A Tax Increase Is Not "A Common Sense Approach to Leadership!"

Last month the Lone Dell Elementary parents club had a meet and greet with school board candidates Mark Jones and Sherry "Chellew" Poppen. About 12 parents were in attendance as well as a Lone Dell teacher and Lone Dell's assistant principal.

I attended the parents club meeting so I could find out more about Sherry "Chellew" Poppen and why she was running for the Fox C-6 school board. I was also curious as to why she was using the "Chellew" name on her campaign flyer.

Sherry "Chellew" Poppen handed out campaign flyers to everyone at the parents club meeting that night. The following text was at the bottom of the front cover:

"A Common Sense Approach to Leadership!"

The back cover of Sherry "Chellew" Poppen's campaign flyer had the following text:

Fox C-6 School Board

Sherry "Chellew"

POPPEN

Common Sense Leadership

Paid for by Committee to Elect Sherry Chellew Poppen, James Chellew, Treasurer

The inside of her campaign flyer noted some of her Personal and Professional background information as well as some of her Goals if elected to the Fox C-6 school board.

First impressions are important. The meeting was posted on the Lone Dell Parents Club Facebook page with a start time of 6:30pm. Sherry showed up to the meeting around 6:45pm.

There were a few things that stood out that evening as the candidates talked to the parents. But the number one thing that stood out was when Sherry Poppen responded to the teacher's question as to what the candidates would do if they were faced with having to make cuts in the district.

Sherry Poppen responded by saying that she would consider a tax increase.

Sherry Poppen's response was met with an immediate response from the parents telling her that a tax increase would not pass in our district for quite some time given what's been uncovered over the last year.

It was very apparent that her response didn't sit well with the parents at the meeting. A tax increase doesn't sound like, "A Common Sense Approach to Leadership!"

Sherry Poppen may want to reconsider her approach to solving potential cutbacks in our district.

Asking the Fox C-6 community for more money after all of the payouts that have been handed out over the past year to people who were rewarded for bad behavior or for not doing their job is NOT a good idea.


Other Campaign Concerns
Sherry Poppen's brother is Jim Chellew. Jim Chellew was the superintendent of the Fox C-6 School District prior to Dianne Brown-Critchlow. Mr. Chellew was responsible for getting Dianne Brown selected as the next Fox C-6 superintendent in November 2004. Dianne Brown was the only person that applied for the job according to the news article that was published on the Fox C-6 website as documented by the INTERNET ARCHIVE from 2004 (use the link below).

Article posted on 2004 Fox C-6 Website

"Brown hired as New Fox Super"

I hadn't formally met Sherry "Chellew" Poppen prior to attending the parents club meeting. I may have met her in the past and didn't realize or know that she was related to former Fox C-6 superintendent Jim Chellew. I've known Jim Chellew since I was in elementary or middle school when my father was an assistant superintendent in the district over secondary education.

Jim Chellew is listed as the treasurer for Sherry "Chellew" Poppen's campaign. His involvement concerns me because of some of the conversations that I had with Mr. Chellew several years ago about what was going on in our school district.

I haven't spoken with Mr. Chellew since it was publicly announced that derogatory comments that were posted online about me and others were traced back to the home of our former superintendent Dianne Brown-Critchlow and her husband Jamie Critchlow who was the former director of the Bridges program at Fox.

Derogatory comments were also traced to the home of Dan and Angie Baker as well as former assistant principal Bill Brengle.

Dan Baker was an assistant superintendent in the district and is currently the principal at Seckman Elementary School after the previous principal was moved to an assistant principal position in the district. Dan Baker's wife Angela Burns Baker is the Director of Federal programs at Fox C-6.

If you remember, Dan Baker played golf on the first day of the MarzanoGate Conference that was paid for with Todd Scott's school district credit card that Jamie Critchlow "borrowed "for the trip to Florida. Dan Baker also paid for a $749 meal using his school district credit card at the MarzanoGate Conference as well.

In December 2011, I mentioned some of my concerns about Fox to Mr. Chellew when I saw him at the Arnold Target store. I told Mr. Chellew during that conversation that Dianne Brown and Dan Baker should be fired for making false statements to me and to the school board about various issues. Mr. Chellew told me he was the one that put Dianne in her position as superintendent and that he would fight to make sure that she didn't get fired.

Mr. Chellew also told me that he was sure that they weren't intentional lies and that sometimes people get confused about what they've said to people because they talk to so many different people. I told him that was not the case.

I told Mr. Chellew about other concerns I had about our district. Several times during our conversation he told me that I shouldn't let these school things eat at me and that things aren't perfect at Fox. He said Fox isn't a Camelot, but Fox is way ahead of most other schools out there.

It was certainly strange that Mr. Chellew was mentioned in the cease and desist letter that was sent to me by Fox's former law firm in August 2012. Mr. Chellew is the "former Superintendent of the District" that's referenced in my cease and desist letter. You can read the cease and desist letter using the link below:

August 2012 Cease and Desist Letter

It bothered me back then that Mr. Chellew was referenced in my cease and desist letter and the fact that he disregarded my concerns about Dianne Brown and Dan Baker. My conversation with Mr. Chellew took place prior to Dianne marrying Jamie Critchlow. It bothered me even more that our conversation made it back to Dianne and into the cease and desist letter that threatened me with legal action if I didn't stop speaking with people about my concerns in our school district.

I've written about the cease and desist letter before. My conversation with Jim Chellew took place on December 3, 2011. I documented my conversation with Jim Chellew back then with others in an email right after it happened so I would remember what we discussed. When I saw Mr. Chellew at the store, we first chatted about scouts. After a few minutes, I told him that I wished that we could put some Character back into our district leadership. That's when I started telling Mr. Chellew about some of my concerns about what was going on in the district and the problems that I had been having with Dianne Brown and Dan Baker and the district's attorneys.

Fox C-6 Is Hoping to Silence Critics Using Cease and Desist Letters

Events Related to "Cease and Desist" Letters Were Troublesome!

I told Mr. Chellew how the district was violating federal law and how we were put through a charade of a Due Process Hearing and that Dianne Brown and Dan Baker should be fired for not doing their jobs and for not following the law.

During our conversation I also told Mr. Chellew that I was pretty sure that Dianne Brown and/or Jamie Critchlow were posting defamatory comments about me in an online forum. I told him I went to the December 2010 school board meeting and that I asked the board questions about Jamie Critchlow and how he got his job because of his lack of credentials and prior arrest record. Derogatory comments were posted online about me right after I spoke at the December 2010 board meeting. More derogatory comments were posted about me and my parents a week later in December 2010 just two days before an article appeared in the Arnold-Imperial Leader newspaper about Jamie Critchlow and his DWI arrest in Texas.

Jefferson County Penknife first posted an article on February 21, 2015 documenting Jamie Critchlow's most recent two DWI arrests. Jefferson County Penknife has the "must read" police reports from both the July 3, 2014 Iron County arrest and the January 31, 2015 Arnold Police Department arrest.

Jamie Critchlow Charged with Double DWIs

Jefferson County Penknife

February 21, 2015 

On February 25, 2015, the Arnold-Imperial Leader newspaper published an article about Jamie Critchlow's most recent DWI arrests.

More Trouble

Arnold-Imperial Leader Article on DWI Arrests
February 25, 2015

Fox C-6 School Board Elections are April 7, 2015
Dismissing my concerns back then and over the years might be something you may want to consider when casting your vote for Fox C-6 school board members on April 7, 2015!

Events Related to the "Cease and Desist" Letters Were Troublesome!

UPDATED: Monday January 12, 2015 and Wednesday January 14, 2015 

Fox's CFO John Brazeal pointed out errors in my post which I have corrected. 

Below is text from Mr.  Brazeal's email received on January 12, 2015 regarding the errors in my article:

"This is another situation where you are connecting things that are not connected, then making false and misleading statements on your blog about your bogus findings. 

MGO invoices have sections, such as "General", "Special Education", "Lagoons",  etc. Each section of the billing shows a total charge for that section. At the end of the invoice, there is a total for all sections. It is like an invoice with an invoice. 

The figure of $2810.04 I mentioned was the amount of fees charged for the "special Education General" section of the 3/5/2013 invoice. The 3/5/2013 invoice was $4,159.54, which included the $2810.04 charge for "Special Education General" plus $1,394.50 for "General". 

The payment of $2813.00 for February 2013 included $1,984.50 for "General" plus $375.00 for "Special Education General" plus $453.50 for "Special Education" cases, for a total of $2813.00. 

There is absolutely no correlation between the $2810.04 and the $2813.00. One number is for a section total of the invoice in March 2013 and the other for the invoice total for February 2013." 

My sincere apologies for incorrectly "connecting things that are not connected". Having clarification as to what is on an MGO invoice helps tremendously. I have not been provided any invoices from my Sunshine requests to date.

My mistake was certainly not intentional!

Mr. Brazeal has been extremely helpful to the Fox C-6 community in uncovering the fraud, waste and abuse that occurred in our district under our former superintendent. He is working to ensure that our district follows our policies. Policies weren't always followed in the past. Not knowing them was part of the problem.

Mr. Brazeal was instrumental in providing me with the credit card statements so they could be made public. I had asked for the credit card statements in February 2014 but was deterred from obtaining them by being asked to pay $170 to locate and copy them.

In no way were my observations of "Doctoring Invoices?" with hand written comments implying that Fox's new CFO Mr. Brazeal was involved with those hand written comments. He has been doing an excellent job of researching what occurred in the past and analyzing and documenting what he has found.

I strive for accuracy in all of my reporting of data. My incorrect connection of things that weren't connected was based on the information that was originally provided to me at the bottom of this article on January 8, 2013. I was unaware of the other details that were on the March 5 and March 20 invoices.

I have not been provided with any invoices for legal fees from my Sunshine requests to date. Having copies of those invoices would certainly make reporting on them much easier. They public record and taxpayer dollars are paying for our district's legal fees.

Article below with corrections:

For years I've been documenting how much Fox C-6 has spent in legal fees attempting to silence critics and deal with non-compliance issues with the Office for Civil Rights with both the U.S. Department of Education (ED OCR) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Nutrition Services division (USDA OCR).

This past week I renewed my 3 month old Sunshine request for copies of invoices from Fox's former law firm in order to document for the public how much money was spent on these types of activities. 

Fox's new CFO John Brazeal responded to my request with some information related to the February 2013 "cease and desist" letters sent out to 3 patrons in our district which did not include me. The "cease and desist" letter that was sent to me was sent in August 2012.

Fox was in the middle of a legal fees spending spree when the district sent me a "cease and desist" letter in August 2012.

In fact, Fox C-6's Board of Education (BOE) approved payments of $55,891.28 at the August 2012 BOE meeting and another $48,002.01 at the September 2012 BOE meeting in legal fees to Fox's former law firm Mickes Goldman O'Toole (MGO) according to the August and September 2012 board meeting packets. I doubt that Fox's BOE ever saw or reviewed the invoices presented at the August and September 2012 BOE meeting since it wasn't common practice to do so.

Not only do I think that former Fox C-6 superintendent Dianne Critchlow's decision to send out "cease and desist" letters to district patrons was wrong, I also think that spending $103,893.29 in legal fees in just 3 months to be an "unusual amount of professional legal service" for our school district.

So, why did Fox C-6 spend $103,893.29 in legal fees in just 3 months?

That's something that I've been trying to document for years. I know that the district has spent an "unusual amount" in legal fees responding to non-compliance issues with both ED OCR and USDA OCR as well as putting two different families in our district through Due Process Hearings. From what I could determine from board packet payments, the district spent at least $125,000 in legal fees related to the Due Process Hearing that we were forced into back in 2010.

I would venture to say that district administrators don't want to freely share copies of invoices for legal services with the public when they spend taxpayer money sending out "cease and desist" letters to patrons who are critical of the district or when they spend taxpayer money related to non-compliance issues with the Office for Civil Rights.

Sunshine law allows government bodies to charge reasonable fees to obtain documents such as invoices for legal services.

Sunshine law also states that the Custodian of Records may waive the fee if it is determined that a waiver or reduction of the fee is in the public interest because it is likely to contribute significantly to public understanding of the operations and activities of the school district and is not primarily in the commercial interest of the requester.

Charging fees to obtain documents is one way that Sunshine law can be abused in order to hide the activities of a school district. Most citizens aren't willing to pay hundreds of dollars of their own money in order to expose questionable behavior and spending in their school district.

I asked the district to waive the $170 fee they wanted to charge me to obtain the district credit card statements in April 2014 and the district (Dianne Critchlow) refused. The public knows now why Dianne Critchlow didn't want district credit card statements made public.

The same thing has gone on for years related to the amount of money that the district's been spending on legal fees related to non-compliance issues with the Office for Civil Rights. Dianne Critchlow doesn't want the public to know how much money has been wasted on legal fees simply to avoid doing what it was obligated to do by law. The amount of legal fees spent in trying to get around the law is likely to contribute significantly to public understanding as to why our district and many others don't want to write 504 plans. That's why I asked the district to waive the fees.

The media can afford to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on Sunshine Requests. However, the media hasn't tackled the big issue as to why our district fought so hard to avoid writing a 504 plan and fulfill their Resolution Agreement with ED OCR and avoid a District Wide Compliance Review from the Office for Civil Rights. Taxpayer dollars have been used to pay the attorneys to keep ED OCR and USDA OCR at bay for years. Just how much money was spent is only an estimate at this point since I don't have copies of the invoices. But, that amount is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

District Policy 0360 documents the use of a School Attorney. The question is whether or not former superintendent Dianne Critchlow advised the board when the district spent $103,893.29 in legal fees in just 3 months in 2012. Would you consider that an unusual amount of professional legal services?

District Policy 0360 - School Attorney

The Board recognizes that the increasing complexity of School District operations frequently requires procurement of professional legal services. Consequently, the Board may employ an attorney and/or law firm for purposed of systematically securing such services. The Board shall prescribe the duties, compensation and term of service for the attorney and/or law firm. It shall be the duty of the council to advise the Board and to make recommendations concerning specific legal problems submitted. 

A decision to seek legal counsel or advice on behalf of the School District shall normally be made by the superintendent or by persons specifically authorized by the superintendent.It may also take place as a consequence of formal Board direction.

Many types of legal assistance to the district may be considered routine, and may not require specific Board approval or prior notice. However, when the administration concludes that unusual types or amounts of professional legal service may be required, the Board directs the administration to so advise it, and to expeditiously seek either initial or continuing authorization for such service.

Now that you're aware of board policy and why I've been asking for copies of invoices from Fox's former law firm dating back to 2008 brings me back to the Sunshine request I made more than 3 months ago. My Sunshine requests and information from this blog have led to many other Sunshine requests from the media and others which takes up district time. If district administrators had followed the Character Traits they so heavily touted, perhaps there wouldn't have been a need for people to make Sunshine requests.

I'm glad that Mr. Brazeal decided to do some research into the legal fees related to the "cease and desist" letters. The costs related to the "cease and desist" letters is minimal compared to the cost of Due Process Hearings and filing appeals with the ED OCR and USDA OCR and responding to monitoring letters year after year.

Mr. Brazeal stated the following in his response:

The events related to the “cease and desist” letters were troublesome.

Mr. Brazeal pointed out in his response to me that board meeting minutes documented that I mentioned the "cease and desist" letters during my Public Comments at the March 19, 2013 board meeting. I explained to him in a response to his January 8 email that my "cease and desist" letter was sent out in August 2012 and that he would need to review invoices from 2012 to find the cost of my "cease and desist" letter and that my comment at the March 2013 board meeting was a general comment concerning the use of "cease and desist" letters.

Below is a portion of what I told Fox's Board of Education during my Public Comment at the March 19, 2013 board meeting regarding the Cease and Desist Letters:

I think it is very important for the community to know that using taxpayer dollars to send out cease and desist letters to individuals in the community who voice their concerns at board meetings and in the community is unacceptable. It is also very unacceptable for individuals who are very well in the know of actions being taken by our administration prior to them even being public to be making slanderous comments about individuals in online forums anonymously. Well, actually they use a variety of different names all within minutes of each other but spreading the same message. This type of conduct will eventually lead to the dismissal of educators within our district if proven to be who everyone now believes to be the person or persons posting these messages.

It's definitely interesting to see what I had to say back then knowing what we know now.

I highly recommend reading my March 19, 2013 Fox C-6 board meeting report article. That article contains the full text of my Public Comments made at that meeting.

Fox C-6 March 19, 2013 Board Meeting Report

What's interesting is the fact that Mr. Brazeal's research found an invoice dated March 5, 2013 for $2,810.04 with the following 3 entries:

• 2/5/2013 EGT-Correspondence from Dr. Dianne Critchlow regarding proposed correspondence to District patron
• 2/5/2013 EGT-Review/revise proposed correspondence to District patron
• 2/26/2013 EGT-Correspondence from R. Herman, attorney, regarding cease and desist correspondence

I told Fox's Board of Education and the public at the March 19, 2013 that it was unacceptable for the district to use taxpayer dollars to send out Cease and Desist letters to individuals who voice their concerns about the district. I believe that most taxpayers would agree with me that doing so is not a good practice.

It appears that my comment at the March 19 meeting must have caused concern about using taxpayer dollars to send out cease and desist letters because MGO sent Fox an invoice the very next day on March 20, 2013 as noted by Mr. Brazeal listing the same 3 entries from above regarding proposed correspondence to District patron with a "star" by each of the entries and a note at the end of the invoice stating "changed to No Charge".

And, in order for the public to believe that the district wasn't charged for the Cease and Desist letters an article appeared in the Post Dispatch on March 23, 2013 with the following remark:

 "The letters did not cost the district anything extra beyond its regular contract with the firm.”

So it appears that, the "cease and desist" letters DID cost the district $2,810.04 until I expressed my concerns at the March 19, 2013 board meeting about using taxpayer dollars to send out "cease and desist" letters to silence district critics.

It was certainly strange how an updated invoice appeared the very next day?

Mr. Brazeal noted in his response that the March 5, 2013 invoice was paid in full and receipted by Fox's former law firm Mickes Goldman O'Toole (MGO) on March 18, 2013. The problem with this scenario is the fact that a March 5, 2013 invoice shouldn't have been approved for payment until the March 19, 2013 Fox C-6 BOE meeting and the check for the March 5, 2013 invoice shouldn't have been sent until after being approved at the March 19, 2013 meeting.

Another interesting quote from the March 23, 2013 Post Dispatch article was the following from former Fox C-6 Superintendent Dianne Critchlow.

“You don’t have the right to make up lies and defame someone’s character,” Critchlow said.

It was certainly an interesting comment for Dianne Critchlow to make considering the content of the online comments that were traced back to her home during that time period. Her comment is a true statement. However, I think she was hoping that everyone would think that the lies and defamatory statements were coming from her critics and not from district administrators.

Everything Has To Be Verified
For years I've had to verify everything I was told by some of Fox's administrators because many times the information was false. 

(Updated) When I informed Mr. Brazeal that he will have to reconcile all of the invoices in order to determine whether or not the fees for the "cease and desist" letters were truly changed to "No Charge" I was unaware of the detail information on the 3/5/2013 invoice.  

There were so many legal fees paid out during the 2012-2013 school year, that producing paperwork to give the appearance that a bill was refunded with a "No Charge" would be easy to do. So, without reviewing every single invoice and associated payment to MGO that year makes it difficult to know whether or not the "cease and desist" letter fees were truly written off.

At least we know that the district originally paid the invoice for the "cease and desist" letters and didn't get an updated invoice until the day after I commented about using taxpayer dollars to send out "cease and desist" letters.

A "cease and desist" letter sent to another patron on February 12, 2013 but was noted in the information that I was provided surrounding the "cease and desist" letters. There's no mention of it on the March 5, 2013 invoice.

2012-2013 Check Payments to MGO
Below are the payments made to MGO for the 2012-2013 school year gathered from Fox's board meeting packets. As you can tell, Fox C-6 spent a lot in legal fees during the 2012-2013 school year: $145,064.80

07/10/2012  - $20,622.74

07/12/2012  - $17,237.26

08/10/2012 -  $18,031.28

09/07/2012  - $47,277.01

09/12/2012  -      $725.00

10/09/2012  -   $5,982.50

11/12/2012  - $10,125.47
12/13/2012  -   $3,762.00
12/20/2012  -   $5,840.00
02/14/2013  -   $2,813.00

03/12/2013  -   $4,159.54
04/09/2013  -   $3,480.50

05/21/2013  -   $1,170.00
06/11/2013  -   $3,838.50

How much did it cost the district to send out a Cease and Desist letter to me in August 2012 when the district spent $103,893.29 in legal fees between July and September 2012?

It's going to take some time to discover just how much money was wasted in legal fees by Dianne Brown-Critchlow and her assistants.

Brazeal's Legal Fees Research

Below is the information Mr. Brazeal assembled and sent to me on Thursday January 8, 2015 related to the 2013 Cease and Desist letters: (NOTE: EGT - attorney Ernie G Trakas)

The events related to the “cease and desist” letters were troublesome. I spent some time today reviewing those events. I have the following observations in date order:

1. A MGO invoice dated March 5, 2013 includes the following entries:
     a. 2/5/2013 EGT-Correspondence from Dr. Dianne Critchlow regarding proposed correspondence to District patron
     b. 2/5/2013 EGT-Review/revise proposed correspondence to District patron
     c. 2/26/2013 EGT-Correspondence from R. Herman, attorney, regarding cease and desist correspondence 

2. MGO apparently billed the District on an hourly basis, however, their invoices do not include any time on task data nor any hourly rate for services data. In any event, the March 5, 2013 MGO invoices shows a fee of $2,810.04 for professional services rendered, which includes the three items shown in Item 1 above. The $2,810.04 fee was paid in full. MGO receipted the payment on 3/18/2013. 

3. The minutes of the March 19, 2013 BOE meeting indicate you made a statement about the “cease and desist” letters. 

4. A MGO invoice dated March 20, 2013 was issued with the identical listing of professional services as the March 5, 2013 invoice. The three entries enumerated in Item 1 above remain listed on the March 20, 2013 reissue of the invoice. Beside each of the three entries there is a hand-written “star”. On the last page of the invoice there is more handwriting consisting of a “star” followed by the words “changed to No Charge”. The invoice amount is reduced to $2,535.04. Since the 3/5/2013 invoice was already paid, the payment of $2,810.04 (receipted on 3/18/2013) is recorded, thereby creating a $275.00 credit balance on the 3/20/2013 invoice. 

5. A March 23, 2013 Post Dispatch article authored by Leah Thorsen outlines the letters well, and includes this text: “The letters did not cost the district anything extra beyond its regular contract with the firm.” 

Just an FYI…...

Tracking Down TROOP From TOPIX.COM! - (Reposted)

The following article that's posted below was originally written and posted on the FoxC6Watchdogs blog on Saturday March 15, 2014. However, I pulled it down on Monday March 17 at the request of our attorney because he didn't want to "let the cat out of the bag" just yet. However, as you read about the timing of my article and the timing of former Fox C-6 superintendent Dianne Critchlow's FMLA leave, there's good reason to believe that my article did "let the cat out of the bag" so to speak back then.

My original article was written the day after I learned that our attorney had been able to obtain the IP addresses from the TOPIX.COM website for many of the defamatory and libelous posts that had been made about me and others. It may be difficult for others to understand the adrenaline rush of knowing that after several years of online bullying that the person or persons responsible for making the defamatory posts would finally be known.

My original article contained a "how to" for using Google to quickly search for posts made on specific TOPIX threads using their unique thread ID and specific keywords. I recommend reading that section because you can apply the same technique for finding things that are much more productive than trying to track down libelous posts.

My original article was written in order to teach others how to quickly and easily do their own digital archaeological digging into the TOPIX.COM website. Knowing how to locate specific posts by keyword and unique thread ID that were written over the last several years can save you a lot of time in reading since there were numerous TOPIX threads related to the Fox C-6 School District on TOPIX. So it's good to know how to narrow your search to a specific thread. It appeared that many of the defamatory posts had been made by only a few individuals based on their language and keywords used.

When I originally wrote the article in March 2014, I didn't have any solid evidence as to where the defamatory comments were coming from but I had a very good idea. It wasn't until May 2014 that it was finally revealed to the public via the news that my suspicions were proven correct. That's also when everyone learned that there were several individuals involved in making defamatory comments.

What A Coincidence!
One of the really interesting things that I thought was such a coincidence back in March 2014 was the fact that Dianne Critchlow took Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) leave right around the same time that my article was published. In fact, there was a school board meeting on Tuesday March 18, 2014 right after my article was posted and former Fox C-6 superintendent Dianne Critchlow was suspiciously absent from that board meeting because she was on FMLA leave.

Critchlow had posted on her Twitter account that she would be taking FMLA leave. She has since deleted her Twitter account so I can't provide a link to her original post.

It certainly made me think that perhaps my article may have lead to Critchlow needing to take FMLA leave knowing that whoever had been posting on TOPIX as TROOP was going to eventually be discovered.

So, was it just a coincidence that former Fox C-6 superintendent Dianne Critchlow decided to take FMLA leave right around the time that this article was first published?

It definitely makes you wonder, doesn't it?

On March 20, 2014, I wrote an article documenting the fact that Fox C-6 Assistant Superintendent Tim Crutchley filled in for then Superintendent Dianne Critchlow because she was out on FMLA leave. Tim Crutchley thanked outgoing school board members Linda Nash and Dan Smith at that meeting and presented them with small thank you gifts for their service to the Fox C-6 School District.

Since March of 2014 we've learned a lot about who was behind the posts. It's been documented via a subpoena to TOPIX that the IP address for the very first post made by someone calling themselves TROOP 5 OR 6 was traced back to the home of Dianne and Jamie Critchlow. It's good to know and be able to document that my suspicions were correct all along.

Our lawsuit against "John Doe" has finally named names and has been served to all of those named in the suit. It has certainly took a lot longer than I ever thought it would to get to this point. It's even more understandable now as to why there was so much effort to silence any critics of our district.

Anyway, this was one of my favorite articles to date that I had written back then because I knew that the information needed to track down the person or persons responsible for making defamatory comments about me and others would finally be known. So I was definitely disappointed in having to remove it from my blog back then.

Hopefully republishing this article will help educate others as to why you should always choose your words carefully and thoughtfully before making disparaging remarks in online forums. You're not as anonymous as you may think you are!

I only made a couple of typographical and grammatical corrections to the article before republishing it. Otherwise, the article is being reposted as it was originally written and posted on the FoxC6Watchdogs blog on March 15, 2014. I also changed the color of the hyperlinks to red to make them stand out more. The title of this article is also the original title of the article with the exception of the "(Reposted)".

Below is the article that I originally posted on Saturday March 15, 2014 on the FoxC6Watchdogs blog.


Tracking Down TROOP From TOPIX.COM!
It doesn't take a Sherlock Holmes to have a pretty good idea who the person might be that was calling himself TROOP on the TOPIX.COM forum last year. Now, that a subpoena has been filed with TOPIX to obtain IP addresses for TROOP's posts or "TROOP like" posts, it will be interesting to see if my assumptions and the assumptions of many others turns out to be true.

If my assumptions are accurate, it will be interesting to see how things turn out for TROOP and those who have been protecting TROOP. TROOP 18 stated that he was an employee of the Fox C-6 School District on March 23, 2013 when he wrote:

Dear quintet of opponents... the threat of physical violence isn't tolerated nor even funny.. The fact that you are now all clearly visable and completely exposed does not favor you. The employees of this district have had enough and will faithfully defend their administration and board.(employed and loyal). If you want to go redneck Hoosier on this...all loyal employees will gladly find a place and time. Trust me, there are hundreds of us. Talk is cheap. As is your posts

TROOP attacked just about anyone who criticized Superintendent Critchlow or the school board and even threatened those who dared to speak at school board meetings.

TROOP Was Very Emotionally Connected to Superintendent Critchlow

For those who don't know, TROOP (5 or 6, 11 or 18) was an anonymous poster on the TOPIX.COM forum who appeared last year after learning that signs had been posted around the Fox C-6 School District about Superintendent Dianne Critchlow. I think that someone would have to be very emotionally attached to Superintendent Critchlow in order to write the things that TROOP wrote on TOPIX over the course of a couple of months last year. He was apparently very attached to Superintendent Critchlow's husband's ex-wife as well based upon his many attacks on her as well.

I never saw any of the signs, but since I've been considered a long time critic of Superintendent Critchlow and some of our school board members who have taken advantage of their position, I was immediately and falsely targeted by the person calling himself TROOP 5 or 6 as the person who had posted the signs.

I was definitely confused when I read TROOP 5 or 6's first post on January 24, 2013 because I didn't know anything about any signs that had been posted in the district. I go to school board meetings and email our school board members. I document school district issues on this blog and on Twitter. I don't hang signs!

However, it's good to know that others in our district have strong opinions about the problems caused by Superintendent Critchlow.

I always take the the high road when it comes to accomplishing my goals of cleaning up our school district. I've been providing facts and documentation for years to our school board about problems in the district but they've done nothing.

I've shared my information with others in our school district and for that Superintendent Critchlow sent me a Cease and Desist letter. I guess that's what superintendents do when they don't want the community to know the truth about what's been going on behind the scenes in their school district.

TROOP's assumptions that I was involved in posting signs was incorrect. The person who was posting signs and driving around the school district with them in the back of his truck was eventually discovered and he was sent a Cease and Desist letter as well for his efforts.

TROOP stepped way over the line with his very first post when he falsely accused me of being the person making and hanging the signs in our school district and posted that information online. TROOP also blamed another person that had spoken at a school board meeting and criticized our school district leadership.

The really sad thing is that TROOP made his accusations based upon information that could only have come from a school teacher at Lone Dell Elementary School. The comments that TROOP made in his first post came from a teacher wondering why a student appeared tired that day. The teacher apparently found out about the signs and made a very incorrect assumption that I was behind the signs and then told her principal or Superintendent Critchlow. That teacher's incorrect assumption somehow made it to TROOP.

It's quite easy to see that there are a few people in our school district who don't like me for documenting facts and asking questions about what's been going on in our school district over the last several years. That causes them to make incorrect assumptions about my character and how I work to resolve issues. 

It certainly leaves a lot of doubt about some of the people running our school district when they tout everywhere that Fox C-6 is a National District of Character when some of it's school leaders and staff act the way they do because they don't like people pointing out issues and concerns within our district.

I certainly had no idea what TROOP was talking about when I read his first post as TROOP 5 or 6 while at a basketball practice. But, I knew right away that TROOP had made assumptions that were wrong and he was making libelous comments that stepped way over the line. I had a pretty good guess as to who TROOP might be right away based on his language.

As TROOP continued to post comment after comment, he was making it easier and easier to narrow down the possibilities of who he might be. Very few people had access to the information that TROOP was posting online and knew the people to whom he was directing his comments.

Only a few people in the Fox C-6 Central Office could have known the information that TROOP was posting. So how did TROOP get his information? Did TROOP work in the Central Office or was he the spouse of someone who worked in the Central Office?

It didn't take too long for people who read and posted on TOPIX to start guessing who TROOP might be. Once they started to put two and two together and making suggestions as to who TROOP might be, TROOP went silent. TROOP didn't post for quite a while as TROOP after he posted on March 23, 2013 when he claimed to be a Fox C-6 employee.

TROOP made a revealing post on February 7, 2013 when he wrote, "Now, I will say this. From what I have heard there will be some sparks flying very soon for a few of you. Cue evil monster laugh...". 

TROOP's comment was made just a few days before a couple of other citizens in the district were sent Cease and Desist letters from the school district attorney for Superintendent Critchlow. Superintendent Critchlow or someone close to Superintendent Critchlow provided information to TROOP about the Cease and Desist letters. The school board members weren't aware that Cease and Desist letters had been sent out. TROOP must have a very close relationship with Superintendent Critchlow if he knew about the Cease and Desist letters before they were received by the individuals.

TROOP's comments focused on only a few people that he felt was criticizing Superintendent Dianne Critchlow and the school board. He focused on me and 2 others who had spoken at school board meetings; the person that was posting signs in the district; and Superintendent Critchlow's husband's ex-wife.

Who in the general public would care about Superintendent Critchlow's husband's ex-wife and make derogatory comments about her while making derogatory comments about people who spoke at board meetings?

Eventually, TROOP knew that I wasn't involved with the making of the signs after the person that was making them was sent a Cease and Desist letter. But, he was mad enough about the signs to blame them on me because he knew who I was.

TROOP went way too far with many of his comments and people called him out for doing so. Three of us that were bullied online and maliciously attacked by TROOP for bringing problems in the district to the attention of the school board filed a "John Doe" lawsuit last year against the person calling himself TROOP. The lawsuit has been filed and subpoenas were recently sent to TOPIX to obtain the IP addresses. 

Everyone should know by now that they aren't truly anonymous when they post online. I posted 18 comments on the TOPIX website between October 2010 and January 2011. I posted facts about issues going on in the Fox C-6 School District after finding the Fox High School Superintendent thread on TOPIX while doing a search for information about our district.

I was falsely blamed many times for posting comments on TOPIX over the last 3 years under different names. Superintendent Critchlow would like to think that I stooped to TROOP's level. I post facts and documents. TROOP attacked people for what they looked like and made defamatory and derogatory comments about people that warrants an immediate dismissal as an educator and a revoking of their teaching certificate.

If Superintendent Critchlow has been protecting TROOP as some have posted online, then the school board should have good cause for termination. Once all of this comes to light, our school board will have even more Public Relations problems to deal with.

The last post I made on TOPIX was a link to Mr. Critchlow's resume that he had posted on his LinkedIn account while looking for a coaching job in Texas. Mr. Critchlow removed his LinkedIn account shortly after I posted the link to his resume. My post asked why his resume didn't show any previous teaching experience. My post on TOPIX to his LinkedIn resume was deleted sometime after his LinkedIn account was deleted.

Supporters of Superintendent Critchlow and the board have been attacking me online for more than 3 years because I've been vocal about the problems in our school district.

Since people know who I am, they have a name to attack or bully me online because they can. I guess they think that they can say whatever they want anonymously and not get caught. But, it's just a matter of time.

One thing you'll notice is the language that TROOP uses over and over. He's so consistent that it also makes it very likely that TROOP was the same person that posted on TOPIX in December 2010 just one week after I first spoke at a school board meeting. TROOP may have also been the same person who was criticizing parents of Seckman High School students and defending the football coach at Seckman High School on another thread. You should search for and read some of the posts.

It's easy to find TROOP's posts because of the language he uses. He uses the word "inbred" quite often in his posts along with other words that I won't mention here. The word "inbred" was also used in the December 20, 2010 post that appeared after I spoke at the December 2010 board meeting.

At the 2010 board meeting, I asked our school board questions about their hiring practices. I asked them how they could have hired and promoted a person to a Director position who had only worked for the district for a couple of months and had been fired from a previous job for a DWI. I received no response from the school board in December 2010 but my questions provoked a response on TOPIX.

In December 2010 I found it strange that someone would post libelous comments on TOPIX.COM about me and my parents by naming me by my first name and inferring my last name by using TV character names for my parents first names. I guess that made the person making the comments feel pretty smart about themselves and think that their comments wouldn't be libelous if they didn't name me directly.

The post made on TOPIX on December 20, 2010 was made just two days before an article was published in the Arnold-Imperial Leader newspaper by Kim Robertson who had interviewed Mr. Jamie Critchlow. Jamie Critchlow is Fox C-6 Superintendent Dianne Critchlow's husband. The article discussed Mr. Critchlow's DWI arrest in Tyler, Texas and his being fired from Tyler Community College where he was the head football coach. The article also mentioned that I was at the school board meeting asking the school board questions about a person who had been hired by the district and promoted to a job paying $98,859 after only a couple of months working for the district.

Board member Cheryl Herman told me at the meeting to call the Central Office so I could be put in touch with someone who would be able to answer my questions. She obviously didn't understand that my question was meant for the school board. They were the ones who had approved the hiring of the individual. My questions were not intended for our school district administrators. The school board approved the hiring. That's why I was asking the board.

I asked the board at the time how they could promote someone to a position if they didn't have the certifications required for the position. I wanted to know how the school board could justify paying someone a salary of $98,859 to someone who had only worked for the district for 2 months after being hired as a Behavior Intervention Support Teacher and an assistant football coach.

I never received a response from our school board to my Public Comment questions after the December 2010 school board meeting. My comments were documented in the December 2010 board meeting minutes as "Concerns with the district". I don't believe Superintendent Critchlow wanted the public to know what my "concerns" were in the board meeting minutes. That's how Superintendent Critchlow can keep the public in the dark.

I received an email response in May 2011 from Superintendent Brown (now Critchlow) informing me that Mr. Critchlow was certified by MO DESE. She said that he didn't make the $98,859 that I claimed that he made, even though MO DESE records from data supplied by Fox C-6 documented his salary as $98,859 in their Core data. It also seemed as if Superintendent Brown took offense to my questions about Mr. Critchlow at the time. I don't know if her being offended had anything to do with the fact that she's now married to Jamie Critchlow or not.

It just seemed odd that someone out of the blue would post derogatory and libelous comments about me on TOPIX just prior to an article being written in the Leader newspaper about Jamie Critchlow. It was also odd that since there were only 8 people in attendance at the December 2010 school board meeting besides the Board of Education and Central Office administrators that anyone in the general public would even known that I had spoken at the board meeting besides those in attendance. People certainly didn't find out what I talked about from board meeting minutes. Back then, board meeting minutes weren't posted until after the next board meeting plus they only documented that I had "Concerns with the district".

So who could have been that upset to post the comments like those posted TOPIX on December 20, 2010?

It's definitely going to be interesting to see what turns up for the IP Addresses from the subpoena to TOPIX.COM. The findings may wake up the Fox C-6 community a bit more as to what's been going on in our school district for at least the last 5 or 6 years.

So how can you find some of the things that were posted on TOPIX.COM?

The easiest and quickest way is to use some of TROOP 5 or 6 or TROOP 11 or one of his other aliases favorite words in a Google search string like I've shown below. Using the Google search keyword site: allows you to restrict the domain name to TOPIX.COM (ie. site:TOPIX.COM).

Next you can add in the unique TOPIX thread identifier like the ones shown below to restrict the searches to a specific thread such as the Nepotism on Fox School Board thread or the Fox High School Superintendent thread or the Why Can't Fox and Seckman High Schools Win Football Games? thread as shown below:

TP57P8GF2PEQBL909 - Nepotism on Fox School Board

TUT6OGLPV1RMEEEO2 - Fox High School Superintendent

TG61O48KVPSPHOPUG‎ - Why Can't Fox and Seckman High Schools Win Football Games?

Next add in one of TROOP's favorite words that he used quite often such as "inbred", "dumba$$", "fat", "$hit", "nimrod", "a$$es", "disgruntled", "hags", "rejects", "tards", "demented", etc. to find some of the posts made by TROOP or those that used similar language.

TROOP also liked to make direct attacks towards me quite often so you can always use Simpson as another search word to see what a Fox C-6 employee who has adopted the Character Education Program thinks about people who bring concerns to our school board.

Here are some example google searches that you can use to find specific posts on TOPIX.COM:

Nepotism on Fox School Board

site:TOPIX.COM TP57P8GF2PEQBL909 inbred

site:TOPIX.COM TP57P8GF2PEQBL909 dumba$$

site:TOPIX.COM TP57P8GF2PEQBL909 fat

site:TOPIX.COM TP57P8GF2PEQBL909 disgruntled
site:TOPIX.COM TP57P8GF2PEQBL909 hags

site:TOPIX.COM TP57P8GF2PEQBL909 nimrod

site:TOPIX.COM TP57P8GF2PEQBL909 rejects

site:TOPIX.COM TP57P8GF2PEQBL909 tards
site:TOPIX.COM TP57P8GF2PEQBL909 demented

site:TOPIX.COM TP57P8GF2PEQBL909 $hit

Fox High School Superintendent

site:TOPIX.COM TUT6OGLPV1RMEEEO2 redneckery

site:TOPIX.COM TUT6OGLPV1RMEEEO2 inbred

site:TOPIX.COM TUT6OGLPV1RMEEEO2 dumba$$

site:TOPIX.COM TUT6OGLPV1RMEEEO2 fat

site:TOPIX.COM TUT6OGLPV1RMEEEO2 a$$es

Why Can't Fox and Seckman High Schools Win Football Games?

site:TOPIX.COM TG61O48KVPSPHOPUG inbred

Take note of the Locations listed on a lot of the posts that were made by TROOP and others using similar language. They typically came from Columbia, MO, Arnold, MO and United States (school possibly based on other posts). It's interesting to analyze the data when your tracking down those people who are anonymously attacking you and making false statements about you and others.

The post made by "redneckery" on December 20, 2010 a week after I spoke at the December 2010 school board meeting uses two of TROOP's favorite words, "inbred" and "dumba$$".

I wonder if it was just a coincidence or were they posted by the same person?

The original post from "redneckery" in December 2010 was deleted after I requested the IP information from TOPIX for the post.  I specifically asked TOPIX NOT to delete the post. Luckily, someone quoted the post on December 21, 2010 prior to the original post being deleted so it can still be found online.

TROOP and whoever else uses the same words as TROOP left a very nice trail of evidence for the Fox C-6 community to get a good idea of who TROOP might be.

Just recently, TROOP or someone using the same language as TROOP posted anonymously using the pseudonym of Nope and Milk sprayed from nose on January 28, 2014 on the Nepotism on Fox School Board thread using one of TROOP's favorite words, "inbred".

The comments made by TROOP and other pseudonyms over the last several years certainly demonstrate to the Fox C-6 community the incredible lack of commitment that some of our district employees have made to the Character Education Program as a National District of Character that's documented in our school district's Policies and Regulations.

Wow! More Items Recovered from Former Fox C-6 Superintendent Dianne Critchlow!

Soon the Fox C-6 community is going to learn just how much former Fox C-6 Superintendent Dianne Brown-Critchlow used her district credit card to make purchases for personal use with taxpayer monies.  I've submitted a Sunshine Request to the district asking for credit card information dating back to when she started her tenure as the Fox C-6 School District Superintendent in 2005 since it appears that this has been going on for quite some time.

It's definitely hard to believe that Dianne Critchlow would use taxpayer dollars to make purchases for personal use given the fact that she was making more then $260,000 a year in salary. Our district has already hit national headlines related to the cyber-bullying scandal. This will just add to the unwanted publicity!

The taxpayers of the Fox C-6 School District and the public in general are going to be amazed at what's already been recovered from former Superintendent Dianne Critchlow's home or property. I'm certainly glad that we have former Fox High School graduate John Brazeal as Fox's new CFO. He has been working on uncovering things and recovering property. He was thrown into the fire and is doing an excellent job of going through the receipts and keeping the public informed about what he has uncovered.

It's pretty easy to understand why former Superintendent Dianne Critchlow asked Fox's former law firm to send out Cease and Desist Letters to individuals working to uncover and expose what was going on in the school district under her watch. It's even easier to understand why she didn't want school district credit card statements made public and why they weren't being included the board meeting packets each month for the school board to review.

This is one news story you won't want to miss!

Russell Kinsaul from KMOV News 4 posted a news story about the items recovered so far from Dianne Critchlow's home:

Fox School District Under investigation

for misuse of taxpayer money

Russell Kinsaul tweeted a photo of some of the items recovered so far:

Tweeted Photo of Recovered Items

Stepping through the video from KMOV I noticed that Easton ball bats still have the plastic wrappers on them. It also appears that there are 2 Asus Memo Pad tablet computers and they appear to both still be in shrink wrap as well. Why were these items still shrink wrapped?

The digital cameras appear to have been purchased over a number of years based upon their model numbers. I looked up the cameras from the model numbers in the video footage and posted their MSRP prices as well as when the cameras were introduced.

The inventory sheet from CFO Brazeal stated 1 ASUS Memo Pad but from the video it appears that there were 2 ASUS Memo Pad tablet computers. No prices have been included below for any of the extra lenses that can be seen in the camera bag for the Nikon D5000 since there's no information about them. But, spare lenses can run from $150 to $1000 or more.

Based on MSRP prices, the district has recovered more than $4000 in equipment just for those items with prices listed on them below. That does not count the laptop, air compressor and air brush nozzle or phone and tablet cases.

Some of the items recovered so far include the following:

• 4 Digital Cameras
• Nikon 1 (red camera) (MSRP: $599) + Accessories
  (TARGET: 12/13/2011 - $674.90 + 12/15/2011 - $145.15)
• Nikon D5000 Digital SLR (MSRP: $850) + additional lenses
  (Circa 2009) 
• Pentax K100D Super Digital SLR camera (MSRP: $600)
  (Circa: July 2007)
• Unknown camera from video & photo
• Camera bag for digital cameras
• 2 - iPad Airs - $499 each
• 2 - Asus Memo Pad - $149 each (look to be brand new still in shrink wrap)
• 1 - HP Color LaserJet PRO printer M177 - $349.99
• 1 - Sony wireless stereo headphone system - $299
• 1 - Easton S500 baseball bat - $99
• 2 - Easton S50 slow pitch bats - $24.99 each
• 1 - Lenovo laptop
• 1 - Easton bag containing
• 1 -  Otter Box
• 1 -  Paint machine air compressor (air brush) 
• 2 smart phones
• 12 cell phone cases
• Logging tongs and chains
• and more...

It's easy to see why the Fox C-6 school board took school district credit cards away from ALL Fox C-6 School District superintendents in June 2014. 

There were a couple of superintendents that used their credit cards responsibly. However, the merry band of friends that didn't use their credit cards responsibly and per district policy got away with quite a bit for quite a while before the credit card statements were made available. Apparently the Fox C-6 school board hadn't been reviewing monthly credit card statements for years or they would have noticed what was going on long ago. Dianne Critchlow wasn't providing the credit card statements to the board members in their board packets. 

News from all of the debacle is most likely going to get worse before it gets better! So stay tuned.

Thank You For Reading My Blog!

I'd like to give a Shout Out to our Superintendent Dianne Critchlow and our school board members to thank them for reading my blog. Our Superintendent had a meeting yesterday with one of the citizens in our community who received one of the Cease and Desist letters. She told him that she reads my blog and that information on my blog isn't true. I would have to stop her right there and say that HER STATEMENT IS NOT TRUE!!

Everyone that knows me, knows that I always strive for the utmost accuracy and truth in the information I provide to our community. So, if our superintendent and school board members find ANY inaccuracies or what they consider to be false or misleading information, please contact me and I will correct it!!

Our superintendent and her supporters who claim my statements are "untrue" should be able to point out what information, specifically, is false or inaccurate. Our superintendent has pointed out to me in past emails, that "many of my concerns were false and inaccurate" only to end up having to make corrections to her own claims and learn that what I stated was true. It's one thing to make a claim and another to back it up.

JUST AN EXAMPLE
Just as an example, I informed the school board at the August 2011 board meeting that their new policy for Allergy Prevention and Response DID NOT meet state law. Our Superintendent fired back an email informing me that it did meet state law and that the school district attorneys had reviewed it. It had even been sent out to the school board members and all of the building principals for review. The policy that the school board adopted at the June 2011 board meeting was only 8 sentences in length and basically stated that the school district would develop a policy. So I emailed our school board the sample policy developed by the state of Missouri, which was over 4 pages long. I even included the policy from the Mehlville School District where one of Dianne Critchlow's brothers is an administrator . Then behold, this district policy appeared on the November 2011 board meeting agenda and was re-adopted at the December 2011 board meeting. The re-adopted policy approved at the December 2011 board meeting looks very similar to the sample policy from the state.

I believe that the concern I brought up to the board was constructive, not "negativity". If our school board needs to address an issue I will bring it to their attention either by correspondence or by speaking during the designated public comment time at public school board meetings. It seems that our Superintendent (as well as some board members and staff) do not like the fact that I ask them to address issues that need corrections, and so my concerns are usually met with a blanket claim that my information is "false", "untrue" or "inaccurate".

CHECK THE FACTS
I am not pulling information out of thin air or making it up. I am using the data available online through the Missouri Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) website available at dese.mo.gov. I am also referencing documents available in board meeting packets that were only available from our district by making Missouri Sunshine Law requests to our school board secretary and being charged a fee to obtain those documents only after I had provided some of the information from those documents to the public.

Check the date that our Superintendent's current husband obtained his teaching credentials. According to the school district, he was hired in August 2009 (before he married Superintendent Brown) and his salary was in the low to mid $30,000 range. Then, just 3 months later, he was promoted to "Director" of the Bridges program and his salary increased to $98,959.

According to the DESE website, our Superintendent's husband did not take the Praxis test to earn his teaching certification until 2010, and he did not actually receive his teaching certificate until January 2011. He may have obtained a "provisional certificate" upon his hire at Fox so that he was allowed to teach. He has a Master's Degree in Interdisciplinary Studies from the University of Texas at Tyler from 2001. Also, according to DESE, Mr. Critchlow has not taken the School Leadership Licensure Assessment (SLLA), a component of the licensure process for principals.

Interestingly, correspondence provided in the board packets, however, shows that Mr. Critchlow referred to himself with the title of "principal". According to DESE, however, he cannot be nor can he claim to be a "principal".

As a comparison, I looked at the qualifications of another "Director" within our District, the Director of the Fox C-6 Early Childhood Center hold's a Master's Degree in Education Administration and has completed the School Leadership Licensure Assessment (SLLA) test. The Director of the ECC earns a comparable salary.

So, believing my concerns to be valid, I expressed them to the our school board at the December 2010 board meeting. Unfortunately, our school board never responded to my questions. Mrs. Hermann, the board president at the time, did tell me at the board meeting that I could call the school the next day and someone would be able to find the person that could answer my questions. However, I intentionally directed my concern to the school board since it is the board that had approved the hiring. Our Superintendent did send me an email a few months later letting me know that my information about her husband was false and inaccurate. She told me that he was not paid the $98,859 that I had claimed.

In case you're wondering, I did inform the Superintendent in 2011 that my data is from DESE. If the salary and/or certification from DESE is "false, misleading, or inaccurate", the Superintendent should have contacted DESE to ensure the information was correct. As you can see from the DESE website, as of this date, the DESE data cited to Dr. Critchlow has not been revised and remains the same as when I brought it to the board's attention and Dr. Critchlow in December 2010.

Oh yes. Then on August 24, 2012, I received a "Cease and Desist" letter from the Superintendent.

BRING IT!
It is one thing to make a generalized comment that my statements are "untrue", that I'm "vindictive", or that I "have an axe to grind". But, will you back that up with any proof? Any documentation? Simply saying it's "not true" is cowardly. Show me exactly, what I've stated that is untrue and show me the data that supports it. Please.

I've asked this before. I responded to Dr. Critchlow's "cease and desist" asking her what I stated or written was untrue.

This may be shocking to some of you out there, but (gasp) I never received a response. Instead of responding to my direct request for this information, to allow me the opportunity to correct or defend my statement(s), Dianne continues to dismiss me by only saying "it's not true". Yesterday's meeting with the recipient of one of her "cease and desist" letters is just a recent example of her evasion tactics.

I asked before to no avail, so I will ask again: What's "not true" Dianne? Since you apparently read this blog, why don't you clarify to me exactly what I've stated here, on my blog, that you referred to as "untrue"? You have exerted the time and effort to read my blog and make it a point to state to others that it's "untrue", so why not use a fraction of that energy to contact me directly and let me know exactly which of my statements you believe are inaccurate?

I have the right to bring forth questions regarding hiring practices - whether they involve the Superintendent's husband or the Board of Education president's daughter-in-law. I believe that I, along with my fellow citizens, have the right to question our school board about the issues and inconsistencies   , and that our questions deserve to be answered. We may disagree, but to simply not respond, or to respond with a canned "it's not true", is not acceptable. And, it should not be acceptable to the members of our school board, not to any of the stakeholders of our community.

Fox C-6 March 19, 2013 Board Meeting Report

More Realistic Than Last Month
The March 19, 2013 Fox C-6 Board of Education meeting was a nice change of pace from last month's meeting. This month's meeting brought some genuine highlights of students and teachers that are making a difference in the district. A student from Fox Elementary was highlighted for her heroic action of using the Heimlich maneuver to save a fellow classmate from choking on a piece of popcorn chicken. The American Heart Association honored Rockport Elementary for its fund raising efforts this year by raising over $33,000 for the American Heart Association. It was the top fund raising school in the state of Missouri for the American Heart Association's Jump Rope for Heart. Rockport has been raising funds for more than 20 years for the American Heart Association. Mr. Steis the assistant principal at Antonia and Ridgewood middle schools highlighted some of his students that are tutoring special needs students. These were truly meaningful stories by students and teachers in our district. It was a far cry from what went on at last month's meeting during Public Comment. Last month a new school record was set for the most number of Public Comments made at a board meeting since 2001.

In contrast, the February 2013 BOE meeting couldn't have been better scripted by our superintendent in her efforts to combat the bad press that she and the district have been receiving lately. It was as if she had handed out writing assignments to 5 individuals (some being teachers) from our school district to come up with something great to say about the district. It was very amusing listening to the over the top Public Comments last month. It was even more interesting to see how they were documented in the board meeting minutes in contrast to how my comments were documented. It speaks volumes as to how our district filters the information to keep the public from getting an honest summary of board meetings and the public's concerns. At least the minutes stated more than "Concerns within the district" which is how my Public Comments were documented in the December 2010 BOE meeting minutes. I emailed the board regarding my comments being documented as "Concerns within the district.". I received quite an unprofessional response from our superintendent informing me that our school board secretary had contacted the Missouri School Board Associations's legal counsel and that the board meeting minutes fully complied with the law. I wonder if anyone remembers what my "Concerns" were back then?

February 19, 2013 Board Meeting Minutes
Public Comments:

• Madelyn Layman - the importance of using positive character in our schools.
• Barb Wiley - commented on the progress of the district over the past 24 years.
• Joe Simino - Success and growth in the Fox C-6 School District music department.
• Cailyn Hotop - thanked the board for all of the decisions they had made that have helped to shaped her high school career.
• Katherine Luh - expressed gratitude for the exceptional education.
• Rich Simpson - commented on ACT data, school calendar, textbooks, public comments policy.

Last month our superintendent wanted to make sure that the community knows how great a job our school board is doing right before the election. She has been doing this for years in the local papers. She needs to keep the incumbents in place. I am sure that everyone in the community has already forgotten about the recent decision by our school board to hire the daughter in law of our school board president as the district's new Director of Food Nutrition Services for $65,000 a year. Linda Nash's daughter in law has a high school diploma and had worked at McDonald's for 17 years.

This month I felt that I needed to address my concerns regarding the Cease and Desist letters that the district has been spending taxpayer dollars to send out to citizens in our community for voicing their concerns and opinions and for asking the school district to be accountable and transparent. These letters were sent to try and silence those being critical of our district.

Public Comments
There is not a whole lot you can say in 3 minutes to get your point across to the school board and administration and inform the Public. It slows the progress of change by restricting what can be conveyed to the board and the public. That's also why there are blogs like this so more information can be conveyed to the public; and, so they can become more educated on the process and what is really happening within our school district.

Since this was the last board meeting prior to the election, I felt that it was really important to point out a systemic problem that has been occurring for more than 2 years. It is a fact that there have been individuals posting in an online forum known as Topix. I happened upon this website in October 2010 while researching information about the district to send to the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights (ED OCR). It is like the gossip channel for communities across the nation. Comments can be posted anonymously. This allows anyone to say anything about anyone without fear of reprisal to the real poster of the comment. In fact, I have been the subject as well as my parents of many false, defamatory and slanderous comments over the past couple of years because of my efforts to educate our school board and inform the public. 

What was my major point in telling the board about this? Despite the false accusations and claims posted on TOPIX that I was the person making posts in this online forum, I have not posted on Topix in over 2 years.

So, while some Fox C-6 administrators may be mad that people were speaking about them over the last couple of years on TOPIX, I have not been the one posting those comments. Nor did I ask anyone to post comments on that site for me.

The first slanderous comment directed at my parents and I was posted only a week after I spoke at the December 2010 school board meeting and 2 days before an article was published in the Leader newspaper about the newly appointed head football coach at Seckman High School. What a coincidence! Especially given the fact that there were only 7 people in attendance at the December 2010 board meeting besides the board members and administrators. Those in attendance included myself, a reporter from the Leader and a few students and a couple of accountants. The board meeting minutes didn't get posted for over a month and then there weren't any details of my public comments in those board minutes.

Recently, the personal attacks made against me have really picked up after I spoke at the December 2012, January 2013 and February 2013 board meetings. Those personal attacks have also been directed at others who have voiced their concerns about our school district, superintendent and school board. I believe as well as many others in our community that there are only a few people that would be so upset over critical comments made of our superintendent and school board. The language in the posts and the people that have been attacked speaks even louder as to who might be posting these defamatory and slanderous comments. Even more telling is the fact that some of the information posted would have only been known to school administrators. As I stated in my public comment at the March 2013 board meeting, remarks such as those that have been posted online, would lead to the dismissal of any educator who would make such comments. Rather than calling people names and making false accusations, they should be addressing the problems and criticisms rather than risking their careers.

Here is what I read at the March 19, 2013 school board meeting.

My March 19, 2013 Fox C-6 board meeting Public Comment

I would like to report that I have been getting a lot of positive feedback from the community and from teachers and staff and even retirees for my efforts in helping to bring accountability to our school district. It is good to see that the public is becoming more aware of how our school district leadership and school board has been conducting business compared to other school districts under our current administration. I think it is very important for the community to know that using taxpayer dollars to send out cease and desist letters to individuals in the community who voice their concerns at board meetings and in the community is unacceptable. It is also very unacceptable for individuals who are very well in the know of actions being taken by our administration prior to them even being public to be making slanderous comments about individuals in online forums anonymously. Well, actually they use a variety of different names all within minutes of each other but spreading the same message. This type of conduct will eventually lead to the dismissal of educators within our district if proven to be who everyone now believes to be the person or persons posting these messages.

I would like the school board to know that I have never made ANY defamatory or derogatory comments at school board meetings or to school board members as was misrepresented in the cease and desist letter sent to me by our school district last fall. I would also ask that our school board read up on Missouri’s Anti-SLAPP law regarding this topic. Our school board and administrators should also know that I have not posted anything on the TOPIX online forum for more than 2 years. I made a total of 18 posts between October 2010 and January 11, 2011 providing statistical data and information from Missouri DESE and school board meeting minutes and information regarding a District Wide Compliance Reviews that was being conducted by the Office of Civil Rights of our school district. That Compliance Review has been ongoing since March of 2010. I certainly have not deserved the crude and slanderous remarks that have been made against me and my parents for my advocacy efforts and efforts to hold our school district accountable. You have some very serious issues to deal with and I am glad that the community is beginning to realize that things aren’t as glowing and as positive as you would like everyone to believe.

So, in closing would like to say that I certainly hope that the upcoming election will bring a new set of faces to our school board and that our district begins to head in a new direction. It will take a concerted effort by our community to encourage a change in leadership. It will also require that our school board and school administrators conduct themselves with the Character traits of Honesty and Integrity that they so often tout. 

Thank You!

Fox C-6 School Board Election
I have been asked by quite a few people including my parents as to who I support for the upcoming Fox C-6 School Board election. I am putting my support behind Mark Jones and Steve Holloway. Mark Jones is a 1985 graduate of Fox High School and Steve Holloway is a 1990 graduate of Fox High School.

Mark Jones and Steve Holloway have information on Facebook. Mark Jones has a website as well.

Mark Jones Website
Mark Jones Facebook Page

Steve Holloway's Facebook Page

My father told me just the other day that he thought Mark Jones had a good chance at getting on the school board. He said that having 6 people running for 2 positions makes it more difficult but he still liked his chances. I was really glad to hear that from my father. My father knows a lot of people in our school district and in the community.  He and my mother are very well respected and his remarks should say a lot to the community. I hope Mark Jones and Steve Holloway gets elected to the school board. Both Mark and Steve have a background in computer science and work in the technology field. Their skills could benefit our school board and community greatly.