West Salem School District Superintendent Nancy Burns referred to three ex-board members as “contentious” in a personal e-mail sent from her school account that was also accidentally transmitted to others.

The e-mail, sent last week to a former co-worker, referred to Roger Henderson, Ken Schlimgen and Dorrene Heider, all who were replaced on the school board last April.

“I had three board members who were contentious leave the board, hurrah, and I have three kind wonderful new board members!” wrote Burns in the e-mail.

Board members from the 2007-08 board — including Henderson, Schlimgen and Heider — were carbon copied on the e-mail.

Burns said sending the e-mail to current and former board members was an accident and regrets doing so. She said she is sorry for the mistake and, on Friday, she said she already personally apologized to two of the former board members and plans to contact the other as well.

“I made a digital mistake,” Burns said. “I feel bad about it and I apologize.”

Burns was hired in August 2006 while Henderson had been on the board since 2004 and Schlimgen and Heider were elected in 2005. During the last election, Henderson and Heider opted to not seek re-election and Schlimgen lost a bid for another term; Linda Brown and Tom Ward, both previous board members, and Henry Althoff replaced them.

Burns said she doesn’t view the word “contentious” as a negative term as it can describe someone who frequently raises questions and wants additional information. She said the role of a school board member should be to ask questions and understand issues so they can make better decisions.

“They need to ask questions; that’s the role of a board member,” Burns said. “Being contentious isn’t necessarily a bad thing.”

Henderson said he thought he and Burns had a good working relationship, but he was somewhat taken aback by her comment.

“We were elected officials duly elected by the people to do a job for them,” Henderson said. “The administration should deal with whomever is on the board, and those kinds of comments should not be made publicly.

“I’m fairly demanding and I think that the district has the right to expect a good performance. If she wants to call it ‘contentious,’ that is just kind of strange word for it, I thought.”

Schlimgen said he was more upset that Burns appeared happy they weren’t on the board anymore.

“Just to be called that wasn’t offensive in itself, but to cheer we were gone — that’s not something her position as superintendent should be taking,” he said.

Heider said she thought Burns’ remark was unfair but accurately represented her personal feelings.

“She got rid of the ones she wanted to,” Heider said.