Pandemic Leads To More Open Government Meetings

This week’s (November 11, 2011 Leader newspaper has an editorial "Pandemic Taught Us How to have Truly Open Meetings" written by Kim Robertson noting how some governmental meetings have become more accessible due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

That's why it’s important to look back and see how much things have improved over the past decade when it comes to transparency in the Fox C-6 School District and just how long it took for that happen. The Fox C-6 community was kept in the dark during former superintendent Dianne Brown/Critchlow’s tenure. From 2005 until 2014, Fox C-6 school board meetings weren’t audio or video recorded. Not having audio or video recording school board meetings made it very easy to keep anyone outside of Fox’s administration, school board and the few who attended school board meetings from learning about what was happening behind the scenes at Fox or what patrons concerns were in the district. Over the years, I wrote articles about speaking at Fox BOE meetings asking our school board to audio or video record the meetings like they did in other school districts. I even emailed examples of website links to other school districts to our school board. Dianne Critchlow would respond and tell me that it was up to our school board as to whether or not to audio or video record BOE meetings. Video Recorded School Board Meetings It’s great that we now have video recordings of our school board meetings. It allows more people in our community learn about our district and watch Public Comments as well as discussions about decisions being made in our district. It also provides the opportunity to see some of the great things happening in our district when are presentations made by groups and clubs and they are recognized for their accomplishments. You can go back and watch the videos at anytime. Posting of Board Meeting Agendas and Supporting Documents Another big improvement that I asked our school board for many times was the posting of the agenda and the supporting board packet information on Fox’s website days ahead of school board meetings. This took years to implement as well. Fox eventually chose to use BoardDocs which works well in sharing access to documents like Bill Payments and other documents such as bids and proposals, etc. When I first started asking for Bill Payment Reports, I was charged to get copies of the reports because they weren’t on the website. Sunshine Law allows for fees to be charged to provide the documents. Charging for documents is another easy way to hide things from the public. I wished I had paid the $180 for a copy of the Credit Card statements in February 2014 after I started asking our school board if they had been reviewing the credit card statements. The credit card statements weren’t included in the board packets. Read the article I wrote about speaking at the January 15, 2013 Fox C-6 school board meeting to see how school board meetings were documented back then. It wasn’t the first time I spoke at a Fox C-6 school board meeting. My first time speaking at a board meeting was December 2010. There were only 7 people in attendance at that school board meeting and Kim Robertson was one of them in attendance. She wrote an article about my questioning the board about the hiring of Jamie Critchlow even though I didn't mention any names during my Public Comments. When I spoke at the January 2013 school board meeting I asked our school board again about recording board meetings and making those recordings available to the public. I also told our school board that I believe that there are people in our school community (aka administrators) who are posting defamatory comments online about me after school board meetings. The online comments after school board meetings began right after the December 2010 school board meeting. Bringing change to your school district is sometimes met with a lot of resistance. Even law firms like to get into the fray of stopping parents from speaking up. The Public Comment I made at the January 2013 Fox C-6 school board meeting were documented board meeting minutes the following month as: PUBLIC COMMENTS: Rich Simpson - Requested more board information on the district website.

Once you read the public comment I made at the January 2013 school board meeting, it’s pretty easy to see why the board meeting minutes of my comment provide very little detail. That’s why having audio or video recordings of school board meetings provides a lot more transparency than the board meeting minutes like the one above from 2013. It’s no wonder why it took so long for the public to learn about what was going in our school district and oust our former superintendent. Audio or video recording BOE meetings is essential to having an accurate record of what the public's concerns are and what was really discussed or stated at the meeting and not just what our superintendent wanted the community or the public to know.

January 15, 2013 School Board Meeting Public Comment

Who Was Watching Over the Office for Civil Rights When Fox Signed the 2018 Resolution Agreement with ED OCR?

In 2015, I asked the following question:

“Who’s Watching Over the Office for Civil Rights?”

In 2021, I found the following answer from a January 2019 announcement:

"Josh comes to Mickes O’Toole from the U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights office in Kansas City, Missouri, where he oversaw civil rights compliance in seven states, including Missouri and Kansas. Josh led the office’s investigative and legal staff in the investigation and resolution of thousands of civil rights complaints arising from issues such as race or sex harassment, student discipline, special education, Title IX athletics, among many others. Josh’s work included reviewing school policies and providing training to assist public schools districts and post-secondary institutions with their compliance with federal civil rights laws."

Who's Watching Over the Office for Civil Rights?

New Missouri Law Allows Audio Recording 504 and IEP Meetings

On August 28, 2021, a new Missouri law went into effect that prevents school districts in Missouri from prohibiting parents from audio recording Individualized Education Plan (IEP) meetings or Section 504 meetings.

Missouri House Bill HB432 was signed into law by Missouri governor Mike Parson on July 14, 2021.

The passage of the new law gives parents a more level playing field when it comes to IEP and 504 meetings.

Missouri Disability Empowerment posted an article on their website about the new law:

https://www.moempower.com/recording-policy

The new law includes the following provisions related to recordings:

• The recordings of the meetings by parents or legal guardians will be the property of the parent or legal guardian.
• School districts cannot require more than 24 hours notice that a parent or guardian intends to record an IEP or 504 meeting.
• Employees who report violations of the law regarding recordings cannot be subject to discharge, retaliation or any adverse employment action for making a report.

Fox’s current school board Policy KKB: AUDIO AND VISUAL RECORDING needs to be updated to comply with the new law. Other school districts in Missouri who use the Missouri School Board Association’s board Policies and Regulations will need to update Policy KKB as well after checking some of those other school district's websites.

Fox C-6’s school board Policy KKB was last revised on: 09/20/2016.

Below are some of the recommendations that school districts should begin thinking about as noted in a May 25, 2021 blog post written by Ed Counsel, LLC:

HB 432 Allows Parental Recording of IEP and Section 504 Meetings

Ed Counsel LLC's article was written prior to the signing of the bill into law.

As noted in the article:

• Staff should be aware that parents have the ability to record IEP and Section 504 meetings, and no steps should be taken to discourage that recording, in order to maintain compliance with the law. This would include office staff who may field calls from parents regarding recording meetings, and staff members who will participate in IEP or Section 504 meetings.
• The new ability to record will likely change the landscape regarding due process complaints and child complaints, as parental recordings will likely be used as exhibits in those hearings.
• Because the recordings made by the parent will be the property of the parent, and the school’s recording will be a student education record, they will be able to publish the recording if they choose to—including on social media. Staff should understand the district’s expectations for their behavior as outlined in the district’s staff conduct policy, including communicating professionally with parents and patrons of the District.
• Given that these recordings will likely be used in dispute resolution processes, or could even spur such processes, it will be important for staff to be trained on and fully understand their roles in IEP and Section 504 meetings, as well as the process for those meetings.
• Preparation for an IEP or Section 504 meeting is always important, but it will become even more important in a meeting in which a parent plans to record, to help prevent missteps during the meeting that may later be brought to light in a complaint.

Here is some of the text from Fox C-6’s current version of Policy KKB - AUDIO AND VIDEO RECORDING:

Recording of Meetings

The Board of Education prohibits the use of audio, visual or other recording devices at meetings held pursuant to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) or Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as well as other meetings among district employees and between district employees and parents/guardians. Exceptions to this prohibition will be made only in accordance with Board policy and law. Requests for such exceptions must be made within a reasonable period of time prior to the scheduled meetings. This prohibition does not apply to conversations held within view of district security cameras.

Secretive Recording or Transmission

The district prohibits secretive recordings where persons involved do not consent to the recording and it is not otherwise obvious that recording equipment is present or being used, unless the superintendent or designee determines in rare circumstances that such recordings are necessary for educational or security reasons. The district prohibits the simultaneous electronic transmission of any conversation by any person to a third party without the consent of all involved in the conversation, even if the conversation is not recorded.

Below is a link to an article from Missouri Disability Empowerment (MoDE) regarding the passage of the new law.

https://www.moempower.com/recording-policy

The article notes that Missouri is a one-party consent state. I've noted this fact in previous articles on my blog.

The article on the MoDE website includes a must-read letter that was recently sent to the Moberly School District by the Missouri Attorney General’s. The letter from the AG was written in response to a parent who reached out to MoDE for help in their request to record a meeting. The parents were asked to sign a “Request to Record IEP/504 Meeting” form that limited or restricted the parent’s right to record meetings in which they were a participant.

I highly recommend reading the AG Letter Regarding Recording that’s noted in the link below. It references the new law and puts the district on notice.

In 2010, Fox C-6 admins and their attorneys were aware that Missouri was a one-party consent state.

In 2010, some Fox C-6 administrators secretly audio recorded a phone call with one of our allergists in an attempt to try and discredit another allergist. What was really odd, was that the phone call with the allergist that Fox was attempting to discredit was only documented with handwritten notes taken by Fox’s former Section 504 Coordinator, Dan Baker. The audio recording of the phone call was submitted as evidence by the district in our 2010 Due Process Hearing.

If audio recordings of both phone calls had been submitted as evidence, then there would have been an accurate account of what was discussed during both phone calls. Handwritten notes of a phone call should not be trusted as an accurate record of a phone call during a Due Process Hearing.

The new law will hopefully deter school district administrators, staff and attorneys from making false statements during Section 504 meetings like we experienced. It’s less likely that this sort of behavior will continue under the new law when everyone is aware that the meeting is being recorded.

Fox C-6’s School Board Policy KKB - AUDIO AND VIDEO RECORDING

Legal Fees in Fox C-6's September 21, 2021 Bill Payments Report

In reviewing Fox's Bill Payments report in BoardDocs for the upcoming September 21, 2021 Fox C-6 School Board meeting, I found another payment to the Mickes Goldman O'Toole, LLC law firm for $4,412.90 for services for June 2021.

Fox had already paid the Mickes Goldman O’Toole law firm $26,664.00 during the 2020-2021 school year. With $23,996.50 of that amount being paid out in April through June of 2021. It would be interesting to know if the fees were for a Due Process Hearing. If it was, I’d like to know what the Due Process Hearing Officer’s findings of fact and final decision was. Mickes Goldman O’Toole is the law firm that we dealt with for 504 issues at Fox between 2008 and 2014. It’s also the law firm that sent me a cease and desist letter in 2012 and to three other members of our community in 2013. Fox switched law firms after the internet scandal became public in June 2014. Looking through the entire 2020-2021 school year, payments were made to the Thomeczek & Brink LLC law firm in July and August 2020 totaling $24,010.00. This was the law firm that was selected by Fox to represent the district as the Due Process Hearing Officer in our 2010 Due Process Hearing. I’m curious as to whether or not the fees in 2020 were for a Due Process Hearing as well. If it was, I’d like to know what the Due Process Hearing Officer’s findings of fact and final decision was. Our Due Process Hearing in 2010 taught me a lot about the tactics used by attorneys to get around the law. You get a full transcript of your due process hearing providing some well documented examples of those tactics and how testimony and facts are manipulated. Recourse Options For Denial or Removal of a Section 504 Plan If your school district denies or removes a 504 plan, you have 3 options of recourse.

1. File for a Due Process Hearing where the school district gets to choose the hearing officer.

2. File a lawsuit in civil court heard by a judge.

3. File a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights.

However, you should be forewarned, speaking from first hand experience, filing a complaint with the Kansas City Office for Civil Rights may take 10 to 12 years or more to resolve.

Don't count on the Kansas City OCR office to do any “vigorous enforcement” of the law.

During the 2020-2021 school year, Fox C-6 made payments to 6 different law firms as reported in Bill Payments reports in BoardDocs:

Tueth Keeney Cooper Mohan & Jackstadt P.C. - $35,855.00

Mickes O'Toole - $26,664.00

Thomeczek & Brink, LLC - $24,010.00

Bryan Cave Leighton Palsner, LLP - $5,000.00

Gilmore & Bell a Professional Corporation - $6,500.00

Shands, Elbert, Gianoulakis & Giljum, LLP - $1,596.00

To review the Bill Payments report in BoardDocs for the September 21, 2021 school board meeting, use the link below:

http://go.boarddocs.com/mo/foxc6/Board.nsf/goto?open&id=C6NKWL533DEA

Post Dispatch Article Documented in Fox C-6 Legal Bills as "Press Release"

At the August 23, 2012 REACH Open House at Clyde Hamrick, I had a discussion with one of Fox’s former administrators about some of the issues going on in our district.

Our discussion occurred just days after I had received a cease and desist letter from Fox's law firm threatening me with legal action if I didn’t stop talking to administrators and former administrators as well as school board members at Fox about Section 504 issues and other issues such as in person and online bullying.

The former administrator's response really hit a nerve. Especially since I had just received the cease and desist letter days before which I mentioned during our discussion as well.

The discussion also inspired me to write an article about a Dear Colleague letter on Retaliation Law issued by the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights in 2013.

The former administrator told me:

"You should pick your battles and I don't think this is one of them you should fight. You've got to think about your parents. This is your home. You don't need to be doing battle here. You should let someone else do it. It's because of who you are and who your family is as to why you shouldn't fight this battle."

I took that as a challenge. The cease and desist letter also fueled my efforts to bring about change in our school district. And, it reminded me of when our former superintendent, Dianne Brown (Critchlow) called my dad into her office to talk about our complaint.

Bullying In the St. Louis Post Dispatch

I was already determined to bring about changes at Fox after Fox and their law firm had an article published in the Post Dispatch in August 2010.

The article's intent was to bully us for filing a complaint with ED OCR. The online title of the article was not the same as the print article. The online article title referenced the 504 Plan as a "Special Status".

The article incited online comments directed at me and my family, including death threats which the Post Dispatch refused to remove from their website. I forwarded the comments to ED OCR and USDA OCR since they were clearly harassing and retaliation for filing complaints with ED OCR and USDA OCR.

The article mentioned the cost of legal fees. The article failed to mention the fact that when the district removes a 504 Plan, your only options, if you disagree with the school's decision are to file for Due Process, file a civil suit against the district in a court of law or file a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights. The article also failed to mention the fact that we were going to withdraw from the Due Process Hearing so Fox's attorneys decided to file Due Process against us so Fox could settle the disagreement.

PD Article Failed To Document District Wide Compliance Review Investigation

The 2010 Post Dispatch article failed to note important information that they showed us during our interview such as their discovery of the March 2010 District Wide Compliance Review investigation of Fox.

Then there was the privacy issue with Missouri DESE

When I was first contacted by the Post Dispatch to interview me for an article, I asked the reporter how she had gotten my name. It immediately threw up red flags considering we were preparing for a Due Process Hearing with Fox. The timing was not a coincidence.

The reporter explained to me that the Post Dispatch made a Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) request with ED OCR to see if there had been any complaints filed against any school districts in our state for students with life threatening food allergies. I'm sure that's something that reporters do all the time. She told me that our complaint was the only one. First, I told the reporter that any complaint filed by a parent or advocate with ED OCR is redacted and would not have identified us.

I also told the reporter that there were other complaints filed against other districts in our state filed with ED OCR by families with life threatening food allergies. Our complaint was not the only one as the reporter had claimed.

Post Dispatch Sunshine Request Leads To Contact Information

The Post Dispatch reporter went on to explain that they found our name after they made a Sunshine Request with Missouri DESE to find out if there were any emails related to the complaint. The reporter explained that our names were contained in emails between Missouri DESE and Fox but that our daughter’s name had been redacted out of the emails.

Missouri DESE failed to protect our identity. Or, maybe it was just really good investigative reporting by the Post Dispatch. It could also be that this was the fight that I shouldn't fight and that was the reason why.

Fox's Legal Bills Documented the Post Dispatch Article as a "press release"

So when I finally received copies of legal bills from the district in 2014 and I saw the bill from 2010 from the law firm that referenced the “press release”, it confirmed how and why the article was written.

I found other articles over the years about parents who had filed complaints filed with ED OCR in other school districts. The same tactic was used against them by the same law firm in order to bully and retaliate against them as well.

The following article from 2013, was written prior to the tracing of IP addresses to Fox C-6 administrator's homes and cell phones. It covers the Dear Colleague Letter sent out to all school districts in the U.S. in 2013.

For some reason, the Kansas City U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has had a lot of trouble recognizing retaliation against parents in our region. It makes a person wonder just how much documentation is needed before it's considered retaliation. Perhaps online defamatory comments traced to administrator homes and cease and desist letters by the school district's law firm isn't enough documentation.

Or, perhaps the KC ED OCR office just didn't have time to read the Dear Colleague Letter regarding harassment and retaliation due to the backlog of complaints in their office.

Dear Colleague Letter On Retaliation Law To School Districts From ED OCR

Fox C-6's March 2018 Resolution Agreement and March 2010 District Wide Compliance Review Update

When ED OCR ignores 7 years of evidence including a Due Process Hearing ruling that was reversed as well as the evidence that initially led to the Washington DC U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (ED OCR) Headquarters request for a District Wide Compliance Review in March 2010, it's easy to see why there weren't any "findings" in the March 2018 Resolution Agreement that Fox signed with the Kansas City ED OCR (KC ED OCR) office.

That's what I learned while speaking with the supervisory attorney who worked on Fox’s District Wide Compliance Review when it was reopened in the spring of 2015. You'll like the reasons given as to why they ignored how Fox was handling 504 issues prior to 2015.

There's no reason to have a Section 504 law if it's not going to be enforced by ED OCR and schools aren't held accountable. And, there's no reason to have OCR offices handling complaints or compliance reviews if it takes a decade or more to resolve them. It would save parents, school districts and attorneys a lot of time, effort and money.

ED OCR's Case Processing Manual (CPM) explains why school districts enter into a Resolution Agreement with ED OCR. The CPM states that "OCR can resolve allegations at any point during the course of the investigation, if appropriate. OCR resolution agreements will be drafted to ensure compliance with the civil rights laws and regulations enforced by OCR."

SECTION 302 - Resolution Agreement Reached During an Investigation

Per SECTION 302, "Allegations under investigation may be resolved at any time when, prior to the point when OCR issues a draft letter of findings under CPM Section 303(b), the recipient expresses an interest in resolving the allegations and OCR determines that it is appropriate to resolve them because OCR’s investigation has identified concerns that can be addressed through a resolution agreement. The provisions of the resolution agreement must be tied to the allegations, and the evidence obtained during the investigation and will be consistent with applicable regulations."

The language in SECTION 302 has been watered down since 2005, to lessen the appearance of legal Non-Compliance when school districts enter into a Resolution Agreement with ED OCR. In 2005, ED OCR's Case Processing Manual stated:

"After the investigation begins, a complaint may be resolved in either of the following ways:

• OCR determines that there is insufficient evidence to support a conclusion of noncompliance; or
• OCR determines that there is sufficient evidence to support a conclusion of noncompliance and the recipient enters into an agreement."

96 Months To Conduct a District Wide Compliance Review of Fox C-6 KC ED OCR's nearly non-existent effort to completing Fox's District Wide Compliance Review teaches other school districts and attorneys that school districts don't have to follow federal law and that any non-compliance issues in a school district will just go away if given enough time and parents or advocates stop checking on OCR's progress of their complaint(s) or an open District Wide Compliance Review of their school district. And yes, it really did take the KC ED OCR office 96 months to complete their Compliance Review of Fox C-6 and determine whether or not Fox was providing Individualized Health Plans to students with disabilities instead of Section 504 Plans.

As a comparison, it only took the Atlanta ED OCR office 24 months to complete a District Wide Compliance Review for the same issue of the Memphis City School District. It took another 25 months after Fox signed the Resolution Agreement in March 2018 for KC ED OCR to complete their review and approval of Fox’s updated Section 504 Manual. It’s the same Section 504 Manual that Fox originally agreed to update by June 30, 2009. But who’s counting days, months, years or decades when it comes to properly identifying students who qualify for a Section 504 plan. Deadlines Allowed to Slip The 504 manual and changes to Fox’s policies that OCR asked for was a real sticking point for the law firm representing Fox at the time. So, rather than hold Fox accountable and live by the terms of the Resolution Agreement, ED OCR allowed deadlines to slip year after year. The KC ED OCR office was doing the best they could to do “vigorous enforcement” of the law. They told me over the years about their staff shortages and people being pulled off to work on other cases. They told me time after time that they hoped to be sending out a “monitoring” letter to the district soon and that they hoped to complete Fox’s Compliance Review in the next several months as I checked on our complaint and Fox’s District Wide Compliance Review between 2009 and 2020. Fox Still Being "Monitored" Speaking of compliance reviews, I recently discovered that Fox’s March 2010 District Wide Compliance Review is still being “monitored” by ED OCR as noted in the compliance review data I received last week from a recent Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) Request. My FOIA request asked for the status and purpose of all District Wide Compliance Reviews initiated over the past 20 years in all of the OCR Regional Offices across the country. I made a similar request in 2015 but just for Kansas City and Atlanta offices and wrote about it in 2015. I made the FOIA request so I could compare how long it took the KC ED OCR office to complete compliance reviews compared other offices across the country.

Concerns Regarding Who Would Conduct the Compliance Review In 2010, I emailed the regional enforcement director asking him what office would be performing Fox’s District Wide Compliance Review because I had concerns if the KC ED OCR office was conducting Fox’s compliance review. That’s because the KC ED OCR office had allowed Fox to miss deadline after deadline that Fox agreed to in the May 1, 2009 Resolution Agreement. And, not to my surprise, I was informed that the KC ED OCR office would be handling Fox’s Compliance Review. Chief Attorney Concerns One of my other concerns was the fact that the chief attorney in the KC ED OCR office who oversaw complaints and compliance reviews had worked as general counsel for the Kansas City Missouri school district prior to working for ED OCR. When the chief attorney retired after moving up to the director position, I discovered that his successor had also worked as general counsel for the Kansas City school district prior to working for ED OCR. Then at the beginning of 2019, I learned that the acting director at KC ED OCR who oversaw the completion of Fox’s District Wide Compliance Review and the signing of the Resolution Agreement left ED OCR and went to work for the law firm that represented Fox when the District Wide Compliance Review was initiated in March 2010. It’s also the same law firm that we battled with between August 2008 and June 2014 and the same one that sent me a cease and desist letter trying to stop me from speaking to our school board and administrators in our district about our case with ED OCR. Fox changed law firms in June 2014 when the online cyberbullying scandal made national news. ED OCR Ignores What Occurred Prior to 2015

So, when I found out from the supervisory attorney during our May 2020 phone call that the Kansas City ED OCR office ignored everything that had occurred prior to 2015 in their compliance review investigation, it was easy to see why ED OCR didn’t note any adverse "findings" such as retaliation by school district administrators cyberbullying parents for filing OCR complaints (which is a violation of Section 504 law) and giving Individualized Health Plans to students instead of Section 504 Accommodation Plans for those students who were qualified for one and requested one. My telephone conversation with the supervisory attorney justified my concerns of allowing the KC ED OCR office to conduct Fox’s District Wide Compliance Review. The supervisory attorney told me that she didn’t know the history of the review before she was assigned to work on it. It seems like the KC ED OCR office would have problems handling investigations if they don't pass on information to others. She said that they, "Basically opened the investigation from anew and took a fresh look at it because we realized that time had passed and what they did five years ago wasn't going to be relevant as what was happening currently. So, we basically did a new Compliance Review with new information and looked at how over time it changed." She also noted that, "The district has had a lot of turnover with personnel. There's a new law firm that's representing them now. The new current law firm has, I'm not trying to sound like I'm putting a plug in for them by any means, it's been on time with regards to submitting the data we've requested. They've been cordial. I don't feel that they've hidden information from us." She explained that ED OCR reinitiated contact with Fox in the spring of 2015 and started requesting additional documents and going through the policies and procedures and that the results of that investigation is what led to a Resolution Agreement that was signed by the district in March 2018. She informed me that ED OCR was currently monitoring the district. She told me, “I regret that the case and this review took as long as they did. That is not what should happen to any person who files a complaint with our office but I can’t explain the length of time prior to my involvement.“

Vigorous Enforcement? So, if you’ve ever filed a complaint with the KC ED OCR office and wondered what happened to it, maybe ED OCR really is understaffed and they really are hoping to work on your complaint real soon. It’s that “vigorous enforcement” of the law by ED OCR that we can count on to hold our school districts, school district attorneys, administrators and school boards accountable for their actions. Then again. Maybe not!

Fox C-6's March 2018 Resolution Agreement and District Wide Compliance Review Letter

Alleging Retaliation on Behalf of Students with Disabilities from AmericanBar.org

Below is a link to an article with one of the best written and most important paragraphs that I've read on retaliation as it relates to Section 504 law that I found on the American Bar Association website.

I found the article after being contacted by a parent recently who withdrew her child from our school district due to retaliation. She wasn't the first parent in our district to do so.

The Conclusion paragraph from the article does a very good job of stating what can happen in a school district when your school board doesn't do its job of proper oversight of school district administrators. It's what happened at Fox during the Critchlow era and the mishandling of Section 504 issues in our school district. It's also the reason that led to the ousting of a former superintendent and her husband and the demotion of a former district 504 Coordinator / assistant superintendent and another assistant superintendent. It also led to the ousting of the law firm and a state audit of Fox's school district finances.

All school board members past, present and future should read the paragraph below as well as the full article on retaliation. I spent a number of years reaching out to Fox's school board members for help but very little was done until online defamatory posts were traced to school district administrator's homes in our district. I had mentioned it numerous times to Fox's school board members over the years but was ignored.

The 2019 American Bar Association article covers retaliation in Section 504. It's something that I'm very familiar with and have had years of first hand experience dealing with school district attorneys, an elementary school principal, assistant superintendent and Section 504 Coordinator as well as Fox's former superintendent. I've also witnessed first hand the lack of enforcement of Section 504 law by the Kansas City U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights.

Section 504 law and Fox's school board policies prohibit retaliation. However the law and board policies must be enforced or there's no reason to have them in the first place.

Below is the Conclusion from the 2019 American Bar Association article on Alleging Retaliation on Behalf of Students with Disabilities:

CONCLUSION

"Retaliatory conduct of teachers and school administrators can have lasting consequences on families. When schools inhibit parent advocacy, they risk not meeting the disability-related needs of the child, leading to lack of progress and, in some instances, medical and psychological harm. Actions that criminalize parent advocacy through truancy referrals, seeking civil restraining orders, filing false abuse or neglect claims, or taking other acts to “push out” the family from the school have reverberations in the community and dire consequences for the family. Public schools must accept and work with all children and all of their caregivers, regardless of how difficult it might be. Thus, severe actions against those they serve should be taken as a last possible resort and only after there is a review of all policies and procedures, teacher training, and a proactive attempt at parent engagement, and finally, only if it is for a legal, legitimate, and nonretaliatory reason.

Bringing forth viable and strong claims of retaliation will promote change because it will force schools to assess their behavior, return to parents and students the power to assert their rights, and inform and educate the courts and public that disability-based discrimination in public schools is a continuing problem. However, retaliation claims must be strictly alleged and meet the evidentiary standard to be successful."

Alleging Retaliation on Behalf of Students with Disabilities

AmericanBar.org

A Lesson for School District Administrators

During the Critchlow era at Fox C-6, one of the biggest problems I recognized and tried to bring to the attention of our school board and some of our retired administrators was the lack of honesty, integrity and transparency.

As I’ve been working on articles to address some of the issues that were swept under the rug for years, I sometimes find that I’ve already documented the issue years ago.

As a principal in our district is set to retire at the end of this school year, I thought it would be a good idea to point out why it’s never a good idea to tell parents in an email that:

“I think we have come up with a great plan and I’m feeling very confident that we will be able to handle anything that comes our way!!!!”

and then a year later when things on the “great plan” weren’t followed, tell the parents during a 504 team meeting that the email you sent them contained “just my notes” and that the items in the “bulleted list” that was sent “weren’t actionable items”.

From a parent’s perspective, this is one of the quickest ways to destroy a parent’s trust in a school leader.

An article I wrote in May 2016 documented this topic in more detail. My article covered several other issues that occurred in our district at the time as well, like the state audit. It's also why I’ve had parents reach out to me over the years thanking me for documenting what we went through in trying to get a 504 plan for our daughter. It's important for the community to know the facts instead of what they were led to believe.

It's also a great example as to why it’s important to have a written 504 Accommodation Plan instead of an email from a principal or just an Individualized Health Plan (IHP). 

Individualized Health Plans are not legally binding agreements and therefore aren't enforceable like a written 504 Plan. That’s why school districts don’t like 504 plans.

This example is also the very reason why the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) in Washington D.C. opened a District Wide Compliance Review investigation of Fox C-6 in March 2010.

The District Wide Compliance Review looked at whether or not Fox was issuing Individualized Health Plans to students with disabilities in our district instead of providing them with 504 Accommodation Plans. Considering the fact that Fox had recently taken away our daughter's 504 Accommodation Plan and provided us with an Individualized Health Plan in 2008, it was very obvious that it was happening at Fox.

In March 2010, a District Wide Compliance Review investigation was opened for the very same issue in the Memphis Tennessee School District.

The biggest difference between the two investigations is that it only took 22 months for the Atlanta Georgia Ed OCR office to complete their investigation of the Memphis Tennessee School District and issue a Resolution Agreement.

It took the Kansas City Ed OCR office 96 months to complete the investigation of Fox C-6 and issue a Resolution Agreement.

It makes you wonder what the difference is between the two OCR offices.  I can assure you that I looked into what those differences were.

You can find my 2016 article here:

Trust Me I'm a School Administrator

Improvements in Transparency Helps the Community Perform Oversight

Nearly a decade ago, I was writing articles about some of the issues that our community was facing under superintendent Dianne Brown Critchlow. Between December 2010 and July 2015, I spoke at more than 20 school board meetings during the 3 minute public comments portion of the meeting because I could bring “concerns” to our school board as a whole because in 2010, school board members didn’t have individual email addresses like they do now. It took several years of me requesting for that to happen. I wrote articles on my blog and provided examples to our school board of what other school districts were doing in the area such as posting bill payments online for their community as well as board meeting packets and board meeting minutes within days of a school board meeting. Many of the school districts that Dianne liked to compare Fox to also posted audio or video recordings of their school board meetings online for the public to review. Asked to Pay For Bill Payments and Board Packets When I asked for copies of bill payments so I could review them to find out how much Fox was spending in legal fees in order to get around writing a 504 plan, I was asked to pay to get copies of the bill payments via my Sunshine Request because the law allows a school district to charge to provide copies of documents. However, other school districts were posting their bill payments online and were available for free. I pointed this out to our school board members at the time during public comments and via email. It took years for that to occur and it wasn’t until the very end of Dianne’s tenure before that started to happen. One thing that wasn’t posted online was the credit card statements. I asked our school board members during public comments at the February 2014 school board meeting as to whether or not they were being provided copies of the credit card statements with the board packets and bill payments each month for review since Fox had paid more than $2.1 million in credit card bills in the first half of the 2013-2014 school year

It became obvious that they hadn’t been getting copies of the credit card statements when I made a Sunshine Request to get copies of the credit card statements and I was asked to pay between $160 and $170 to provide me copies of those statements. It wasn’t until my Sunshine Request was fulfilled in the fall of 2014 that I noticed that copies of the credit card statements were FAXed to the district. Apparently, getting copies of those credit card statements for the school board was a problem too. Bill Payments Missing from Board Packets I'll never forget the comment I received after a school board meeting from former board member Dan Smith when I asked about posting the bill payments online. He told me that it would lead to more questions from the community. That was a pretty interesting response given the fact that bill payments are public records. Even after the board packets started getting posted online, the bill payments didn't get posted with them. When I asked about that, I was told that they didn't get posted because there were students names on the checks and that it was a privacy issue. It soon became apparent that the bill payments needed to get posted online with the board packets in order to keep the public informed about what was being spent by our school district each month. For ease of access for the community, I started posting copies of school board meeting minutes for the public to review and for me as well for quick access over on my blog. During the 2014-2015 school year, board meeting minutes started to get posted more quickly for the public and archived on the district’s website. I had to pay to obtain many of the board meeting packets in the early days when I made Sunshine Requests for copies of them even though they were already in PDF format. Below is a link to where you can review board meeting minutes and some board meeting packets dating back to the 2001-2002 school year. There's some history documented in those board meeting minutes and board packets of what went on at Fox during that time. There just wasn't a lot of detail. At least not compared to being able to watch video recordings of BOE meetings and being able to download board meeting packets from BoardDocs.

Fox C-6 School Board Meeting Minutes and Packets

Here’s a link to an article written in April 2014 about those missing credit card statements.

What About Those Bill Payments and Credit Card Payments

Changing Your School District's Culture Is Not An Easy or Fun Task!

As school board elections are approaching again on Tuesday April 6th, I’ve been looking back at some of the articles I’ve written over the past 10+ years covering some of the issues in the Fox C-6 School District that needed to be addressed.

School board candidates could learn a lot about just how difficult it is to change the deep rooted culture of a school district and how much push back a person can get when asking for change.

Cease and Desist Letter

In August 2012, I was sent a cease and desist letter for my efforts to bring about more transparency at Fox and bring Fox into compliance with Section 504 Law. In the spring of 2013, three more parents in our school district were sent cease and desist letters. An article was written about the cease and desist letters in the St. Louis Post Dispatch. 

Defamatory Posts For Speaking at Board Meetings

Then there were the defamatory comments posted online about me that were traced to some of our administrator’s homes and a cell phone. The online posts would appear within hours of making Public Comments at a Fox C-6 school board meeting.

The St. Louis Post Dispatch article linked below covers the cease and desist letters that Fox C-6 sent to parents in the district.

The article notes that former superintendent, Dianne Critchlow said:

 "everyone has the right to criticize the district but not spread untruths"

From the get go in dealing with our former superintendent, she made false statements at one on one meetings, board meetings and in emails to me and our school board and even in the news, which have been well documented.

The Post Dispatch article also noted the following quote from former superintendent, Dianne Critchlow:

"You don’t have the right to make up lies and defame someone’s character,”

Apparently, the statement above did not apply to her or her husband.

Our former superintendent should have been more interested in improving transparency and following federal law instead of anonymously posting defamatory comments online that were directed at parents who were trying to hold her and our school board accountable.

Letters sent to Fox dissidents highlight school tensions

STLTODAY.COM

School Board Members Associated With 504 Issues in the District

It’s interesting to note that 5 of our current school board members were either directly involved with some of the issues I was addressing in our school district or are related to individuals who were directly involved with those issues such as the removal of a 504 Plan and efforts to get the 504 Plan reinstated. It prompts the question as to why these individuals decided to run for a position on the Fox C-6 Board of Education.

No Audio or Video Recordings of Meetings at Fox

I asked the Fox C-6 school board numerous times over the years during the Critchlow era to audio or video record school board meetings because of the lack of detail Fox's board meeting minutes.

Fox C-6 school board meetings had been audio recorded prior to Dianne Brown Critchlow's time as superintendent. She couldn't explain why they weren't recorded anymore. She said the last time they were recorded was when Jim Chellew was superintendent.

Examples Of What Other Districts Were Doing Compared to Fox

I brought numerous examples to our school board of what other school districts in our area were doing with regards to audio or video recording school board meetings and posting school district bill payments online for the community to review. I asked for audio and video recordings of board meetings because the public wasn’t getting the truth or the facts about several issues in our district. At the time, Fox didn’t post bill payments on the district website which made it difficult for anyone in the community to help with oversight of school district spending. It also made it very easy for some of our administrators to misuse taxpayer dollars.

The responses from our superintendent are well documented in the articles I've written over the years. The article linked to below was posted a year before the ousting of Critchlow and her husband and the demotion of two assistant superintendents. It serves as a good reminder as to how bad things can get when there’s very little oversight by your school board and district employees fear retaliation from administration.

11 Years To Comply With an ED OCR Resolution Agreement

In May 2009, Dan Baker signed a Resolution Agreement in which Fox agreed to update the district’s 504 manual by June of 2009. It wasn’t until May 10, 2020 that Fox’s 504 manual was finally updated and posted on the district’s website. It took Fox more than 11 years to update the district’s 504 manual. It's hard to comprehend, but very well documented.

Kansas City ED OCR Slowed the Process As Well

It took Ed OCR nearly 16 months just to respond to the district with their review of the district’s updated 504 manual. 

Ed OCR had already reviewed the document in 2018 and asked for a few minor changes to the document in the fall of 2018. During that 16 month delay, I made several calls to the Ed OCR attorney who was listed as the contact person for the 2018 Resolution Agreement.

In the summer of 2019, the OCR attorney told me that their office was understaffed but they hope to complete their review of the 504 Manual prior to the start of the 2019-2020 school year. Of course, that didn’t happen. OCR didn’t notify Fox until February 2020 that their recent changes to the 504 manual finally met the terms of the May 2009 and 2018 Resolution Agreements.

ED OCR Failed Students At Fox For More Than a Decade

It would be safe to say that ED OCR’s enforcement of the May 2009 and March 2018 Resolution Agreements with Fox probably wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t kept calling OCR’s directors and attorneys for more than a decade checking on the progress of their enforcement of the Resolution Agreements. It’s a great example of just how easy it is for school districts to get around Section 504 law for years.

I need to write about my conversation with the ED OCR attorney in May 2020 when I asked her why it nearly a decade to complete a simple District Wide Compliance Review and why OCR wasn't following their case processing manual to bring about enforcement.

In the meantime, a lot of legal fees were billed to the district for responses to OCR requests and refusals by district attorneys to change the language in school board policies and the district’s 504 Manual as requested by OCR.

There were also legal fees for 504 meetings, Due Process Hearings and for helping with a "press release" article that appeared in the Post Dispatch in August 2010 after our Due Process Hearing as well as legal fees charged for reading my blog.

In all, Fox spent more than $100,000 in legal fees between 2008 and 2020 because of the removal of a 504 plan and subsequent refusal to reinstate that 504 plan. The amount of legal fees is based upon my review of bill payment records posted online and obtained via Sunshine Requests. The tactics used and the amount of effort to get around Section 504 law was quite amazing.

Superintendent Dr. Nisha Pitel has done a great job over the past couple of years highlighting our staff and students. I was very disappointed when she announced that she would be leaving our district.

Superintendent Dr. Fregeau's Meet and Greet Presentation to the Community

At the same time, I'm very encouraged by the choice of Dr. Paul Fregeau as Fox's next superintendent after watching his meet and greet presentation on Fox's YouTube channel as well as what I found and read on the Decatur Public Schools website. I highly recommend watching Dr. Fregeau's meet and greet presentation.

One significant point during Dr. Fregeau's meet and greet presentation was when he spoke about his integrity and promised the community that he would never embarrass the district.

Dr. Fregeau had done his homework and had either read or heard about the problems that had occurred during the Dianne Brown Critchlow era at Fox and the embarrassment she brought to our community and the Fox C-6 School District.

The July 2013 article linked below documents some of the pushback I received for my efforts to improve transparency in our district and hold people accountable. It also puts into perspective just how much has improved since Critchlow was ousted in 2014.

School board meetings weren't audio or video recorded during Critchlow's tenure. I recorded them when I attended and when I spoke during public comments in order to have an accurate record of what was said at the meetings and the responses I received, if any.

Fox Has a New Website But the Same Old Problems