both. Ideally, the board and their superintendent work side by side as partners. But what if the superintendent does not respond to questions and concerns voiced by board members on behalf of the community they represent? Who has the legal right to direct the district?

The answer is: The school board. The board sets the district’s direction on behalf of the people who voted for them. As stated on the district’s website: “Springfield Public Schools is led by a five-member elected school board. The superintendent helps facilitate the work of the board and is responsible to the board for providing leadership to the district and carrying out board directives.”

This fundamental issue crystallizes in the disregard of three board directors’ repeated inquiries to Superintendent Todd Hamilton over some pressing issues facing Springfield Public Schools:

Two board directors, Jonathan Light and Ken Kohl, recently sought answers to two pressing questions facing the district: First, what is the status of a teacher complaint to the Oregon Department of Education claiming Springfield is not meeting the requirement of teaching all required subjects to K-5 kids? And second, how does a school board find out about cost overruns on big projects?

Neither board member could get adequate and timely answers from the superintendent or his staff. After repeated requests, they chose to directly seek answers from the Oregon Department of Education. Light and Kohl were doing their jobs as elected and engaged representatives of the community.

In an unprecedented act, the superintendent and his deputies filed a total of four complaints against the two board members. This could be seen as punishing board members who question authority by doing what they believe is necessary to get answers.

Rather than directly addressing board members’ questions and discussing honestly whether Springfield students are being shortchanged in their education by not having adequate access to science, social studies and other non-standardized-tested subjects, the district’s superintendent and his deputies chose to punish the board members who insisted on answers. Parents need honest answers.

Rather than directly and honestly answering questions about expenditures of district funds, once again the district chose to punish the questioner. Taxpayers need honest answers.

The complaints resulted in the district hiring an investigator — a former superintendent — at a cost of $35,000. Not surprisingly, he agreed with the superintendent that the board members were out of bounds.

We disagree: Shooting the messenger is not smart public policy. This drama could have been prevented if the district responded nondefensively to legitimate parent and teacher concerns about children not getting a well-rounded education and to concerns about the process of school funds spent on sports fields.

This situation reveals the real problem in Springfield Public Schools: a lack of communication between the elected Springfield Board of Education and their hired employee, the superintendent. If that communication had been consistently in place, the board members would not have needed to seek information directly from the state Department of Education.

Springfield schools are suffering. Seventy-five teachers have signed a letter to the school board calling for a more well-rounded elementary curriculum, and 500 people have signed a similar online petition. Meanwhile, enrollment has dropped significantly over the past decade.

The school board and their superintendent must work together. This is currently not happening. The board, the teachers, the classified support staff, the principals, the parents and the students need to be included as decision-making allies. A healthy organization seeks input from all stakeholders, appreciates questions, is responsive and is transparent.

Springfield deserves better.

Larry Lewin taught in public elementary, middle and high schools from the 1970s to 2000. He's a former part-time instructor in the masters program at the University of Oregon College of Education, and a co-founder of the Eugene-based Community Alliance for Public Education, or CAPE.

Roscoe Caron is a retired teacher who taught in Lane County middle schools and co-founded a program that links Latino middle schoolers with Latino students from the University of Oregon. He's also a co-founder of the Eugene-based Community Alliance for Public Education, or CAPE.