By Linda Conner Lambeck

WESTPORT – The still simmering soccer coach non-renewal situation was kept off the school board agenda Thursday evening but that did not stop a half dozen Staples High School soccer players from expressing their support for “Coach Russ.”

“Why didn’t our voices matter?” asked Dylan Shackelford, a Staples junior and one of the captains of the 2025-26 Staples soccer team, who was flanked by teammates during the public comment portion of the business meeting.

Despite an effort from board member Robert Harrington to discuss the situation of soccer coach RussellOost-Lievense in May, the board largely stayed silent.

“Your silence was disappointing,” Drew Hill, another Staples junior and team captain, told the board. “If this is how decisions are made, if this is how our administration and Board of Education operates then anyone could be next.”

The students said they sat through the 14-hour hearing on May 12 at which the board was asked to consider if School Superintendent Thomas Scarice and other administrators acted in an arbitrary or capricious manner when they decided not to renew the contract of Head Soccer Coach

On May 16, four days after the hearing, about 200 Staples students staged a walkout from classes in protest of the coach’s firing.

“We have many feelings about what went down that day, but underlying all of our emotions is confusion,” Shackelford said.

“We don’t understand why the Board of Ed didn’t allow Coach Russ to present witnesses,” Zach Gillman, another Staples junior told the board. “We don’t understand how an investigation that was described as thorough could have been completed in just three days, with so few interviews.”

At the conclusion of the day-long hearing at Town Hall, the board voted 5-1, to side with the administration and allowed the contract non-renewal to stand.

The suspension and eventual non-renewal occurred last fall, months after an August dispute occurred between a player and assistant soccer coach that Oost-Lievense did not report to Athletic Director VJ Sarullo.

Sarullo reportedly found out about the incident through an anonymous tip.

Students who spoke to the board on Thursday said they did not understand how some board members never asked a question during the 14-hour hearing.

“The hearing repeatedly emphasized the importance of setting a good example,” Hill told the board. “At school, we are constantly encouraged to raise our hands, ask questions, be curious and seek understanding and this applies to things not nearly as consequential as someone’s life and livelihood.”

Board Member Robert Harrington, who cast the dissenting vote, tried and failed to initiate a discussion of the hearing at Thursday’s meeting.

Harrington said the superintendent and Board Chair Lee Goldstein refused his request to put the items on the agenda prior to the meeting.

As a board member, Harrington was able to make motions at the meeting for a discussion but it would have required a two-thirds majority vote for one to take place. No one seconded either of his motions.

The first motion was a request to re-open the hearing on Oost-Lievense’s non-renewal so that the board could hear from witnesses not allowed to speak during the hearing and see all emails potentially relevant to the case.

Harrington said he found it unimaginable that 100 percent of the objections raised by the administration over witnesses called to testify on the coach’s behalf were sustained. Their testimony deemed inadmissible.

“I’d like to hear from those witnesses,” Harrington said. He called the hearing a sham and said he wished that the administration would sit down with the coach and try to come up with a resolution that would move the district forward.

The coach, Harrington maintains, did little if anything wrong.

“Student athletes are crying out,” Harrington added.

The second motion was a request that the board waive attorney client privilege so that a letter he said was sent to the board on May 18 from Shipman & Goodwin Attorney Thomas Mooney could be made public.

 Harrington said the letter was aimed at him, not the board.

“I am concerned about some of the legal advice that the board is receiving from the attorney representing us,” Harrington said.

Board Chair Lee Goldstein then read a statement advising the panel that should it take up a discussion about the letter, it should not reveal its content unless a board vote to make it public is cast.

“The letter is protected,” Goldstein said. No board discussion occurred, however.

Linda Conner Lambeck

^{_{Linda Conner Lambeck covers education for Westport Journal. She was a reporter for more than four decades at the Connecticut Post and other Hearst publications. She has covered education throughout Fairfield and New Haven counties. She is a proud member of the Education Writers Association.}}