This is FU

On Tuesday April 19th, after 6 months of reporting on Purnima Demorais, we offered her a way out – to write an apology letter to us and to all her former staff in Framingham.

You see we have been covering her mysterious and sudden departure as the principal at Harmony Grove last fall to take a lateral-position at Tewksbury’s North Street School. Months after taking that job, we heard she had been applying for new jobs. We covered how she lied to a news agency in an interview in Tewksbury, her application to roles in Newburyport, Ashland, Worcester, and Marblehead, in all those locations pulling her application packets by FOIA, and concurrently redressing our grievances to those municipalities on Demorais, concerns shared with us from Harmony Grove whistleblowers, and suggesting those school departments look into our coverage.

In asking for an apology we wrote,

“We are seeking a public written apology for the way you attacked our integrity and well researched reporting, by calling us a “ridiculous website”.

In your letter to staff when you left HG, you chose to apologize only to “those individuals who are genuine to their work as well as good and decent human beings”, specifically calling the whistleblowers that reached out to FU, “toxic individuals”.

Your public apology must include your former staff, all of them, not just the ones you deemed “genuine” and “good”, as well as to all the staffers, researchers, and readers of FU.

If you write a letter that meets these qualifications, while we can’t promise you’ll land a job – we can however promise that we won’t work against you going forward.”

It really is a lot of work determining all the places Demorais is a finalist for a role, filing FOIA’s, appealing denials, and redressing our grievances over and over and over. So an apology letter, which would set Demorais free, would have been a win for us as well.

Pretty soon after we sent a message to Demorais – we received this from her. She wanted to talk this through, get to know us, get to know the identities of those involved in her downfall.

We posted the email to Facebook stating that we asked for an apology and all we got was this stupid message. We doubted that she took the FU threat seriously, and doubted she had one molecule of remorse in her body.

We’ll get back to our email exchange in a moment…. First we need to go back to what Demorais did on her way out the door. This will explain why we have been following Demorais and tagging along in her post-Framingham career moves…

Days before she was to resign her position at Harmony Grove, on October 19th, 2021, Demorais wrote a letter via shared google document to all her staff members, essentially attacking FU, its integrity and solid reporting. Click the pages below to see how on her way out, she attacked us and a select portion of her staff calling them names – not very professional. Then once all her staff saw the letter, she attempted to remove it from the public record, by un-sharing or deleting the source google document. After many months and avenues of inquiry we were able to obtain a copy.

While we have been unable to acquire any proof, we believe Demorais had been under HR investigation for improprieties in leadership, hiring, and favoritism since the spring of 2021, and we also believe that an agreement had been made in lieu of asking her to leave, that she would find a new job and/or resign by a certain time.

So back to the present, at the end of the day after we posted Demorais’s ‘lets talk’ email… she apologized.

As for her apology, it was pretty lousy. It was a ‘sorry not sorry’ type message, it was doing the bare minimum in order to elicit the desired result – a chance at a job.

She wants a new job, and knows that we have redressed our grievances in Marblehead, Newburyport, Worcester, and Ashland, and whether our acts made a difference in their hiring process – our messaging was facts, opinions, and legally protected speech – and because we attached our messaging to FOIA requests – it was heard.

In the video claims by her that Tewksbury is consolidating grade levels, and uncertainty, etc… A FOIA to Tewksbury and responded to on April 13th, has revealed that Demorais has not resigned, submitted an intent to resign, nor has been sanctioned, or asked not to return. Essentially after talking smack about Tewksbury, that they are making her feel like her job is in jeopardy, and that the uncertainty is making her want to leave… if she does not get offered a new role before next school year – she will likely remain in Tewksbury.

In the video she talks about the Ashland Indian ‘Luxury’ temple she goes to, like every week. A member of that temple responded, “I am a resident of Ashland and belong to the Indian community here and associated with a local HINDU temple here. She is outright liar and does not have good reputation with local INDIAN community. She has changed her last name after getting remarried to avoid embarrassments.  She floats her credentials and is an impressive speaker. BUT SHE HAS INTERGRITY ISSUES.  I request school committee to thoroughly check her credentials about her past jobs and why she was forced to quit and he education and so called Doctorate degree?”

As for her lack of effort in an apology to us – it totally juxtaposes the effort she made in her going out in a blaze of glory letter attacking us and other “toxic individuals”. It’s okay though… She’s been blowing her chances all by herself…

See these Ashland post interview anonymous responses from invited teachers, parents, and community members. She’s got failure in the bag. As for us – we’ll let her try to flap her wings and fly – but have you ever seen a turkey fly?

If you have made it this far – Go Fly Purnima – but imagine what would have happened if she was sincere in her apology. Sad. If anyone wants to reach out to Purnima – she can try again. Old dogs can learn… right?