The response came from Bill Dittmeier, the Director of the the Kansas City ED OCR office.
Bill Dittmeier's response stated that Fox's District Wide Compliance Review is still "an open investigation". It's difficult to believe that Fox is still under "an open investigation" after five and a half years considering that the Memphis City School District in Tennessee underwent the exact same investigation in March 2010 and resulted in the district signing a Resolution Agreement in January 2012.
There seems to be a pattern of compliance reviews remaining open for years that were handled by the Kansas City ED OCR office. An August 22, 2012 FOIA request to ED OCR was responded to on May 3, 2013 which listed 3 open compliance reviews in the Kansas City ED OCR office. Two of the open compliance reviews had been open investigations from 2009. They were for the Bayless and Cape Girardeau school districts. The third compliance review was the Fox C-6 compliance review which was opened in March 2010.
Two years ago at the June 2013 Fox C-6 school board meeting, I asked Fox's school board about the status of Fox's District Wide Compliance Review investigation and the status of the district's Resolution Agreement with ED OCR that Dan Baker signed in May 2009 during Public Comments.
I wrote about these open in issues with ED OCR in a July 6, 2013 article. That article also listed the numerous "monitoring letters" sent to the district over the years following up on the district's May 2009 Resolution Agreement:
Using the link below, you can read several years of FOIA request responses from the Kansas City ED OCR office regarding Fox's open compliance review. The July 28, 2015 FOIA response was the first from Bill Dittmeier who succeeded Angela Bennett as the Director of the Kansas CIty ED OCR office in 2014.
Below is an excerpt from Bill Dittmeier's FOIA response:
The compliance review concerning the Fox C-6 School District is an open investigation. OCR has determined that the release of the information you have requested at this time could reasonably be expected to interfere with our enforcement activities. In addition, the information you have requested includes personally identifiable information that, if released, could be unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. Therefore, OCR is denying your request.
You may be wondering why Fox would still be under investigation after nearly five and a half years.
Is this something that our community should be concerned about?
From a financial point of view, it is a concern because the district has spent tens of thousands of dollars over the past 6 years in legal fees. District attorneys responded to monitoring letters, worked on updating district policies to get the district in compliance with federal law and prepared Dan Baker, school staff and the Fox C-6 school board for interviews in the fall of 2010 according to Fox's legal bills that I received via a Sunshine Law request in August 2014. I didn't receive copies of the legal bills until April 2015. I also didn't receive all of the bills I requested because according to Fox's CFO, bills were destroyed prior to the 2010-2011 school year.
I wondered the same thing considering that Fox was only 1 of 2 school districts out of more than 13,000 school districts in the United States that were chosen to undergo a District Wide Compliance Review for one particular issue in 2010.
It's also interesting that in a 2013 FOIA request to ED OCR made by someone in Kansas City Missouri that it was documented that there were 2 other school districts in our state that had "open compliance reviews" dating back to July 2009. There were for the Bayless School District and the Cape Girardeau School District. So Fox is not alone in this matter. I have also been told that there are open compliance reviews in the Kansas City ED OCR office in Kansas and Oklahoma as well.
Fox's Compliance Review Noted in Report to the President
In 2012, Fox's 2010 compliance review was referenced in ED OCR's FY 2009-2012 Report to the President and Secretary of Education that was issued in 2012 by former Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, Russlynn H. Ali. Fox C-6's compliance review is listed on the map on page 5 as FAPE 2010 as a Section 504 compliance review. I'm surprised that Russlyn Ali included Fox's Compliance Review in the report since the investigation hasn't been completed yet.It is interesting to read ED OCR's statements in the 2009-2012 Report to the President about how OCR must vigorously enforce the nations's civil right's laws.
I'm not sure how many people consider an investigation lasting more than 5 years, "vigorously enforcing the nation's civil rights laws".
Randolph Wills the Director of Enforcement over the Kansas City ED OCR office wrote a letter to Fox C-6's former legal counsel on April 7, 2010. He informed Fox that compliance reviews are designed to address systemic issues and to ensure that violations are readily identified and promptly eliminated:
As OCR explained in its notification letter to the District, compliance reviews are designed to address systemic issues and to ensure that violations are readily identified and promptly eliminated. The instant compliance review is consistent with the stated purpose and goals of OCR compliance review activities. Accordingly, I have determined that the compliance review will proceed.What's even more interesting is the fact that the other school district, Memphis City School District in Tennessee, that was investigated for the same issue was investigated and agreed to sign a Resolution Agreement with ED OCR in January 2012. ED OCR posted a Press Release in April 2012 about the Memphis City School District's Resolution Agreement along with the Resolution Agreement itself.
Memphis City School District Compliance Resolution Letter
Memphis City School District Compliance Resolution Agreement
Atlanta OCR Completes Compliance Review in 2 Years
It is amazing to how quickly the Atlanta ED OCR office was able to conduct and resolve the issues in the Memphis City School District considering the fact that Memphis City SD had 110,361 students and 191 schools in their district compared to Fox having roughly 11,000 students and less than 20 schools. It causes one to question the abilities and/or ethics of the different Regional ED OCR Offices. It's also notable that Cynthia G. Pierre who signed the Memphis City School District Compliance Resolution letter was recently promoted to the Chief Operating Officer of the EEOC.In 2010, the Kansas City ED OCR office was assigned to conduct Fox's District Wide Compliance Review. I voiced my concerns to the Washington, D.C. ED OCR office back then about assigning the compliance review to the Kansas City ED OCR office based upon the fact that their didn't appear to be much enforcement effort out of the office based upon my conversation with many other advocates and individuals who had been dealing with the KC ED OCR office for years. But, the fact that Fox has been given extension after extension to meet their obligations on the still open May 2009 Resolution Agreement and the fact that Fox's District Wide Compliance Review is still "an open investigation" after nearly five and a half years, I think my concerns have been validated.
According to Fox's legal bills that were finally provided to in April after multiple Sunshine Requests, Dan Baker and some Fox C-6 staff and Fox's school board was interviewed by ED OCR in 2010. Fox's former law firm prepared the district and board prior to the interviews and then represented them during the ED OCR interviews.
Please note that I wasn't provided all of the legal bills that I had requested which dated back to the 2007-2008 school year. Those bills would have covered the time that Fox first started dealing with ED OCR in August 2008 on issues in our district.
Legal Bills Destroyed
According to Fox's CFO, John Brazeal, who fulfilled my Sunshine Request in April 2015, he stated that "after an exhaustive search", it has been determined that all paid invoices from the 2007-2010 school years (including invoices from Fox's former law firm) have been previously destroyed.Legal Bills for Press Release
Reading through the legal bills has been very interesting and very eye opening. Back in May 2010, when the Post Dispatch contacted us out of the blue to do a story on complaints filed in Missouri with ED OCR, there were charges from Fox's former law firm for conferencing with Dan Baker about interviewing with the Post Dispatch. The legal bills noted it as a "press release". There were similar charges referenced as "press release" in August 2010 when the article was published in the Post Dispatch. Dan Baker was quoted saying that he,"strongly believes the district has handled the situation appropriately. He said the district had spent a lot in legal fees during the dispute, but he did not know an exact amount."
Legal Bill Entries
I found it interesting that the legal bill charges referred to Dan Baker's interview with the Post Dispatch as a "press release".5/3/2010 - TBG - Telephone conference with Mr. Dan Baker regarding telephone call from Post-Dispatch.
5/6/2010 - TBG - Telephone conference with Mr. Dan Baker regarding media contact; review press release.
8/19/2010 - TBG - Telephone conference with Mr. Dan Baker regarding Post-Dispatch interview and press release.There were many more charges related to the "media contact" regarding Sunshine Law requests, etc. in May 2010. But there's no need to list them all here.
Post Dispatch Article Fails To Mention Compliance Review
I also found it interesting when the Post Dispatch article was published in August 2010 that there was no mention of the May 2009 Resolution Agreement that Dan Baker signed legally binding the district to make corrections agreed to with ED OCR in order to become compliant with Section 504 and the ADA AA. Nor was there any mention in the article about Fox undergoing a District Wide Compliance Review which had been initiated in March 2010. Perhaps those were simple oversights or the information just wasn't deemed that important at the time.Legal Bills For Reviewing My Blog
Some of the other notable charges in the legal bills were from July and August 2013 after I made public comments about the Compliance Review and the Resolution Agreement at the June 2013 Fox C-6 school board meeting. Fox's former law firm contacted ED OCR to get a status on the Resolution Agreement and Compliance Review and prepare a memorandum regarding the Resolution Agreement with ED OCR and the District Wide Compliance Review.The law firm also charged the district to "Review media postings regarding status of OCR matters" and "Review patron media blog" perhaps to check my facts about the Compliance Review and the Resolution Agreement.