By Bonnie Washuk,Staff Writer

AUBURN – Residents angry about an Edward Little High School teacher who blasted them in a public meeting for asking budget questions demanded Tuesday that the teacher be fired.

“What she said is wrong,” Daniel Herrick said.

He was among a group of residents at a heated meeting with school officials, demanding that math teacher Tina Vanasse of Auburn be dismissed. She plans to retire in June.

“She should not even be teaching,” Herrick said. “She should be on administrative leave.”

School Superintendent Barbara Eretzian said there were no grounds to fire or discipline Vanasse. Like any resident, a teacher has the right to speak at public meetings.

Eretzian and School Committee members David Das and Kathy Constantine said they did not condone what Vanasse did. In the future, anyone not being respectful during public meetings would be stopped, they agreed.

Eretzian said she had dealt with Vanasse’s behavior, but the superintendent declined to elaborate.

At a March 15 School Committee meeting, Vanasse lambasted taxpayers for asking questions. Turning her back on the committee and looking at the audience, Vanasse said: “How does a man with no educational background have the arrogance and the audacity to stand before the superintendent and the School Committee and ask the questions they’re asking?”

Vanasse’s behavior “was completely out of order. I want to know why the chair didn’t rule her out of order,” said Edward Desgrosseilliers at Tuesday’s meeting with Eretzian.

Herrick complained that Vanasse degraded him and taxpayers, implying they were uneducated. “I graduated from Edward Little High School! Everybody who graduated from Edward little is uneducated? … I may be a dumb, uneducated businessman, but I can support myself.”

Eretzian said “we do not condone what she did.”

Others were Herrick, Greg Desgrosseilliers, Reginald Emery Sr., Bob O’Connor and Leo Camire. Several are members of the United Citizens of Auburn, a taxpayers’ watchdog group.

They said they intend to continue asking questions because property taxes are too high, and too much is spent in the Auburn School Department.

During the meeting, which lasted more than an hour, voices were raised, and taxpayers pointed fingers at school officials. They often asked questions, then interrupted as officials tried to answer.

Constantine pointed out that in past meetings, Desgrosseilliers’ and Herrick’s behavior at times have “walked the line,” or bordered on being disrespectful. They asked for an example.

Constantine recalled how she asked Herrick if he was talking about the business manager? Herrick responded by saying, “Well if you want to call him that.” That is not respectful, Constantine said.

Herrick said school officials have also been disrespectful. He motioned to Eretzian and said Tuesday, “She called me obnoxious.”

“I didn’t call you obnoxious,” Eretzian said. “I said your behavior was obnoxious.”

“Don’t give me your adolescence (lecture),” Herrick said.

Part of the problem, O’Connor said, is that school officials view taxpayers as teenagers “and forget that we pay the bills in this town.”

The group can bring in hundreds of unhappy taxpayers, O’Connor said. “It would behoove you to pacify us and make peace with us” given the looming budget, he said.

The group said its questions aren’t aimed at individuals. Questions are being asked at random about spending “that looks funny,” Desgrosseilliers said.