The Fox C-6 school board and administration don't seem to be as transparent as other school districts in the area. This lack of transparency has allowed them to get by with some fairly unethical behavior in their hiring practices and the way they are spending our taxpayer dollars.
The taxpayers of the community has every right to access the board packet documents from the district website for FREE. However, after repeated requests, our school board has never replied as to why they will not post these documents on the district website. So, please contact your board members and ask them why they won't post the documents. You should also make a Sunshine Request for the documents yourself just to see if you get a different story than what I am given. It's fun to compare notes!
I did receive a response once from our superintendent as to why the district can't post the documents to the district website. She informed me that we don't have a full time person maintaing the district website like other school districts do such as Wentzville. She said she called Wentzville and they told her that they had two full time people maintaining their website. Rather than put our money into the website, she told me that, "We put our [Fox's] money into the classroom."
So, was she being truthful about not having a full time person to maintain our website?
After I finally obtained copies of the board meeting minutes with the board packets, I discovered that Fox has had a person employed full time as a web designer for more than 7 years. Perhaps our superintendent simply forgot that the district had a full time web designer and her statements "weren't an intentional lie". What do you think?
Statements that are proven to be false through documentation cause distrust. Once that trust is broken, it is very difficult to restore!
"Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either."
- Albert Einstein.
So, how does the Character Trait of Honesty show up on the district letterhead?
I believe that the Honesty trait is severely lacking in the answers being provided by our superintendent(s) lately and I find it very troubling that the leaders of our schools are not always honest with the public. Actions and facts speak much louder than words.
So, why do you think the district wants to charge the public to obtain public records that once were FREE? I don't think that it does much for their reputation in terms of transparency in government. What do you think?
Now you get to do a little investigative work. Study the CREATED DATE of the board meeting packets below and see if you see a pattern. I made my request for the board packets in digital form on March 30, 2012. As you can see below, the board packet documents I received starting with the August 30, 2011 board meeting had a CREATED DATE of March 30, 2012. The May and June 2011 board packets weren't sent in my first request and were missed and some were sent after the holiday break. But, notice the pattern of the CREATED DATE for the board packets prior to May 2011 dating back to April 2010. It appears that the board packets WERE created as PDF documents on a regular bases in the past and that is why I am confused as to why I am being asked to pay for work that used to be done on a regular basis prior to my request. Also, I was told that the board packets didn't exist in PDF format prior to April 2010. But, the school district published board minutes in PDF format as far back as 2002. Doesn't that seem a little strange?
So, how do you find the CREATED DATE in a PDF document?
Open the PDF document with Adobe Reader and then select Properties from the File menu. The Properties from will display the CREATED and MODIFIED date for the document. I use a FREE program called PDF-XChange Viewer to perform Optical Character Recognition (OCR) of the scanned board packets. PDF-XChange Viewer can overlay an invisible text layer that can then be used to search for text strings within the document. It is not perfect but works very well. It is certainly faster than reading the entire document when you know what you are looking for. Since the documents aren't always the best scan quality you might have to use substring searches in order to find what you are looking for.
Looking for Legal Fees or Other Expenses
So, you might be interested in finding out how much our school district spends in legal fees or maintenance fees. When you are viewing the PDF document in a PDF viewer, you can search for the word "legal". Or you can search for the word "Mickes" or "Goldman" as they are names from the law firm that represent the school district. Just remember that OCR is not perfect and may overlook some of the words above. So, you may have to page through the check ledgers manually which are in alphabetic order by vendor name just to be sure you didn't miss something.
I like pointing out Board Policy 0215 as a reminder for our school administrators and board members just in case they forgot what it says.
From School Board Policy 0215
The district recognizes the home as the primary source of moral, ethical, and religious instruction; the role of the school is to support the family by upholding the highest example of morality, ethics, and integrity. [emphasis added] A policy on character development is for the benefit of all students and is written with respect and sensitivity to the diversity of religions, cultures, creeds and beliefs.
Board Meeting Packets By Year
2012
November 20, 2012 Fox C-6 Board Meeting Minutes with Attachments
Created: 12/20/2012 1:36:56 PM
October 16, 2012 Fox C-6 Board Meeting Minutes with Attachments
Created: 12/20/2012 1:50:24 PM
September 18, 2012 Fox C-6 Board Meeting Minutes with Attachments
Created: 09/24/2012 1:07:50 PM
August 28, 2012 Fox C-6 Board Meeting Minutes with Attachments
Created: 09/11/2012 3:57:19 PM
June 26, 2012 Fox C-6 Board Meeting Minutes with Attachments
Created: 07/26/2012 2:57:29 PM
May 15, 2012 Fox C-6 Board Meeting Minutes with Attachments
Created: 06/20/2012 3:23:58 PM
April 17, 2012 Fox C-6 Board Meeting Minutes with Attachments
Created: 05/10/2012 9:23:19 AM
April 17, 2012 Fox C-6 Bond Election Notice
March 20, 2012 Fox C-6 Board Meeting Minutes with Attachments
Created: 04/10/2012 5:25:10 PM
February 21, 2012 Fox C-6 Board Meeting Minutes with Attachments
Created: 03/30/2012 12:28:46 PM
February 7, 2012 Fox C-6 Special Board Meeting Minutes with Attachments
Created: 03/30/2012 12:28:05 PM
January 17, 2012 Fox C-6 Board Meeting Minutes with Attachments
Created: 03/30/2012 12:27:44 PM
2011
December 13, 2011 Fox C-6 Board Meeting Minutes with Attachments
Created: 03/30/2012 12:27:01 PM
November 15, 2011 Fox C-6 Board Meeting Minutes with Attachments
Created: 03/30/2012 12:25:38 PM
October 18, 2011 Fox C-6 Board Meeting Minutes with Attachments
Created: 03/30/2012 12:24:15 PM
September 20, 2011 Fox C-6 Board Meeting Minutes with Attachments
Created: 03/30/2012 12:15:00 PM
September 20, 2011 Fox C-6 Tax Rate Hearing Notice
Created: 03/30/2012 12:14:35 PM
August 30, 2011 Fox C-6 Board Meeting Minutes with Attachments
Created: 03/30/2012 12:23:04 PM
June 28, 2011 Fox C-6 Board Meeting Minutes with Attachments
Created: 04/11/2012 8:46:14 AM
May 17, 2011 Fox C-6 Board Meeting Minutes with Attachments
Created: 04/11/2012 8:52:41 AM
April 10, 2011 Fox C-6 Board Meeting Minutes with Attachments
Created: 05/10/2011 3:16:31 PM
March 15, 2011 Fox C-6 Board Meeting Minutes with Attachments
Created: 04/19/2011 2:47:33 PM
February 15, 2011 Fox C-6 Board Meeting Minutes with Attachments
Created: 03/11/2011 2:28:21 PM
January 18, 2011 Fox C-6 Board Meeting Minutes with Attachments
Created: 02/11/2011 11:17:46 AM
2010
December 14, 2010 Fox C-6 Board Meeting Minutes with Attachments
Created: 01/14/2010 9:48:48 AM
November 16, 2010 Fox C-6 Board Meeting Minutes with Attachments
Created: 12/15/2010 9:20:06 AM
October 19, 2010 Fox C-6 Board Meeting Minutes with Attachments
Created: 11/17/2010 2:38:11 PM
September 21, 2010 Fox C-6 Board Meeting Minutes with Attachments
Created: 11/17/2010 10:26:28 AM
August 31, 2010 Fox C-6 Board Meeting Minutes with Attachments
Created: 10/01/2010 3:55:42 PM
June 29, 2010 Fox C-6 Board Meeting Minutes with Attachments
Created: 10/01/2010 4:19:31 PM
May 18, 2010 Fox C-6 Board Meeting Minutes with Attachments
Created: 09/30/2010 10:30:19 AM
April 20, 2010 Fox C-6 Board Meeting Minutes with Attachments
Created: 10/07/2010 12:02:43 PM
