Flagler Youth Orchestra director resigns amid feud with school board members
Editor's note: This story has been updated to include comment from Flagler County School Board member Will Furry.
Citing the "reprehensible and inexcusable conduct" of some Flagler County School Board members, the long-time director of the Flagler Youth Orchestra Cheryl Tristam announced her resignation Monday.
"As of today I am no longer the director of FYO," she wrote in a lengthy goodbye posted on FlaglerLive.com, a news site run by her husband, Pierre Tristam.
"I have requested that my contract for next year be pulled from consideration. It isn’t what I wanted to do. But the conduct of some of our school board members toward me personally and toward the program has been reprehensible and inexcusable. It leaves me no choice," she wrote.
The resignation comes prior to the release of the first-ever audit of a school district bank account used to support the orchestra that had the husband and wife as signers.
A four-year transactional audit of the account was expected to be finished between the end of June and the beginning of July, The News-Journal reported on June 8, something Tristam noted in her goodbye column.
"In a few weeks the audit of the FYO’s books will reveal procedural missteps – no doubt because the district never trained me according to their procedures – but nothing more," she wrote.
School board member Will Furry has raised questions about the account, saying it was a "problem" that the FYO account has the district's EIN number and yet has as its signer a district contractor instead of a district employee.
Reached Tuesday he said what is "reprehensible and inexcusable" is that "she left over 300 students in a lurch" for her "own self-interest."
In her post, Tristam wrote that she was "offered an incredible opportunity to work with an organization in an environment and with a mission that reminds me of the caring principles of the FYO at its best, with a hugely improved compensation package. I would be insane not to have taken it."
Furry has said that the orchestra "should be using its own account or have its own entity − whether it's a 501(c)(3) or a corporation."
Tristam told The News-Journal in a previous story some of the confusion is “understandable,” but some of it has to do with a “faction of people that despise my husband.”
Pierre Tristam, a former writer for The Daytona Beach News-Journal, has been critical of some members of the school board, particularly Furry.
“They are looking for any way that they can show that he has somehow benefited financially off of this arrangement with the school district,” Cheryl Tristam said.
In a statement to The News-Journal in early June, Furry called Tristam's reaction "a bit melodramatic" and said that "no one is after her or her husband."
"What we are seeking is the truth and transparency," Furry wrote. "In the May 16 school board workshop, I asked her some very direct questions regarding the FYO finances and Mrs. Tristam responded with misleading answers. She brought this scrutiny onto herself."
The Flagler Youth Orchestra was started in 2005 under the direction of Jonathan May and Tristam as an after-school strings program and is a "special project of the Flagler County School District," according to the orchestra group's website.
Musical instruction is offered free to residents of Flagler County regardless of ability. The orchestra has grown from "a couple dozen students to a membership of more than 375 each year."
As for the future of the orchestra? "I'm optimistic that we will keep this program going, Furry said.
Tristam could not be reached for comment.
Brenno Cabrillo contributed to this story.
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Embattled long-time Flagler Youth Orchestra director resigns
