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

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

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

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

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

SECTION 302 - Resolution Agreement Reached During an Investigation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Documentation Contradicts Superintendent Dianne Critchlow's Statements at June 2013 Board Meeting!

After I spoke during Public Comments at the June 2013 Fox C-6 School Board meeting regarding an open Resolution Agreement with the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (ED OCR) and a Final Agency Decision from the USDA Office for Civil Rights (USDA OCR) finding Fox C-6 and Missouri DESE non-compliant with Section 504, ADA and the ADAAA, Superintendent Dianne Critchlow made the following statement:

"We are in compliance with every complaint to date and one is in litigation and we cannot discuss it." 

If you read the Monitoring Letters issued by the ED OCR and the Final Agency Decision from USDA OCR using the links below, you'll find that Superintendent Critchlow's statement was FALSE.

Why would our Superintendent say that we cannot discuss these issues?

The ED OCR Monitoring Letters and USDA OCR's Final Agency Decision don't reflect well on her, the school board or our district. And, if she made a statement at the school board meeting it must be true.

If Superintendent Critchlow is truly keeping our school board informed on these issues, I would think that the board would want to know why it has taken our District more than 4 years to meet the obligations of the Resolution Agreement they signed with ED OCR in May of 2009. Our school board should also be asking why our District is spending tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees rather than correcting their documentation and complying with the law.

I'm sure our Superintendent had no idea that ED OCR would find a lot more problems in our District than just not wanting to properly follow Section 504 law. If you read the ED OCR Monitoring Letters below, you'll find that there are a number of problems with the district's policies and handbooks complying with Section 504, ADA and ADAAA. It was such a systemic issue that the Washington D.C. Office for Civil Rights decided to conduct a District Wide Compliance Review of Fox C-6.

The District Wide Compliance Review was initiated in March of 2010 by ED OCR. Fox's attorneys argued that ED OCR was picking on our District and harassing them. Needless to say, ED OCR denied their request to rescind the District Wide Compliance Review. However, the District has done a very good job of dragging things out while spending a lot in legal fees.

Nearly 4 Years and Counting Despite Reassurances
It should be noted that Fox didn't accomplish what they originally agreed to do by August 31, 2009. By reading through the original Resolution Agreement and then the Monitoring Letters and attorney responses, you'll find that our District informed ED OCR that it would have the policies and procedures updated by July 31, 2010 after the district didn't meet the original 2009 dates.

In 2012, the District informed ED OCR that they planned on having the updated policies and procedures completed by July of 2012. Well, that didn't happen either! So, here we are in July of 2013 and the District still hasn't updated their documentation.

Now that the USDA OCR has asked the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) for assistance in bringing Fox C-6 and Missouri DESE into compliance, it appears to demonstrate the fact that our school district and many like ours simply ignore the federal agencies. I think this is mostly due to the fact that ED OCR "allows" the District to "voluntarily comply". And, since ED OCR just issues new deadlines and doesn't actually perform any enforcement, school districts ignore them. It will be interesting to see how much money our school board plans to allow our Superintendent to spend on these issues before they decide to comply with the rulings and fulfill their obligations of the Resolution Agreement.

Below you will find some of the documentation showing the District's compliance problems. Our Superintendent has a tendency to just throw out statements thinking or hoping everyone believes her.

I provide the documentation that shows that what she says isn't always true!

Letters from the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (ED OCR) and the USDA OCR document the fact that our district is NOT in full compliance.

Fox and Missouri DESE Found Non-Compliant by USDA OCR
The complaints I spoke of at the June 2013 board meeting are not in litigation. Only the Department of Justice can litigate a complaint with the District. Currently the USDA is working with Missouri DESE hoping that MO DESE will bring our district into compliance with the USDA's Final Agency Decision. If MO DESE fails to do so, the DOJ will then step in to bring about compliance. At that time, the District may possibly end up in litigation. But, at the moment, these complaints are not in litigation. Superintendent Critchlow throws out the litigation claim to so she can keep things behind "closed doors" rather than speaking about them in the public session of the board meetings.

UPDATED: On Friday July 12, 2013, Missouri DESE's assistant legal counsel Kris Morrow sent an email stating that "It remains DESE's position that 504 Compliance within the public schools falls under the purview of the U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights." following questions sent to Karen Wooton, Missouri DESE's Food Nutrition Director regarding the USDA's August 2011 Final Agency Decision that found MO DESE non-compliant.

Apparently, Ms. Morrow hasn't read the legally binding agreement that Missouri DESE signs with the USDA each year in order to receive their federal funding from the USDA. Ms. Morrow would be well advised to read the April 2011 memo from the USDA OCR office which MO DESE has posted on their website.

Not to rule out any possibilities! But, perhaps Superintendent Critchlow is simply having a difficult time accepting the fact that the Monitoring Letters from ED OCR and the USDA Final Agency Decision aren't accolades for our District. If you're curious, give them a read and see what you think. How would someone document this on their resume as an accomplishment?

The links below open the documents from ED OCR, USDA OCR and our school district attorneys to get an understanding of how compliant or non-compliant the Fox C-6 School District really is with these agencies. Our school district has certainly invested a lot of money in legal fees just to keep from filling out paperwork like 504 Plans for students in our District!

Documentation From Federal Agencies Contradicts

Superintendent's Statements

May 1, 2009 Fox C-6 School District Resolution Agreement with ED OCR

December 8, 2009 ED OCR Issues First Monitoring Letter to Fox C-6 for May 1, 2009 Resolution Agreement

February 26, 2010 Fox C-6 District Attorney Teri Goldman Response to ED OCR's December 2009 Monitoring Letter and Conference Call

March 11, 2010 ED OCR Complaint Notification to Fox C-6 Regarding Due Process Hearing Officer Selection

March 19, 2010 Fox C-6 District Wide Compliance Review Notification Letter from ED OCR

March 29, 2010 Fox C-6 District Attorney Teri Goldman's Letter to Russlyn Ali, Assistant Secretary of Office for Civil Rights, U.S. Department of Education Regarding District Wide Compliance Review

April 7, 2010 ED OCR Enforcement Director Randolph Wills Notifies Fox C-6 that District Wide Compliance Review Will Proceed

April 21, 2010 Fox C-6 Makes Request for Due Process Hearing

August 18, 2011 - Fox C-6 and MO DESE Found
Non-Compliant with Section 504, ADA and ADAAA

This ruling was handed down from the USDA after reviewing the Due Process Hearing that was put on by the District and heard by the District attorney's former law associate who was hired by the District as a Due Process Hearing Officer. The same attorney was hired by the District in January 2009 as a Due Process Hearing Officer for another case in the District and the hearing officer ruled in favor of the District on that case too. I wonder how truly "Fair and Impartial" former law associates are in hearing cases? You'll have to read the USDA's take on the Due Process Hearing Officer's decision.

August 18, 2011 USDA OCR Final Agency Decision Finding Fox C-6 and MO DESE Non-Compliant

March 13, 2012 - Fox C-6 Still Non-Compliant per ED OCR
ED OCR points out a lot of flaws in our District's student handbooks and school board policies that need to be updated. They also point out the fact that there are at least 7 different people identified in the District documentation as the District's 504 Coordinator on page 12. One of the persons listed hasn't worked for the District since 2008. I have to say that ED OCR is fairly thorough in their reading over of  our District's Policies, Procedures and Student Handbooks.

March 13, 2012 ED OCR Monitoring Letter Update Sent to Fox C-6 Documenting Obligations Still Not Satisfied per the May 2009 Resolution Agreement


August 3, 2012 - Fox C-6 Still Non-Compliant per ED OCR
More of the same but with a little more detail of what needs to be corrected starting on page 10 of the document.

August 3, 2012 ED OCR Monitoring Letter Update Sent to Fox C-6 Documenting Obligations Still Not Satisfied per the May 2009 Resolution Agreement


April 25, 2013 - Fox C-6 Still Non-Compliant per ED OCR
The following April 25, 2013 ED OCR Monitoring Letter informed the Fox C-6 School District that it still has not met its obligations from the May 1, 2009 Resolution Agreement signed by Dan Baker. There have been 4 monitoring letters sent to the district since May 2009. Deadlines for were given and never met. Therefore Fox C-6 IS NOT in compliance as Superintendent Critchlow stated at the June 2013 board meeting.

It seems that our district has a serious problem with being able to update its school board policies and regulations. It has now been 3 years since our district informed ED OCR that it would complete the updates of board policies and regulations.

How long does it take to update documentation?

ED OCR is still waiting for board policy updates and changes to its manuals. ED OCR has allowed the District to "voluntarily comply" for more than 4 years. The District has still not complied. Why not?

Perhaps it is time for our school board to ask Superintendent Critchlow why the District under her leadership hasn't been able to meet the obligations of their May 1, 2009 Resolution Agreement with ED OCR.

It has also been nearly 3 years since District attorney Teri Goldman informed ED OCR that they should be completing the board policies and procedures updates by July 31, 2010. Taxpayer dollars are being spent by our District and ED OCR for failing to comply with the May 1, 2009 Resolution Agreement. Perhaps it's time for our school board to start looking for new leadership in our school district.

April 25, 2013 ED OCR Monitoring Letter Update Sent To Fox C-6 Documenting Obligations Still Not Satisfied per the May 2009 Resolution Agreement

Due Process Hearing Officer Selection Concerns
Would you be concerned if you were going to be forced to go through a Due Process Hearing against your school district and the school district gets to choose the Due Process Hearing Officer to hear the case? Would you be concerned if the school district chose a Due Process Hearing Officer that was a former law associate of the school district Attorney representing the school district in the Due Process Hearing? How about if you found out that the attorneys co-represented school districts together at law firms against parents? Would you be concerned if you found out that the two attorneys were presenters at a convention answering questions on the rules of Due Process and discussing topics such as "Testifying in Due Process Hearings"?

Section 504 Procedural Safeguards typically state that the parent or the school district can request a Due Process Hearing to resolve disputes with Section 504 decisions. The safeguards state that the school district will choose the Due Process Hearing Officer. The Due Process Hearing Officer is typically an attorney who acts like a judge to hear both parties on a matter and render a decision. A hearing officer is supposed to be "Fair and Impartial". A quick Google search of the hearing officer chosen by the District immediately raised red flags because the hearing officer chosen by the District was Mr. John Brink who was a former law associate of District attorney Teri Goldman in two different law firms. The choice of a hearing officer can easily sway the outcome of a hearing. I know that hearing officers are supposed to be "Fair and Impartial". But, as proof of my concern, I found several cases where Mr. Brink and Ms. Goldman while working for the same law firms co-represented school districts on cases. What was more troubling was the fact that Mr. Brink and Ms. Goldman were listed together as presenters at the 2007 Missouri Speech Language Hearing Association (MSHA) convention speaking about the rules pertaining to Due Process with one of their topics listed as "Testifying in Due Process Hearings". This is why we filed a complaint regarding our concerns over the school district's choice of the Due Process Hearing Officer with ED OCR.

District attorney Teri Goldman responded to ED OCR investigating our concerns. In her response to ED OCR she stated, "Since 2002, Ms. Goldman occasionally sees Mr. Brink at professional conferences (perhaps 1-2 times per year) and does converse with him at such conferences. Beyond that, she has no personal relationship with him. Since 2002, Ms. Goldman and Mr. Brink have not served as co-presenters contrary to the Simpson's representation. Neither Ms. Goldman nor the District know the basis for the Simpson's assertion in that regard." That's why I submitted the convention schedule brochure PDF document from the 2007 MSHA conference to ED OCR documenting our concern along with a photo of Mr. Brink and Ms. Goldman seated together at the conference luncheon. These documents were found on the MSHA website along with the URL links. Shortly after ED OCR reviewed our complaint and responses from the District, Ms. Goldman and Mr. Brink, the documents were removed from the MSHA website where they had been posted for nearly 3 years. I found it odd that the documents disappeared so quickly after ED OCR investigated our concerns.

So, is Ms. Goldman's statement true about not serving as co-presenters with Mr. Brink? I kept a copy of the MSHA Convention brochure and photo from the luncheon just in case. The session description can be found on page 24 of the program schedule from the following link:

2007 Missouri Speech-Language Hearing Association (MSHA) Convention Schedule

Below is District attorney Teri Goldman's response to ED OCR regarding our concerns of the Due Process Hearing Officer selection. Mr. Dan Baker stated that he was originally concerned after I brought it to the attention of the District and ED OCR that Mr. Brink and Ms. Goldman were former law associates. However, after speaking with District attorney Teri Goldman and she assured Mr. Baker that Mr. Brink would be fair and impartial, Mr. Baker was no longer concerned about the choice of the hearing officer. Apparently, Mr. Baker didn't know that Ms. Goldman and Mr. Brink were former law associates during a January 2009 Due Process Hearing that Mr. Baker was involved in with another family at Fox that was decided in favor of the school district.

March 22, 2010 Fox C-6 District Attorney Teri Goldman's Response to ED OCR Regarding Due Process Hearing Officer Selection Complaint

U.S. Department of Education Issues Another Monitoring Letter to Fox C-6

Is it simply incompetence? Does our school board not do proper oversight? Is our superintendent not keeping our school board informed of Federal investigations and simply using taxpayer dollars to fend off federal agencies? Is it a matter of the federal agencies not properly enforcing the laws? Or is it all of the above?

The United States Department of Educations's Office for Civil Rights issued another "monitoring" letter on April 25, 2013 to the Fox C-6 School District in reference to the Resolution Agreement the school district signed with the U.S. Department of Education (ED OCR) in May 2009.  The letter was supposed to be issued in November 2012. Then it was supposed to be issued in January 2013. Then it was supposed to issued by March 2013. So, even Kansas City ED OCR can't seem to get their act together as well. However, after dealing with OCR for years and observing their patterns of practice and lack of response, it seems that this is being done to push it off to the end of the school year so another school year has gone by and nothing gets done.

The monitoring letter sent to our school district states that the District still hasn't fully complied with the May 2009 Resolution Agreement. The district has now been given another new deadline of June 25, 2013 to comply with the agreement. ED OCR has been sending monitoring letters to our school district since December 8, 2009 after the district didn't meet the August 2009 deadlines that were set in the May 2009 Resolution Agreement. So, the process continues.

Some of the items listed in the agreement are to update Fox's 504 Procedural Manuals as well as update school board Policies and Regulations which currently do not meet federal non-discrimination laws and Civil Rights Acts. So far, Fox has refused to make these changes and school district attorneys have been fighting ED OCR. As a National District of Character, one would think that our school district would properly follow federal laws even more so when a federal agency has specifically reviewed school documentation and pointed out the pages and paragraphs in our Policies and Regulation that must be revised in order to meet federal laws.

One would also think that it would be important to our school board members that our school district follows federal laws as well. Making sure that our district follows the law is part of what our school board members swore to do when they took their oath of office. So, have our school board members become complacent? Or have they not been kept informed by our school superintendent. It's our school superintendent's job to keep our school board informed. If she is not keeping them informed and the district is spending tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars because she is not keeping them informed, that would be a violation of her contract and she should be dismissed. I would certainly like to see an explanation from our school board as to why after 4 years our school district has not been able to fulfill an agreement signed by our district with ED OCR in May of 2009.

I spoke to Dan Kroupa about this on election day before the ballots were counted and before he took office. So, Dan has been fairly well informed about what's been happening with the federal agencies and that they have been monitoring and investigating our school district for nearly 5 years. He even asked me why our district just doesn't comply. I told him that's a very good question.

Our superintendent DOES NOT want the public to know about the investigations that have been going on in our school district. She used taxpayer dollars to have a school district attorney send me a letter a couple of years ago to inform me that the district may be under investigation but that there is nothing to tell the public until ED OCR completes their investigation. The investigation the district attorney was referring to in that letter is a completely different matter. It is a District Wide Compliance Review being done by ED OCR. It was opened in March of 2010. You can even find references to it by other attorneys across the country using Google. Attorneys in other states have referred to Fox's District Wide Compliance Review for things to watch out for when they are teaching their school districts about the law.

Falling Through The Cracks
You might wonder why it takes ED OCR so long to investigate. Well, for one reason, the ED OCR Kansas City office has quite a reputation for allowing things to "fall through the cracks" as Mr. Dan E. Smith our current school board president liked to say in his campaign bid for State Representative.

I have been in touch with parents across our state and in other states that are served by the Kansas City Office for Civil Rights. Many of them have had the same experience that we have had with this office. In fact, their office has had cases open for as long as 10 years and attorneys in their office laughed about that during a phone call with them.

The school district attorneys are very well versed in how the cases are handled in the Kansas City OCR office. This is all explained in training seminars on Education Law teaching school administrators and school board members. There are ways to get around the system. It's just a matter of waiting them out. 

The federal agencies will continue to extend deadline after deadline despite ED OCR's Case Processing Manual stating that after refusing to comply they can reopen an investigation and move forward with enforcement. We have been in contact with the Washington D.C. OCR office as well. In fact, our U.S. Senators have contacted the Kansas City OCR office as well. Our senators are very well aware of the issues with ED OCR and the fact that there is a lack of enforcement or for that matter a lack of response from the agency as a whole. It sounds rather familiar to the lack of communication from our school board. You can write our school board but chances are slim to none that you will get a response. It seems that this is the standard way of doing business in the Department of Education. In fact, the State of Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education MO DESE passes the buck back to the local school district. This way nothing gets done and the taxpayers keep paying the price.

Mistakes in 504 Procedures Manuals and School Board Policies and Regulations
The recent monitoring letter from ED OCR identifies many errors in our school district's 504 Procedures Manual as far as the language not properly following the ADA and ADAAA. These documents were supposed to be corrected and supplied to ED OCR back in August 2009. So, why has it taken our school district so long to do this simple task? Why has ED OCR extended deadline after deadline year after year as our district has failed to do so? Why hasn't our school board stepped in and done their job to make sure that our school district complies with the law and the request of federal agencies? Where is the breakdown of communications between our school board and our superintendent? What about holding the people accountable who's responsibility it is to update these documents?

ED OCR has specifically pointed out that contact persons are incorrectly or are not even identified in our school board Policies and Regulations. ED OCR has also identified language that applies to employees of the school district as well in regards to discrimination and civil rights that is missing. Our school superintendent likes to brag that our district is a "School of Excellence". This may be true when it comes to many of the great teachers we have in our district. However, our upper management team seems to be sorely lacking in this area. I pointed out issues with our school board policies to former board member Ruth Ann Newman in February 2011 and she was quite defensive for my doing so. If the board is unable to recognize or even admit that there is a problem, then our community has a problem and board members need to step down so others in our community can do the job that they are supposed to be doing. I read online posts made be people defending our school superintendent and school board members and telling what a wonderful job they are doing. In my opinion, those people posting must be family members or they are our superintendents and school board members themselves. The community is well aware of the problems that have been occurring within our district. However, most of them are afraid to say anything for fear of retaliation. Hopefully, now that the Department of Justice has become involved thanks to the USDA with whom our school district recently refused to meet with for a Compliance Review, things will begin to change.

Retaliation and Defamation By The District
Personally, I don't take these matters lightly given the fact that that my family and I have put up with a considerable amount of retaliation, libel, defamatory comments and attacks made on my character over the past several years. I decided to stand up for what is right and bring this to the attention of our community and to our school board after I learned that our district wasn't following the law in my own case. If they weren't following the law in that matter, there was a good chance that there weren't following the law in other matters in our district. And, I was correct! And because I have learned the law and have been voicing my concerns, our Superintendent has worked hard to discredit me. She continues to tell people that my information is "false or inaccurate" or that much of what I write on my blog is false. Who are you going to believe? Who knows, maybe TROOP will make some more defamatory and slanderous and untrue statements about me over on Topix again. Just to be clear again for everyone, I don't post on Topix and haven't since January of 2011. But, you can bet that our Superintendent's supporters have. I found it very interesting how TROOP seemed to disappear off of Topix after several posters made comments that they thought TROOP was our Superintendent's husband. Wouldn't that certainly be a shock to our community considering the vulgarity of TROOP's language. TROOP certainly had a lot of inside information that would only have been known to a few individuals in our district.

I certainly never thought that I would spend so much time learning about education and civil rights law as an engineer. But, when your reputation is attacked by school district personnel and school district attorneys, you want to set the record straight. Because there is so much to learn, our school district has been able to get away with things for years. That and the fact that our Superintendent has been able to keep her wrong doings out of the public eye and out of the media. Not only has our school district's actions affected me and my family in a negative way. But, they have affected many in our community negatively due to their abuse of power and limitless amounts of money that they can spend on attorneys in an attempt to quiet those who speak out. Many in our community can't take on our school district because they work for the district and others simply don't want the grief. Hopefully, this will all change in the near future after we have a change in leadership and a change in school board members. One can definitely hope!

Our District administrators and district attorneys like to throw out a lot of statements that misrepresent the law hoping that you don't know the law. Some of it is the simple fact that our own superintendent and assistant superintendent as well as principals and staff don't know the law or have been incorrectly taught the law.

I would certainly expect that our Superintendent Dianne Critchlow who makes nearly $250,000 a year and Assistant Superintendent Dan Baker who makes nearly $150,000 a year and do this as their full time job would know the law. Dianne Critchlow has been working in education for more than 20 years and Dan Baker has been working in education for 18 years. I have to ask. How long does it take to learn the laws that they are supposed to follow? Dan Baker is responsible for knowing Section 504 Law. That is part of his job. Our Superintendent is responsible as well. So, you have to add to their salaries the tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars that our district is spending in legal fees to correct the problems. It's definitely costly to the taxpayer when laws aren't followed due to lack of knowledge.

How Many Years Before ED OCR Does Their Job?
So, how many more years will this continue before our school district fulfills the requirements they agreed to in the May 2009 Resolution Agreement with ED OCR? How many more years will our school district be undergoing a District Wide Compliance Review by ED OCR? How many more thousands of dollars will it cost the taxpayer? These are questions you should start asking our school board members because they approve the Bill Payments each month when those checks are sent to the school district law firm. At least you can now find out for yourself how much our school district is spending in legal fees because the Bill Payments are now being included in the Board Packets on the district website. These are supposed to be the same Board Packets that are sent out each month to our school board members for review prior to school board meetings. Our school district's law firm is Mickes Goldman O'Toole. Or, you can look for payments made for Legal Services in the description.

How Much More Money Will Our District Waste?
In August and September of 2012 combined, our school district doled out more than $103,000 to the school district law firm. Of course, the school district was having meetings with the USDA OCR office back then dealing with their other Non-Compliance issue. I will have to make a Sunshine Law Request to obtain copies of the invoices from the school district law firm in order to find out exactly what those legal expenses were for. I'm sure that almost everyone in our community would rather see that money being spent on books for our kids rather than paying school district attorneys. I'm sure that statement may have our Superintendent spending more money on another "Cease and Desist" letter sent to defame my character. If any of the facts above are incorrect regarding ED OCR and the USDA OCR, please let me know so I can correct them. The documenting of their misdeeds continues. The best thing is that we now have the Department of Justice working on the case thanks to the USDA OCR. You can be assured that they are being provided with complete and accurate information.

I think our school board needs to start looking for a new Superintendent and a new Assistant Superintendent. What do you think?

Fox C-6 Board Member Touts Bringing School District to National Recognition

Cheryl Hermann is running for Jefferson County Council – District 2 in the November 6, 2012 election.  Ms. Hermann recently stated in the October 25, 2012 edition of The Leader newspaper that people should vote for her because, “My experience working collaboratively as a school board member, helping to bring Fox board from ineffectiveness, controversy and lawsuits in 2000 to a nationally recognized school district in 2012.”  Ms. Hermann did not say what kind of national recognition that the school district received.  But, a Google search for “Fox C-6 504 Compliance Reviews” will find presentations from across the country where Fox C-6 has been recognized nationally as being chosen as one of two school districts out of the entire nation that are undergoing a Discrimination Review being conducted by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights for ensuring access to appropriate services for students with medical and health conditions and impairments such as food allergies and diabetes.  This is definitely an honor to have been chosen as not too many school districts undergo District Wide Compliance Reviews nationally.  To save a little time, I have included one of the top results from a Google search from the Nashville Public Schools website: (www.mnps.org/AssetFactory.aspx?did=60645).

This was a presentation given by a law firm at the Spring Forum 2011.  You will be able to find Fox C-6 on slide #30 titled Current OCR Disability Discrimination Reviews.

Fox C-6 was informed of their impending District Wide Compliance Review in March 2010 by Russlyn Ali, the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Education.  The District Wide Compliance Review is still ongoing as the district attorneys have notified me in the past when I made inquiries to the school board regarding this issue.  I also made Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for information pertaining to the results of the Compliance Review.  At this time since the Discrimination Review is still ongoing and there is nothing to report according to the FOIA request response.

How long does it take to do a Compliance Review?

I would like to note that it is a fact that the Compliance Review is being conducted even if the district has not publicly acknowledged this information.

Another interesting Google search is for “Fox C-6 504 Resolution Agreement” which will also find presentations from across the country which documents a Resolution Agreement signed by the school district on May 1, 2009 which has an LRP publication number of (109 LRP 54751 (OCR 2009)).  Here is a direct link to one of the presentations discussing the Resolution Agreement at a national level and can be found on the Utah State Office of Education website: (www.schools.utah.gov/sars/DOCS/disability/emer504.aspx).

In the Resolution Agreement the district agreed to update its 504 Manual, policies and procedures to remove references to mitigating measures and to incorporate a definition of a person with a disability that is consistent with the ADAAA.  Revisions will include but not be limited to, defining 'major life activities' as they are defined in the ADAAA and removing references to any court decisions that were specifically rejected by the ADAAA.  Additionally, it was identified by ED OCR that district policies and student handbooks identified at least 7 different contacts as the Section 504 coordinator for the district.  One of which has been retired since 2008.

You may ask how long does it take for the district to update its documentation as requested?  School board members Cheryl Hermann and Dan Smith should be asking questions as to why it is taking the district so long to produce these documents?  Does it truly take more than 3 years to update documents in our school district?  This responsibility should also fall on the shoulders of the superintendent.  Does this demonstrate effective leadership or management skills?  It has already been more than 6 months since the 'completely overhauled' school board policies, regulations and forms were released for review.  The district informed ED OCR that they would be providing updated policies to ED OCR by August 28, 2012 as part of the Resolution Agreement after failing to meet previously set deadlines informing ED OCR that the update policies had to first be approved by the school board.  The school failed to meet that deadline and ED OCR extended the district deadline another 2 months.  Perhaps Cheryl Hermann and Dan Smith can explain why these deadlines are consistently not being met?

So, it seems that national recognition can have different meanings for different people.  And certainly the amount of legal fees spent in making corrective actions and challenging the U.S. Department of Education and USDA Final Agency Decision should be recognized as part of Ms. Hermann’s, “experience and proven actions as an elected official on the Fox school board.”  Those legal expenses can be found in the school board packets which contain the Check Register listings for payments made to vendors that are approved each month by the school board.  You simply need to know the name of the law firm or other law firms that have been involved in order to total up the cost to the taxpaying public.  Legal expenses have now exceed well over $200,000!

Ms. Hermann is running on the idea that she is “A Voice Of Reason and Common Sense!”  Is it Common Sense to fight the U.S. government with local taxpayer dollars?  Wouldn’t it have been much cheaper and easier for the school district to simply comply with Federal Laws rather than continue spending taxpayer dollars on legal fees?

I recently learned that a different attorney from the school district law firm has to get up to speed on these matters as the current one is retiring.  At least that was the reason given this time by Karl Menninger from the Kansas City U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights (ED OCR) office monitoring the Resolution Agreement in a recent email.  However, this was the same reason given to Senator Roy Blunt’s office by the KC OCR office in May 2012.  It begs the question as to how long does it take to get up to speed?  Attorneys are needed to help review and help produce documentation that ED OCR has been requesting from the district since May 2009?  Luckily for the school district, ED OCR graciously continues to provide the district with new deadlines each time it doesn't meet them rather than take enforcement actions or reopen the investigation like their regulations allow them to do.  Per an email from Rosanne Shepherd of Kansas City ED OCR, “OCR is continuing our efforts to allow the District to comply with the voluntary agreement.  The District has not indicated they refuse to comply with the agreement, therefore, at this time OCR has not decided if it will reopen the investigation or to move to enforcement.  OCR will continue to monitor the District’s compliance with the agreement and will keep you informed of monitoring activities.”

Mr. Dan Smith another Fox C-6 school board member should also take credit for helping bring this type of national recognition to the Fox C-6 school district since he has been a school board director since April 2008 before all of this occurred.  By the way, Dan Smith is running for Missouri State House of Representative in District 113.

Maybe Dan Smith would be interested in answering your questions about spending your taxpayer dollars regarding these matters?

So, what kind of National Recognition would you like to see for Jefferson County?