Questions for the Fox C-6 School Board!

What questions do you have for our school board?

The community needs to be able to submit their questions to a Suggestion Box anonymously so Superintendent Critchlow can't threaten them with Cease and Desist letters or email them and tell them that they must first call the Assistant Superintendent Andy Arbeitman with their questions prior to submitting them to the school board during Public Comments or the school board will not respond with anything other than a "Thank you!". Mr. Arbeitman stated in his email that the district was trying to be "proactive rather than reactive". It sounds more like the district is being discriminatory towards individuals who ask the school board direct questions.

I've been asking the Fox C-6 school board questions for nearly 5 years and have rarely if ever received a response from our school board. It doesn't appear that our school board is following board policy in this area.

I thought it would be convenient to post some of the questions I have asked and have never had answered. I've also thought of some new questions that our school board needs to answer for the community. After all, our school board members are elected by the community to represent us and provide oversight of our school district.

How do we know they are doing their job if they don't respond to questions?

I think that a large part of the problem is that the district attorney has warned the school board about responding to the public. If the district attorney doesn't want the school board speaking with the public, shouldn't that throw up some Red Flags for the community?

I've posted a few questions here for the school board below. Hopefully they will answer them. If you get the chance, you may want to pose some of these questions to our school board members yourself since my questions don't tend to get answered. Maybe you'll get a different response then I get. Who knows?

Public Comments Questions

• Should the school board president respond to questions that can only be answered by the school board or should the responses come from Superintendent Critchlow or Assistant Superintendent Andy Arbeitman?
• Should the school board be informed or copied on responses to Public Comments from the school district?
  (Board member Cheryl Herman said that she would like to know when the district responds at the November 5th board workshop.)
• Should the school board be informed when Superintendent Critchlow sends out Cease and Desist letters to citizens in the community?
• Should school district taxpayers be footing the bill for Cease and Desist letters sent by Superintendent Critchlow simply because she wanted the criticism to stop?
• Why won't the school board respond to the question about why the district won't audio or video recording school board meetings?
  (I've been asking this question for several years without a response.)
• Has anyone on the school board looked into the concerns of the shortage of books that I brought to their attention several times over the past couple of years?
  
  Superintendent Critchlow has gone on record on News Channel 5 stating that the district doesn't have a shortage of books. However teachers, parents and students know that there aren't enough books for all of the students. Even Principal Kristen Pelster emailed me a response when she was still principal stating that the students aren't given books to take home because there aren't enough for all of the students.
• Why won't the school board post the school district budget on the district website? Superintendent Critchlow informed me that I'm the only person requesting the data and therefore the data won't be published on the district website. Her reason to not post the data doesn't give the community the impression that she believes in transparency.
• How does the school board approve Bill Payments each month if they don't know what the Bill Payments are paying for since the Bill Payments report no longer has payment descriptions for each payment?
• How does the school board verify that the payments for credit card bills are valid if the school board isn't provided credit card statements in the board packets with the Bill Payments report?
• Why did it take the school district and the school board 3 years to update and revise our school board policies?Fox has the 4th Highest Superintendent Salary in the state and the 2nd Highest Average Administrator Salary in the state. A person would expect them to be quite responsive to getting changes made and updated.
• Does the school board know how much has been spent in legal fees over the last 6 years as the district has dealt with the ongoing compliance issues with the USDA and the U.S. Department of Education?
• How can the school district be paying bills on the Visa credit card that are in the $70,000 and $80,000 range when the total number of credit card holders and their credit limits total less than $40,000?
• Do school board members ever review the district website to see what information or misinformation is on the district website?
• Why hasn't the school board questioned Superintendent Critchlow on her annual report for the last several years that shows that Fox has 270 Administrators Per Student since this is clearly incorrect information?

Bullying Questions

• Is the school board aware of the comments made by a person claiming to be an employee of the district that calls himself TROOP?
• Many of TROOP's comments were derogatory and libelous in nature and were directed at individuals who spoke at school board meetings. Has the school board read any of TROOP's comments hat were posted online?
• Should any employee of the Fox C-6 school district be making comments such as those made by TROOP?
• Since the district has a board policy regarding bullying, does TROOP's behavior fall under this policy which could lead to his termination?
• Does the school board consider threatening people for speaking at school board meetings to be a serious issue concern for the community? 
• Is it considered bullying or discrimination when a single person is told that they will have to contact school administrators prior to asking the school board questions during Public Comments or their questions will not be answered with anything other than a Thank You?
• Is the school board and TROOP aware of the fact Fox C-6 has adopted a commitment to the Character Education program?
• Was the school board aware of the fact that several teachers were questioned by their supervisors after they attended a school board meeting and asked why they had attended the meeting?

Superintendent Issue Questions

• Why doesn't Superintendent Critchlow report the Percentage of Graduates taking the ACT test on her annual report to the school board each year?
  According to the latest revision of the school board policies, it states that the superintendent is required to report to everyone in the district the ACT Scores AND the Percentage of Graduates taking the ACT. Superintendent has neglected to include the Percentage of Graduates taking the ACT off of her annual report at the board meeting for years. Why is that?
  
  The current Percentage of Graduates taking the ACT at Fox is only 56%. The state average is reported at 74% on Missouri DESE's Top 10 by 20 Dashboard. Fox is currently ranked in the bottom 25% of the state for the Percentage of Students taking the ACT. Why is that?
  
  Starting next year the state is requiring ALL 11th graders to take the ACT test as part of the state's assessment. The state will be paying for each student to take the ACT test one time. How does the school board feel that this new requirement will affect the district's Composite Score?
• Why doesn't the school board require the school district to post the district budget on the school district website to make it available to the public?
  
  Superintendent Critchlow has informed me that since only 1 person is requesting the information that it won't be posted on the district website. Does this seem like a valid response?
• Why won't the school board require descriptions to be included on the Bill Payments Report like they were in previous years?
  
  Superintendent Critchlow informed me that only 1 person is requesting this information so the reports won't be changed. She also said that anyone can call the Central Office if they have questions about any of the Bill Payments. Is there a reason that descriptions aren't included with Bill Payments anymore? Should everyone be required to call the Central Office to get those types of questions answered?

School Board Policy Questions

• Should the school board be following school district policies?
• Has any of our school board members read Fox's school board Policies and Regulations in their entirety? 
• Did anyone on the school board notice that our most recent update of the school board policies still has a point of contact that retired from the district in 2008?
• Has the school board read the policy on Financial Management that requires that Bill Payment lists "will be supported by invoices, approved purchase orders, properly submitted vouchers, or in accordance with salaries and salary schedules approved by the board."?
• Why isn't a Termination clause included in Superintendent Critchlow's contract if school board policy states that it should be?
• Does the school board know why the school district's policies deny parents the right to audio record IEP or Section 504 Meetings?
• Shouldn't the revised school board Policy 1310 and Regulation 1310 and their associated forms now include the USDA Office for Civil Rights as well since they are now included on the lunch menus?

Salary Questions

• Why has the school board approved increasing Superintendent Critchlow's salary more than 80% since she was hired as the district's superintendent in 2005?
• Why are we paying Superintendent Critchlow $256,131 for the 2013-2014 school year? How does the school board justify her salary?
• Why do the Administrator Salaries listed in the March 2013 school board meeting packet have only "X"'s listed for their salaries?
• How did the school board approve the 2013-2016 Administrator Salaries if the report from the March 2013 school board packet didn't list their salaries?
• How is the base salary for administrators computed now? I asked if the information was available on the district website at the February 2014 school board meeting but was told that since it wasn't listed as a topic on my Public Comments form that I would have to contact Mr. Arbeitman to obtain the information.The school district administrator salary schedule used to be based on the highest school teacher salary in the school district. When the school teachers got a raise or their pay increased each year according to the schedule, the administrator salary automatically increased as well.
  Why isn't the school district's administrator salary schedule posted on the district website?

Hiring Questions

• Several of the current school board members were on the school board in 2009 when Superintendent Critchlow's husband was promoted to the Director of the Bridges program after only working for the district for 2 months. He did not have a Masters Degree in Education Administration and he had not taken the School Leaders Licensure Assessment test. He did not obtain his Initial Professional Teacher's Certificate until January 2011 per Missouri DESE records. Why did the school board approve his promotion if school board policy states that the school board is "To support the superintendent's efforts to appoint the most qualified persons as employees of the District."?
  
  Mr. Critchlow was certainly not the most qualified person in the school district for the position considering he only had a provisional teaching certification and did not take the Praxis tests until 2010. His promotion at that time certainly didn't follow district policy.
• Why did the school board approve the hiring of school board president at the time Linda Nash's daughter in law if she did not meet the school board policy requirement that states that school board is "To support the superintendent's efforts to appoint the most qualified persons as employees of the District."?

General Questions

• Is the school board familiar with the law about Making False Statements (USC Title 18 Section 1001)?
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Making_false_statements
• Was the school board aware of the fact that the school buses that leave early from Lone Dell Elementary for special education students that are documented as leaving at 3PM actually leave between 5 to 20 minutes earlier than documented?
• Is the school board aware of the fact that the district began charging me to scan board meeting packets after Superintendent Critchlow sent me a Cease and Desist letter even though those documents had already been scanned for the board?
  It gives the appearance that if a government entity does not want the public to have information they will start charging to obtain the information.
• Is the school board aware that the district informed me that the district doesn't get detailed billing from the district's law firm?

School District Website Questions

• Why won't the school board video or audio record public school board meetings and post them on the district website like they do in other school districts?
• Do school board members review the district website to see what is posted and ensure that information is accurate?
• Should the school board require the district to review our school district website and correct mistakes?
• Should the school board require our school district to correct information published on the district website if it is not accurate?
  
  The About Us page on the school district website states that our school district "covers an approximate area of 75-100 square miles" instead of square mileage documented by the United States Census Bureau which is 74.284 square miles:
  (http://www.census.gov/geo/maps-data/data/gazetteer2013.html)
  
  
• Is it OK with everyone that the District website lists the Curriculum Objects or Grade Level Expectations as shown below? 
  3rd Grade is an easy year since they don't have any Grade Level Expectations.
  
  You can actually download the 3rd Grade Level Expectations document if you make an educated guess as to what the name of the file is for 3rd grade based on the other file names and type it into the Address Bar in your web browser. It's possible that the district purposefully created the web page this way in order to help people improve their creative problem solving skills.
  
  Fox C-6 Curriculum Objectives
  
  Grade Level ExpectationsGrade K         Grade 4         Grade 8         Grade 12
  Grade 1         Grade 5         Grade 9
  Grade 2         Grade 6         Grade 10
  Grade 7         Grade 11 

In Summary
I'm sure that there are many more questions that the Fox C-6 community has for our school board that they would like to ask. However, people that have asked our school board questions usually don't get a response based upon feedback that I have received from individuals in our district over the years .

Why does Fox have a school board if they aren't going to respond to the public?

Did Fox C-6 Violate Sunshine Law at Board Workshop?

The Fox C-6 school board held a board workshop on Tuesday November 5, 2013. There were only 3 people in attendance at the meeting besides the board members and school administrators. It was an interesting meeting as Superintendent Critchlow used the opportunity to "go on record" stating all of the things that she says she does that she doesn't really do with regards to responding to people that speak during Public Comments. I should know as I've spoken at several board meetings over the past 3 years and it has been extremely rare that I have received feedback and that feedback was not from the board.

Why won't the school board respond to questions that can only be answered by the board?

Below is one of the statements Superintendent Critchlow made at the board workshop which simply isn't true with regards to her stating that she has gotten back to "every single person that's made a comment has received feedback". Maybe she considers a glaring look "feedback".

Numerous times over the past 3 years I had to email the board weeks after speaking at board meetings asking for a response from the board. My emails quoted board Policy #0403 which states that the board will respond to all public comments within a week. On occasion I received an email response from Superintendent Critchlow with a reply to some of my questions while other questions were simply ignored. The short of it being that her statement below about getting back to every single person is False. However, her statement that she probably failed to tell the board is True. Cheryl Herman spoke about not knowing if the district ever responded to people during the workshop.

Listen to Superintendent Critchlow's Comments
on Public Comment

"I can go on record saying that every single person that's made a comment has received feedback. It may not always be the feedback they want to hear. ... But, never is there a public comment, unless they're really just not asking anything and just stating a comment. But, if they ever want answers, they get them! We have a policy that says we'll get back to them within a week. The only thing that we probably fail to do all the time is to tell you."

The most important thing you need to know right now about the board workshop meeting is that in my opinion, our school board violated Missouri Sunshine Law by taking an open meeting agenda item discussion on "Board Meetings" into closed session.

School district attorney Ernie Trakas was one of the 3 people in attendance at the meeting. Early in the meeting he spoke to the board about why they shouldn't have open discussion sessions with the public prior to board meetings like I suggested they do a couple of months ago. They do this now at Rockwood. You can hear Superintendent Critchlow mention that I suggested this idea to the board in the audio below.

Mr. Trakas's main concern on that topic was that there would be no contemporaneous record of the open discussion and that "it could lead to very interesting publicity". There would be a "contemporaneous record" if our school board meetings were video or audio recorded. This is why I record all meetings that I attend so there is an accurate record of what was said at the meeting since Mr. Trakas alluded to the problem of accuracy. This is why Fox should record all meetings like they do in other districts and Fox used to do in the past. I believe meetings aren't recorded anymore to allow our administrators the freedom to deny what was said in the board meeting as Superintendent Critchlow did in March 2012 about posting the board policies on the district website. Once I emailed her what she said at the meeting, she posted the updated board policies on the district website as she said she would at the board meeting.

So, did Mr. Trakas help our school board violate Missouri Sunshine Law?

He told Superintendent Critchlow and the board that "If we're going to discuss this, it needs to be discussed in Closed Session." after Superintendent Critchlow asked Mr. Trakas to respond to board president Dan Smith's idea about responding to the public at the next board meeting with answers from questions from the previous board meeting. NOTE: The board doesn't respond to Public Comments at board meetings.

Dan Smith tossed out this idea right after Superintendent Critchlow had just finished telling the board and those in attendance, that she's always responded to all public comments with feedback. She said that maybe the public just didn't like the feedback that they were given as to why the public asked the questions again and again. Critchlow even mentioned the board Policy 0403 that I have quoted many times in my emails to the board asking for answers weeks after making public comments. Board Policy 0403 states that the board will respond to all public comments within a week. That doesn't happen. I've brought this to their attention many times because I've never received a response from the board. I've only received responses from Superintendent Critchlow or one of the other administrators even though my questions were directed to the board.

Below is the audio recording and transcription from my audio recording of the November 5th board workshop when district attorney Ernie Trakas tells Superintendent Critchlow and the board that if they are going to discuss responding to the public at a board meeting that they need to discuss that in Closed Session.

According to Missouri Sunshine Law, Closed Meetings are only used to discuss issues such as Litigation, Personnel matters and Real Estate transactions. According to Missouri Sunshine law Section 610.022.3 requires that the meeting be closed only to the extent necessary to discuss the specific announced exception. No other business should be discussed during the closed meeting. The discussion of board meetings which includes the topic of responding to the public was listed under the board workshop agenda as part of the Open Meeting.

The only items listed on the board workshop agenda for Closed Sessions were 610.021.1 Litigation, 610.021.3 Personnel, 610.021.9 Negotiations and 610.021.13 Personnel Records. Therefore, I believe that Fox violated Missouri Sunshine Law by taking what was being discussed in the public into Closed Session.

Public Discussion Taken To Closed Session

Here is a transcribed portion of the audio leading up to board president Dan Smith adjourning the meeting to closed session after he suggested giving responses to the public at the next board meeting:

Listen to the Audio Recording of this Discussion

Board President Dan Smith 

"Here's an idea, I'm just gonna throw this out. What if at the next board meeting we give a response after one of the administrators has had some time to research the question, gotten the information, gotten the answers maybe it's been run through, then we can give the public some answers."

Superintendent Critchlow 

"From the previous one?"

Board President Dan Smith 

"From the previous meeting."

Superintendent Critchlow 

"Oh! (surprised response followed by a long pause) Ernie?" (nervous laughter)

Ernie Trakas (School district attorney)

"You're now, um, in my opinion anyway, if we're going to discuss this, it needs to be discussed in Closed Session."

Board President Dan Smith 

"Alright. Alright. Then I make a motion to adjourn."

At this point the board adjourned to Closed Session after Mr. Smith was told by the board secretary to read the agenda items for Closed Session. Discussing board meetings was not on the list of items to be discussed in Closed Session.

So, what reason did the attorney have for taking the Open Meeting discussion about Board Meetings into closed session?

It seems very clear from Mr. Trakas's statement, that he felt that the topic that Mr. Smith just brought up, needed "to be discussed in Closed Session" and that would violate Missouri Sunshine Law. The district attorney was responding to Superintendent Critchlow's request for counsel on Mr. Smith's statement on responding to the public at the next board meeting.

At the beginning of the board workshop, the district attorney expressed his concerns to the board about having open discussions with the public prior to board meetings. I want to commend board members Steve Holloway, John Laughlin and Cheryl Herman who all expressed their desire for wanting to speak and meet with the public prior to board meetings which I will cover in more detail in another article. It's important for the public to know what the school district attorney's opinion is on having listening sessions for the public with the board.

Early in the meeting, board president Dan Smith asked the Fox C-6 legal counsel Ernie Trakas for his input about the open session discussions prior to board meetings. Here is what Mr. Trakas had to say on that subject.

Listen to Ernie Trakas Speak About Open Discussions

"And I'm going to speak candidly. That is what I would hope you expect. In my opinion, there's no upside to this. For perhaps 3 or 4 reasons. 

One. 

Your policy already provides an ample and sufficiently comprehensive and coordinated method for Public Comment. 

Two. 

This board listening period, inevitably is going to be monopolized by a handful of people, almost every time. So that means that your goal, which is admirable, will never be accomplished. One, two, three people will constantly buttonhole board members and will turn it into what I believe ultimately will be a gripe session. 

Most important! 

Third and most important to me, the absence of a contemporaneous record poses significant problems. Not so much what you relate but what the person you spoke with relates to others in the media what you said. I guarantee you as I'm standing here tonight. It will never be accurate. So, for those reasons, I just don't see an upside to it. Um. Whatever another school district may do, good for them. But, um, for my money, the downside risk far outweighs any upside gain. 

Look, if nothing else, it's certainly going to um, it certainly has the potential for interesting publicity. Um. If not flat out inaccurate because there's an absence of a contemporaneous record. There's also no opportunity for you as a board member for any type of input from the administration for background or other information that may be important for you to understand what it is this person's talking about. So for all those reasons I just don't see it as a good idea."

Why Did Fox C-6 Stop Recording School Board Meetings?

I told my parents I had an audio recording of the recent June 2013 school board meeting. I wanted them to hear what Superintendent Dianne Critchlow's response was to my Public Comments and the fact that she kept me from responding to her statements. This is how our Superintendent handles things which allows her to throw out information that is false or misleading in order to keep the truth from the public.

After I played the audio of my public comments and Superintendent Critchlow's response for my parents, I played some of the audio from David "SuperDave" Day's Blog Talk Radio Show so they could hear his impression of the school board meeting. I told me parents that I didn't see the "arrogant looks on Ms. Critchlow's face" or the "ridiculous looks" that Super Dave said she was making as I spoke at the board meeting. I wasn't looking at our Superintendent as I was speaking. I was reading from my notes as quick as I could. You only get 3 minutes to address to board during Public Comments. According to board policy 0403, "A period of thirty minutes will be allotted to residents of the School District and staff at the beginning of the meeting to give the Board the opportunity to listen to citizens. The Board is very interested in citizen viewpoints and problems." With 30 minutes allotted for Public Comments and only 1 or 2 people speak at most board meetings, you would think the 3 minutes could be increased to allow for more comments to be made. Our board policy states that the Board is very interested in citizen viewpoints and problems. For some reason, I just don't get the feeling that they care to really hear about those viewpoints and problems or do anything about them.

Super Dave's BlogTalk Radio Show Review of the
June 2013 Fox C-6 School Board Meeting

I told my father that I always record school board meetings I attend because the minutes aren't always accurate or lack detail. Therefore, the public doesn't know what really happened at the board meeting or what was really discussed or commented on to the board. The public only gets our Superintendent's version of what occurred at the meeting. That's when my father told me that he used to audio record all school board meetings when he was an assistant superintendent and while he was on the school board at Fox. He said he kept the recordings for at least a year before getting rid of them. I found that very interesting considering the fact that I have been asking our school board to audio or video record Fox's board meetings for more than 2 years now. I've never received a response to that question from our board. Nor, have I seen any effort made towards posting recordings of board meetings on the district website.

On May 17, 2011, I sent an email to then board president Ruth Ann Newman asking for a response to the questions I asked at the April 2011 board meeting as well as questions I asked at the December 2010 board meeting. School board policy states that "All questions will be responded to by an appropriate person within the week whenever possible."

Apparently, our school board doesn't follow this policy. I received an arrogant email response that same day from Superintendent Critchlow (Brown at the time) regarding my concerns. One of my concerns was how poorly my Public Comments were documented in the December 2010 board meeting minutes. Critchlow responded to this concern with the following, “The Board secretary contacted MSBA's legal counsel the following day after the April meeting. They informed her that the district was in compliance in the manner in which the BOE minutes are reported.”

According to our Superintendent, someone checked on my concern but then didn't bother to respond to my concern until I emailed nearly a month later asking for a response. Certainly the manner in the which the BOE minutes are reported would comply with the law because they are posted for the public on the district website. However, I doubt the public would agree that documenting a Public Comment as "Concerns within the district." doesn't meet the requirements of our board policy that states, "The minutes of all Board meetings shall be accurate, complete and meet all legal requirements." It raises questions such as, what were my concerns? The district's response in reviewing their minutes would have to be "Concerns within the district." because that is how they documented it. Does that sound "accurate" and "complete"? I don't think so. That's why our board meetings need to be audio or video recorded.

The public needs to know what the concerns are of citizens in our school district and not just what our Superintendent wants to provide to the public. The minutes as they were documented for the December 2010 board meeting gives the appearance that the school is trying to hide citizen's concerns from the public. It's not just our Superintendent's fault because the school board approves the minutes each month at the beginning of the board meeting. So, they are aware of what was written in the meeting minutes before they approve them.


Why and When Did Fox Stop Recording School Board Meetings?
I've been asking our school board to audio or video record the board meetings for at least 2 years now and publish them on the district website like they do in other school districts. I've never received a response to that question from our school board. Is that because our Superintendent doesn't want that to happen? The public doesn't even know that I asked the school board this question because it was never documented in the board meeting minutes.

I've provided transcripts of portions of our board meetings from my audio recordings to our board and Superintendent when things weren't done as they were stated they would at board meetings. If there isn't a recording of a board meeting, there's no way to hold our Superintendent or our school board accountable for what was said at the meeting. That's why the taxpaying public should demand that the district record and publish these recordings on the district website. If other school districts can do this and the city of Arnold and Jefferson County Council can do this, then Fox can do it as well. Having an audio recording of the meeting makes it difficult for our Superintendent to give just her version of what occurred at the board meeting.

Contact Your School Board Members
Contact your school board members and tell them that you would like our school district to start video or audio recording school board meetings and publishing them on the district website. That's the only way you are going to get an accurate account of our school board meetings.

Who knows? Maybe Fox is recording our school board meetings. My father said he used to record all of the meetings when he was an assistant superintendent for the district. Perhaps they just don't want the public to have the recordings. No one has answered my questions as to why we can't record our board meetings and publish them on the district website. Mehlville records their meetings. Parkway records their meetings. Francis Howell records their meetings. Why can't Fox?

Perhaps it's because a district attorney once told a parent advocate that she didn't want them recording their conference call with the school because, "Tape recordings are notoriously unreliable". Really? How is an audio recording "notoriously unreliable"? The school district records and transcribes Due Process Hearings. Are those audio recordings "notoriously unreliable"?

School District Wants A Double Standard
Dan Baker, Gee Palmer and Luann Domek audio recorded their phone call to a doctor without informing the doctor that they were recording the call. Was that a private conversation? The district attorney deemed that audio recording reliable enough to submit as evidence in a Due Process Hearing. Perhaps the district just doesn't want to be recorded. However, it's OK for the district to record their conversations with others and not inform them.

Superintendent Critchlow recently proposed the possibility of making a change to our school board policies at the May 2013 school board meeting to prohibit the public from recording private conversations. Her proposed policy change gives the appearance that the district wants a double standard. It's alright for the district to record private conversations but it's NOT alright for the parents or citizens to record private conversations or meetings. Our Superintendent knows that Missouri is a "one party" consent state. That means that if you are a party to the conversation, you don't have to inform the other party that you are recording the conversation.

Perhaps audio recordings from private citizens wanting to accurately document meetings and conversations is causing a problem for our Superintendent and district administrators. It seems that audio recordings sometimes contradict the district's version of what happened. Maybe it would be a good idea for our Superintendent and administrators to always the truth when informing the board and the public on what is going on in our school district. Is the district truly in compliance and properly following the law? It reflects poorly on them when audio recordings and documentation shows otherwise.

Requesting Corrections To Board Minutes
When I asked for corrections on board meeting minutes in the past from my recordings, our school board secretary Debbie Davis responded via email with the following statement, "The minutes that were transcribed are reflective of what I heard at the meeting.  The minutes are not a verbatim recording of the meeting."

Our school board meeting minutes should be accurate and complete as required by our school board policies. With all the problems going on in our school district, you need to know what's really happening in our school district and not just what our Superintendent and board members want you to know?

Progress Is Being Made Towards Transparency!

Our efforts are gaining traction towards bringing the Fox C-6 School District inline with other school districts in terms of transparency. These efforts have been nearly two years in the making. I would like to say thank you to the overwhelming support from the community at the last two school board meetings. Showing up at board meetings is paying off. Our school board and school administrators are starting to pay attention!

First Board Meeting Packet Published On District Website
For the first time ever, the Fox C-6 School District has published a Board Meeting Information Packet on the district website. This historic event occurred on February 21, 2013. On that day, the school district published the February 19, 2013 Board Meeting Information Packet that is sent to school board members for them to review prior to the board meeting. This is a significant accomplishment!

School districts are accountable to the taxpayer. In order to show they are being accountable, they must be as transparent as possible. When public entities are not transparent, it causes mistrust in the community and the citizens that they serve.

Even though I never received a response from our school board or our administrators regarding school board member email addresses or school board meeting information packets that I have asked for many times, I am glad to see that school board members now have individual email addresses and that the district is inching its way towards publishing the board meeting packets on the district website.

Currently, the link can be found on the Board of Education web page under the Contents section on the right side of the page. The link is listed as Board Meeting Packets. I am confident that this link will eventually change since it links directly to the February 19, 2013 Board Meeting Packet rather than a subfolder similar to the link to the Minutes for Board of Education Meetings. So, this will most likely change once more board meeting packets are posted.

What Was Missing In The Board Meeting Packet?
One of the most significant items that was missing from the Board Meeting Packet was the Check Payments Listing. Each month the BOE must approve the payments being disbursed by the school district. The BOE is supposed to be reviewing those payments to make sure that our taxpayer dollars are being spent prudently. Board members should be asking questions if they find questionable payments. Since the check payments listing did not make it into the packet that was recently published, I encourage you to contact your board members and ask them to please include them. It is much easier to contact your board members now that they have email addresses on the district website.

Previous Board Meeting Packets
For examples of what types of payments are listed in the Board Meeting Packets, you can download board meeting packets dating back to April 2010 from links on this page:

http://foxc6watchdogs.blogspot.com/2012/12/Fox-C-6-Public-Board-Meeting-Minutes-with-Attachments.html

Tell Your School Board That You Are Tired Of The Lies and Deception

Recently, our community was shocked by the announcement of the hiring of our school board president's daughter-in-law Kelly Nash as the Food Services Director for the Fox C-6 School District with a salary of $65,336 while only having a high school diploma and 17 years of management experience as an Assistant Manager at McDonald's. In the school district's job posting for the position, the district preferred candidates with a bachelor's degree and asked that certification as a Registered Dietician or SNS certification be obtained within the first 2 years. School board president Linda Nash's daughter-in-law did not have a college degree nor did she have the certifications. However, the school district is willing to give her 2 years to obtain them. Assistant superintendent Todd Scott and Tim Crutchley as well as former School Nutrition Services Director Candy (Sengheiser) Gruenewald felt that Kelly Nash was the most qualified for the job. And, Dianne Brown told us in the Arnold Leader that Kelly Nash did not get the job because of her last name. Really? If Kelly Nash HAD the credentials for the job, then being hired into the position may not have become such an issue. But, without the credentials, our school board has really broken the trust of the community!

Dianne Brown and Todd Scott both stated on Channel 2 news when interviewed by Elliot Davis that Kelly Nash was the most qualified person for the job even though there were other candidates that had the degrees and certification that the school district was looking for. Linda Nash even had her time in the spotlight in the You Paid For It! story as well and gave quite an odd response to Elliot Davis's question. When you know something isn't right and you are asked a question, you aren't going to look too comfortable when answering.

You Paid For It!
Just so everyone in the community knows, I was not the person that contacted Elliot Davis to come out and do a news story on Fox C-6. I wanted to publicy state that as I have had a few friends of mine ask me if I called him to do the story. No, I did not! I'm sure the school administrators and school board members think it was me because I have been asking them questions about what has been going on in the district for several years now and they don't answer my questions. Also, Cheryl Hermann saw me introducing myself to Elliot Davis just as he was leaving the service center on the night of the school board meeting. Cheryl was walking out to her car to get something just as I was arriving. I am sorry to disappoint the school board members and administrators, but I was not the person that called Elliot Davis to come out and do a story on our school district. I'm sure our school board members and administrators also believe that I have been posting on TOPIX for the last 2 years. Why is that? Well, there were comments directed at me on TOPIX the Saturday after I spoke at the December 2012 school board meeting. Sorry to disappoint you again, but the last time I posted on TOPIX was January 11, 2011. It has been nearly 2 years since my last post on TOPIX. All of my posts were facts about what was going on in the school district as I was trying to get information out to the public. My facts obviously touched a nerve with some people working in the school district as I have been mentioned quite often and those comments have usually been quite defamatory!

I had no idea that Elliot Davis was doing a news story on Fox C-6 until a coworker called me just after 9pm right before the first story aired. He told me to quickly turn on Channel 2 news because he had seen a teaser saying that Elliot Davis had been at Fox C-6 and he knew I would probably want to see it.

Elliot Davis did call me on Saturday night though after the first You Paid For It! news story aired. A parent had emailed Elliot Davis about other issues in the school district and Elliot contacted them to ask questions. When Elliot started asking questions that the other parent couldn't answer, they told Elliot to contact me because they knew I could.

School Leadership Lacks Credibility and Integrity
Currently there are quite a few problems in our school district. One of them is the lack of credibility and integrity in our school district leadership. When school superintendents give false information to try and deceive you and the community, then it is time for new leadership. The community needs to let their school board know that we need new leadership and we need it now. You can read in my other posts where our superintendent informed me in an email that the new draft copy of the school board policies weren't available for the public to review until after the school board adopts them. However, after I provided her a transcript of what she actually stated at the March 2012 school board meeting, she changed her stance and decided to provide me and the community draft copies of the new board policies like she originally said she would at the board meeting.

You can also read in my other posts where she told me why the school district doesn't post the board meeting packets online like they do at other school districts like Wentzville. She told me that Fox doesn't have a full time person like those other school districts to maintain their website and that Fox would rather puts its money into the classroom. Well, after making a Sunshine Law Request for the board packets and reviewing them, I discovered that our school district HAS had a full time person working as a web designer for the district for more than 7 years. So, that was another false statement from our superintendent. I guess she was hoping that I would be happy that she was putting all that money into the classrooms for our kids.

In another instance, Dianne Brown informed the school board in an email that she had discussed with me all of the issues that I had brought to the school board at the August 2011 board meeting in a conversation right after the meeting. She even went as far as to say in her email that she had asked me if I had any further questions and that I had told her no. However, as I learned a long time ago, I must record everything in order to have documentation as to what really happened. I have an audio recording of the August 2011 board meeting which I spoke at and the conversation that started right after the meeting ended. Dianne approached me right away after the meeting and told me that she knows our school website and Edline are a mess. I hadn't even asked about Edline and told her that I didn't use it much. However, my point here is that she made false statements to the school board regarding our conversation. I guess she thought she could get away with it because she told me in a conversation after the December 2011 board meeting when I confronted her about that email, that she had 3 administrators to back her up. I told Dianne, Dan Baker and Todd Scott that I had an audio recording to back me up. Todd Scott had even interjected when I confronted Diane and told me that "we've always done everything on the board, I mean above board". And yes, I was recording that conversation as well because as I said earlier, you have to have some way of documenting what really happened.

Would you believe an audio recording or our superintendent and her assistants?

Speaking of audio recordings, I was quite surprised when I heard that the school district attorney told a parent during a conference call that, "Tape recordings are notoriously unreliable." and that "there's no law that would give you the right to tape record".

I thought her comments were rather odd given the fact that Dan Baker, Gee Palmer and Luann Domek had recorded a phone conversation back in 2010 with one of our doctors and submitted it as evidence in a Due Process Hearing. Dan Baker DID NOT inform the doctor that he was recording their conversation. During the Due Process Hearing, Dan Baker and the district attorney were working to discredit another doctor that he also called and spoke with. However, Dan only took "hand written notes" of that phone conversation to back up what the second doctor said. When I asked him why there wasn't an audio recording of that phone conversation, he stated that it was late in the day and the doctor said they didn't have much time to discuss things. Really? It was odd that Dan started the audio recording of the first doctor's conversation before he even dialed the number. So, why wouldn't he have recorded the second call the same way and not record because she didn't have much time to speak?

I believe that we have a very serious credibility issue in our school district leadership and things need to change. You need to contact your school board members and let them know that we need new leadership. We also need new board members. Things have gotten out of control and it is finally all starting to be aired in the open thanks to the school board's recent hiring of Kelly Nash.

Our school board is supposed to represent the community. They are supposed to make sure that the district is being fiscally responsible and following state and federal laws. They are ultimately responsible for the hiring and firing of the superintendent(s) and other staff. If the school board is unwilling to answer questions from the community or answer questions as to why they are unwilling to publish Public Records on the district website, I think we have a very serious issue on our hands!

Fox C-6 School Board Meeting Minutes Issues

How accurate or how much detail should be included in school board meeting minutes?

Should Public Comments be documented with ANY of the topics of concern that were stated during Public Comment by a citizen?

For example, from the December 2010 Fox C-6 board meeting minutes my Public Comments were documented as, “Concerns with the district.”  Is that enough detail for the public to know what concerns were presented to the school board?

Would the school board be able to recall what those concerns were when they read the meeting minutes at the next board meeting and voted to approve the minutes as written?

In an email response from Dianne Brown the Fox C-6 School District superintendent dated May 17, 2011 regarding the lack of detail documenting my Public Comments, she informed me that:

“The Board secretary contacted MSBA’s legal counsel the following day after the April meeting.  They informed her that the district was in compliance in the manner in which the BOE minutes are reported.”  

Our superintendent's response was quite terse and stated that, "After reading your concerns, many are false and inaccurate."  Her response was only sent after I had emailed school board president Ruth Ann Newman and school board secretary on May 17, 2011 after never receiving a response from the school board per Policy 403 “All questions will be responded to by an appropriate person with the week wherever possible.”  This could be why it is a rare occurrence for people to speak during Public Comment because they rarely receive a response.

So, after never receiving a response from the school board concerning my questions that were expressed at the April 2011 board meeting, I emailed regarding how my December 2010 meeting comments were documented in the board meeting minutes as well as asking for a response from the questions and comments made at the April 2011 board meeting.

Do you think there was enough detail in the December 2010 board meeting minutes to know what my concerns were?  I would venture to say that an audio or video recording of the meeting would have had a bit more detail as to what questions were presented to the school board.

So, should school board meeting minutes be transcribed from an audio recording of the meeting or simply from what the board secretary heard at the meeting?  At the March 2012 school board meeting, Dianne Brown stated that:

“We are finally ready for the forms and manuals and policies to be reviewed.  This would be an overhaul of all of the school district policies. They will be placed, I believe tomorrow night, Debby, on the website? And, sent out to staff or we will have a place that staff can log into.  We're not sure if we can send that big of documents for download. And we're going to leave them up until June so that staff can make recommendations and the public can make recommendations.  Then we'll bring those recommendations back and my guess is....". 

Dianne’s statement was transcribed from my audio recording taken at the March 2012 school board meeting.

By the way, audio and video recording school board meetings is permitted per Policy 0410 per the guidelines adopted in regulation 0410.

So, on March 29, 2012, a little over a week after Dianne’s statement at the board meeting, I emailed the school board secretary (Dianne Brown's secretary) and Ruth Ann Newman the board president and asked where I could find the updated district policies.  I received the following email response to my question from Dianne Brown:

“The draft of the Board Policies and Regulations are sent via email to the staff for comments (not for public review at this time in the process).  Policy review and adoption has always been handled in this manner. They then will be placed on the district web site after they have been adopted by the board.  Drafts of Board meeting minutes are not for public view (policy 0405).  Only board minutes that have been approved by the board are made public, which you can obtain on the website. You can view the March 20 meeting minutes upon approval of the April board meeting.  It usually takes a week or two, so please be patient.” 

I replied to Dianne Brown’s email and provided her with a transcript of what she stated at the March 2012 board meeting and received the following response from Dianne Brown:

“Hello Rich! Debby will gather all of this information and shoot it to you electronically today.  Please let us know if it all doesn't transmit.”

So, what is wrong with this picture, first of all, if I had not made an audio recording of Dianne’s statement made at the board meeting, I would have had nothing to back up what she said at the board meeting and the updated policies and regulations would have never been made available to the public for them to review and make recommendations to.  The district did finally post the documents on the district website after I followed up to make sure that they were per our superintendent's statement.   I wonder if I would have been told the same story initially by our superintendent if our school district audio or video recorded our board meetings?  I have asked the school board several times to record board meetings and post them online for the Public to view just like they do at other school districts and as they do at Arnold City Council meetings and at Jefferson County Council meetings.  In fact back in 2002, this was requested by another citizen and even documented in the board meeting minutes that a similar request was made.  So, I am not the first person requesting this.  However, to date, the school district refuses to record our board meetings and post them online.

But, the story doesn't end here!  When I received a Draft copy of the March Board meeting minutes, Dianne’s statement regarding the posting of the updated board policies was documented in the minutes as follows:

“Dr. Brown reported that the Board Policy/Regulations/Forms are read for Board review and comments.  These will also be available on the district website for viewing and reading for the Fox C-6 Staff." 

So, I emailed the board secretary and Ruth Ann Newman asking that the minutes be corrected to reflect the fact:

“that the documents would also be available on the district website for the Public to view, read and make recommendations to as well and that they will be left on the website until June for review.”

From this email, I received the following response from our school board secretary (Dianne Brown's secretary):

“The minutes that were transcribed are reflective of what I heard at the meeting.  The minutes are not a verbatim recording of the meeting.”

One of my friends that read our board secretaries response said it sure sounds to me like they need to record their meetings.

Should the minutes have been updated to reflect what Dianne stated at the board meeting?

Or, is it OK to just leave the minutes as they were written? 

I believe the board meeting minutes should have been updated to reflect what was actually stated at the meeting so the public would know that the documents would be placed on the district website.

In order to get a truly accurate documenting of our school board meetings, Fox C-6 needs to audio and/or video record board meetings and make them available online like other school districts or the public will never know what truly happened at our board meetings.  Needless to say, the board meeting minutes were not changed after my request.