Dear Colleague Letter On Retaliation Law from the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights

A friend and parent who has had similar issues dealing with their school district pointed out to me today that the United States Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (ED OCR) recently posted a Dear Colleague Letter on their website regarding Retaliation. I find it funny that the Dear Colleague letter was posted one day before ED OCR sent out a monitoring letter to our school district that had been delayed for nearly 9 months. ED OCR will occasionally post Dear Colleague letters when they see a preponderance of problems in school districts, colleges and universities that fall under their jurisdiction. This Dear Colleague letter is significant in the fact that our school district has taken the stance over the last 5 years that they have been doing things properly according to what they have been told by the district attorneys. However, as documented in several monitoring letters sent to our school district from ED OCR, Fox C-6 HAS NOT been properly following the law. More significant is the fact that because of our efforts in asking our school district and school board to do the right thing and properly follow the law, my family and I have been the target of numerous and continued retaliatory actions by our school district. I'm sure our Superintendent will deny that. I'll just go ahead and present the facts for everyone and that way you can decide for yourself. I'm sure that that the retaliation has been done in order to keep us from pursuing the issue with the federal agencies and hoping that we would eventually give up. It's worked for our school district in the past. So why quit now?

I believe our Superintendent and school district attorneys are probably disappointed with the fact that we haven't stopped our efforts to get our school district to do the right thing. I'm sure they thought I would have given up after receiving a "Cease and Desist" letter from the latest district attorney (#3) handling the case that was sent in August 2012. Well maybe the attorneys didn't want us to stop because they get paid to make things go away. Our Superintendent has to be asking herself why I haven't given up after reading all of the defamatory and slanderous remarks made against me and my family in online forums by supporters of our superintendent and school board members. She must really be perplexed. It could have something to do with the fact that I know our school district is in the wrong and that I will make sure that the truth comes out. Eventually my efforts will help a lot of other students and parents and keep them from having to go through the same thing. I'm certainly not going to allow our Superintendent to continue to make false and misleading statements about me and what the district is doing. I will always choose to take the high road and do what is right.

Examples of Retaliation - 2008 School Board Meeting
So,  what are some examples of retaliation? Well, one of the first occurrences of retaliation from our school district after we filed a complaint with ED OCR was when our school Superintendent Dianne Brown (now Critchlow) refused to let me speak with our school board during closed session in 2008. I had already been speaking with then board president Wes Griffith and board secretary Debby Davis prior to the start of that night's meeting. School board members Dan Smith, Ruth Ann Newman and Assistant Superintendent Dan Baker were also there. I was talking to Wes Griffith and Debby Davis about being put onto the next month's closed session agenda after Wes Griffith had forgotten to put me on that night's agenda. I had spoken with him earlier that afternoon on the phone and he had agreed to allow me to speak to the board that night per board policy. Our board secretary had already checked the schedule for the next month's meeting and had already informed our board president and I that I could be on next month's agenda when Superintendent Dianne Brown arrived at the meeting. She immediately informed me that the school board had already discussed my issues and that they had decided that they were not going to meet with me. It sounded to me like it was our Superintendent's decision and NOT our school board's decision that they weren't going to meet with me. Why wouldn't our school board president and school board secretary know that they had already decided not to me with when they told me that they would put me on next month's agenda? How difficult is it for our Superintendent to tell the truth? Needless to say, I didn't get my chance to speak with the board at the next month's meeting after our Superintendent made her decision for the board. That is a problem for both our school board and our community.

In speaking with attorneys from the Kansas City Office for Civil Rights at a seminar a couple of years ago, they informed me that our Superintendent's actions in 2008 sounded like retaliation to them. I must point out that the KC ED OCR attorneys at the seminar weren't the same attorneys that have been handling our complaint since August of 2008. It was good to know that some ED OCR attorneys considered it retaliation when our Superintendent blocked me from speaking with our school board. That's how she has been running our district and our board has done nothing to stop it.

The retaliation has only gotten worse since then. I also know that this has happened to another parent in our district that filed a complaint with ED OCR and MO DESE. But, since it was the husband of the teacher that made the retaliatory comments towards that parent, ED OCR didn't consider it to be retaliation from the school district. I would have to say that the Kansas City ED OCR Office has been walking a thin line for quite some time on what IS or IS NOT retaliation.

Fear of Speaking Up

Hopefully the Dear Colleague letter from Washington D.C. will bring about some changes in the Kansas City ED OCR office. I know that teachers and staff in our school district are afraid to speak up and say anything for fear of retaliation from our Superintendent and Central Office Administrators. School board members Linda Nash, Cheryl Hermann and John Laughlin all acted as if they were unaware that school employees were afraid to speak up and point out problems in our district at a meeting held before the March school board meeting with two recipients of "Cease and Desist" letters from our Superintendent. Cheryl Hermann admitted at that meeting that she wasn't even aware of the fact that "Cease and Desist" letters prior to the issue being brought out in the open. It seems that our Superintendent has a problem with informing our school board members about issues in our school district.

2012 Cease and Desist Letter
The Cease and Desist letter that I received in August 2012 from the school district attorney informed me that if I continued to speak with people in our community and current and former teachers and administrators that the district would take legal action against me. The district didn't want me talking about the complaints that we had filed with ED OCR and other issues in our school district. I guess I should say thank you to our Superintendent for formally documenting the district's retaliation towards me and my family for filing OCR complaints against our school district. I had no intentions of filing an OCR complaint against Fox until I was told that I should file a complaint in 2008 by a MO DESE Compliance Officer. He told me that he thought our school district wasn't following the law and I should file a complaint. If ED OCR didn't think my complaint was valid it would be dismissed.

Online Bullying and Calling My Dad Into Critchlow's Office
Well, our complaint with the district wasn't dismissed and our Superintendent wasn't happy with the fact that I filed a complaint. So much so that she had Vern Sullivan a former Fox C-6 School Board Member and former employee and Friends of Fox political action committee representative call my father into her office.  She told my father to tell me to stop pursuing things with the district. My father had worked for the school district for 42 years and was an assistant superintendent for more than 20 years. My father has also been the target of several online posts that have been made on the Topix online forum. Sometimes the online posts contain information that is not public information and only select administrators would or should know that information. That is why I fully believe that some of those posters are school administrators, their spouses, or their family and friends. Many of the retaliatory online comments made against me and my family directly reference complaints filed against our district with ED OCR. The general public doesn't know or care about our issues and concerns with the school district. But, our Superintendent certainly does. She only wants the public to know that Fox is a National District of Character and that our district is in the Top 10 of something in our state.

School Board Members Need To Read Dear Colleague Letter
I hope our current school board and our former school board members take the time to read the Dear Colleague Letter from the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights. 

This Dear Colleague letter points out how the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) gets involved with cases and how federal monies can be terminated from the Department to the recipient. The letter states why the USDA Office for Civil Rights (USDA OCR) referred our USDA case to the U.S. Department of Justice. Fox C-6 refused to comply with their Final Agency Decision that was sent to the school district in August 2011. The USDA's referral to the DOJ was not made due to retaliation from the district or supporters of the district. But, now that the Department of Justice has our case, they now have the ability to investigate any retaliation that has been occurring ever since our complaints were filed with ED OCR and USDA OCR. The Dear Colleague letter which applies to both ED OCR and USDA OCR states that, "The enforcement actions available to OCR include initiating administrative proceedings to suspend, terminate, or refuse to grant or continue financial assistance made available through the Department to the recipient; or referring the case to the U.S. Department of Justice for judicial proceedings." This language is in the ED and USDA's Case Processing Manuals. It is being spelled out in this letter as a reminder to school districts, colleges and universities due to recent cases and DOJ rulings.

ED OCR, or at least the Kansas City ED OCR Office that we've been dealing with seems to have difficulty recognizing retaliation. The KC ED OCR Office also doesn't seem to put much effort towards enforcing the law based upon the fact that they continue to issue new deadlines each time our school district fails to meet the deadlines set by ED OCR. If ED OCR were to follow their guidelines of trying to close cases out in 180 days rather than allowing things to continue for nearly 5 years, I believe that their office could save the taxpayers quite a bit of money. With attorneys at ED OCR making over $100,000 per year, it adds up when there are a couple of attorneys assigned to a case. I know there a lot of other cases that have been in "monitoring" status for many years. In fact, the attorneys working our case laughed about the fact that ED OCR has some cases that have been in monitoring for more than 10 years.

It seems that their might be a management issue in the KC ED OCR office that needs to be addressed so cases can get resolved in a more timely manner.

You can find U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights Dear Colleague letter online at the following URL:
http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/letters/colleague-201304.html

I have also posted a copy of the letter below:



Dear Colleague Letter

THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY

April 24, 2013

Dear Colleague:

The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) in the United States Department of Education (Department) is responsible for enforcing Federal civil rights laws that prohibit discrimination based on race, color, national origin, sex, disability, or age by recipients of Federal financial assistance (recipient(s)) from the Department.¹ Although a significant portion of the complaints filed with OCR in recent years have included retaliation claims, OCR has never before issued public guidance on this important subject. The purpose of this letter is to remind school districts, postsecondary institutions, and other recipients that retaliation is also a violation of Federal law.² This letter seeks to clarify the basic principles of retaliation law and to describe OCR’s methods of enforcement.

The ability of individuals to oppose discriminatory practices, and to participate in OCR investigations and other proceedings, is critical to ensuring equal educational opportunity in accordance with Federal civil rights laws. Discriminatory practices are often only raised and remedied when students, parents, teachers, coaches, and others can report such practices to school administrators without the fear of retaliation. Individuals should be commended when they raise concerns about compliance with the Federal civil rights laws, not punished for doing so.

The Federal civil rights laws make it unlawful to retaliate against an individual for the purpose of interfering with any right or privilege secured by these laws.³ If, for example, an individual brings concerns about possible civil rights problems to a school’s attention, it is unlawful for the school to retaliate against that individual for doing so. It is also unlawful to retaliate against an individual because he or she made a complaint, testified, or participated in any manner in an OCR investigation or proceeding. Thus, once a student, parent, teacher, coach, or other individual complains formally or informally to a school about a potential civil rights violation or participates in an OCR investigation or proceeding, the recipient is prohibited from retaliating (including intimidating, threatening, coercing, or in any way discriminating against the individual) because of the individual’s complaint or participation. OCR will continue to vigorously enforce this prohibition against retaliation.

If OCR finds that a recipient retaliated in violation of the civil rights laws, OCR will seek the recipient’s voluntary commitments through a resolution agreement to take specific measures to remedy the identified noncompliance.⁴ Such a resolution agreement must be designed both to ensure that the individual who was retaliated against receives redress and to ensure that the recipient complies with the prohibition against retaliation in the future. OCR will determine which remedies, including monetary relief, are appropriate based on the facts presented in each specific case.

Steps OCR could require a recipient to take to ensure compliance in the future include, but are not limited to:

• training for employees about the prohibition against retaliation and ways to avoid engaging in retaliation;
• adopting a communications strategy for ensuring that information concerning retaliation is continually being conveyed to employees, which may include incorporating the prohibition against retaliation into relevant policies and procedures; and
• implementing a public outreach strategy to reassure the public that the recipient is committed to complying with the prohibition against retaliation.

If OCR finds that a recipient engaged in retaliation and the recipient refuses to voluntarily resolve the identified area(s) of noncompliance or fails to live up to its commitments in a resolution agreement, OCR will take appropriate enforcement action. The enforcement actions available to OCR include initiating administrative proceedings to suspend, terminate, or refuse to grant or continue financial assistance made available through the Department to the recipient; or referring the case to the U.S. Department of Justice for judicial proceedings.⁵

OCR is available to provide technical assistance to entities that request assistance in complying with the prohibition against retaliation or any other aspect of the civil rights laws OCR enforces. Please visit http://wdcrobcolp01.ed.gov/CFAPPS/OCR/contactus.cfm to contact the OCR regional office that serves your state or territory.

Thank you for your help in ensuring that America’s educational institutions are free from retaliation so that concerns about equal educational opportunity can be openly raised and addressed.

                                    Sincerely,

                                      /s/

                                    Seth M. Galanter

                                    Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights

¹ OCR enforces Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VI), Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (Title IX), Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Section 504), the Age Discrimination Act of 1975 (Age Act), and the Boy Scouts of America Equal Access Act (Boy Scouts Act). OCR also shares enforcement responsibilities with the Department of Justice for Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (Title II), which prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities in state and local government services, programs and activities, regardless of whether they receive Federal financial assistance.

² The Federal courts have repeatedly affirmed that retaliation is a violation of the Federal civil rights laws enforced by OCR. See, e.g., Jackson v. Birmingham Board of Education, 544 U.S. 167 (2005); Peters v. Jenney, 327 F.3d 307, 320-21 (4th Cir. 2003); Weeks v. Harden Mfg. Corp., 291 F.3d 1307, 1311 (11th Cir. 2002).

³ See 34 C.F.R. § 100.7(e) (Title VI); 34 C.F.R. § 106.71 (Title IX) (incorporating 34 C.F.R. §100.7(e) by reference); 34 C.F.R. § 104.61 (Section 504) (incorporating 34 C.F.R. §100.7(e) by reference); and 34 C.F.R. §108.9 (Boy Scouts Act) (incorporating 34 C.F.R. §100.7(e) by reference). Title II and the Age Act have similar regulatory language. See 28 C.F.R. § 35.134 (Title II); and 34 C.F.R. § 110.34 (Age Act).

⁴ See OCR’s Case Processing Manual for more information about resolution agreements, available at http://www.ed.gov/ocr/docs/ocrcpm.html.

⁵ See 34 C.F.R. § 100.8.

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 and MO DESE Undergo USDA Compliance Review

Does Our School Board Know About The USDA Compliance Review?
The week of March 25, 2013 the USDA Office of Civil Rights (USDA OCR) will be visiting the Fox C-6 School District and the state of Missouri's Department of Secondary and Elementary Education (MO DESE) to conduct an onsite Compliance Review. USDA OCR will be covering their Guidelines and Regulations in which the school district and MO DESE were found to be Non-Compliant in their August 2011 Final Agency Decision (FAD). The Compliance Review is being conducted at both the district and state level. Their review will be focusing on the Assurance Agreement that the State and School District sign in order to receive their federal funds. The Assurance Agreement covers the USDA's Federal Regulations and Guidance, and more in depth Section 504 Law, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendment Act (ADA AA). This Compliance Review stems from an April 2009 complaint filed with the USDA. The USDA performed a preliminary onsite visit in September 2009 to the state and then a November 2009 visit to our school district, and issued a preliminary report to the Washington D.C. office in March of 2010. The March 2010 report stated that our school district did not understand their responsibilities in following the USDA Guidelines and Regulations and the laws contained therein.

Fox and MO DESE Found To Be Non-Compliant

How did Fox being found to be Non-Compliant by the USDA cause the state of Missouri to be Non-Compliant? According to the USDA's Final Agency Decision, the Fox C-6 School District signs an assurance agreement each year with MO DESE. Each year MO DESE signs an assurance agreement with the USDA stating that it will ensure that our state's school districts will abide by the Guidelines, Regulations and laws that the USDA is charged with enforcing when participating in the USDA's National School Lunch program. Since MO DESE is responsible for ensuring that school districts in the state follow the USDA's Guidelines and Regulations, and the laws it covers, and Fox was found to be Non-Compliant, the entire state of Missouri was found to be Non-Compliant.

U.S. Department of Justice Gets Involved

In order for all of this to occur, the USDA had to work with the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) in order to pursue enforcement action against our school and our state. The USDA has a Case Processing Manual that is a step by step guide that they must follow before they can come into the state and then to the district to enforce the law. But, once the USDA found the state to be non-compliant, it has the ability to withhold federal reimbursement for the entire state of Missouri's National School Lunch program. This covers Free and Reduced lunches as well as the standard reimbursement for a regular pay school lunch. Based upon the number of lunches reported by Missouri DESE and the USDA's reimbursement formula, this would amount to over $1,000,000 dollars per day that the USDA could withhold from the state of Missouri due to the Fox C-6 School District not complying with the USDA's Guidelines and Regulations and not following Section 504 Law, the ADA and ADAAA.  The USDA prefers voluntary compliance as opposed to withholding federal funds.

Rest assured, our school district didn't like the decision that the USDA handed down. The school district attorneys spent a good amount of time in filing an appeal as well as conducting conference calls with the USDA. Our school district attorneys even made Freedom of Information Act requesting any and all correspondence between us and the USDA. Everything I sent to the USDA was statement of fact and documentation from meetings and or documents that I found online at MO DESE, school attorney presentations and emails from the district and attorneys. This is when our school district learned that I had supplied the USDA with an audio recording of our December 7, 2009 Section 504 meeting and a transcript of that meeting. Why did I record the meeting? Because I had learned in an August 2008 Section 504 meeting that statements made and documented in our meetings with the school and documented by school weren't accurate or misrepresented the facts. Since it was our word against theirs, I needed proof as to what was said and occurred during those meetings.

District Attorneys Lying To Federal Attorneys?

For example, following a May 2009 504 meeting, the school district attorney at the time made false statements to the Kansas City US Department of Education Office of Civil Rights (ED OCR) attorney about statements I informed ED OCR he had made during the meeting.  During that meeting, the district attorney stated that "episodic and in remission only applied to people with cancer" in reference to the new ADAAA. I told the district attorney during the meeting that this is not what the new law said. He told me that yes it was because he had "just read it in the congressional findings the day before". He then told me that we weren't here to debate the new law. I told ED OCR that he was trying to teach the team that the new law didn't apply to our case, which was not true.

In discussing my concerns with the ED OCR attorney about what the district attorney said during the meeting, she told me that she was sure that he wouldn't have said that. She said she would call him and ask him if he said that. She called him and emailed me back. In her email, she informed me that the district attorney told her that he never said that. I said thanks for checking and then I emailed her a copy of my audio recording of the meeting as proof that he did in fact make those statements during the meeting!

The Federal Law On Lying

Why would a school district attorney be willing to lie to a federal attorney when there are laws that carry big penalties for doing so? Could it be that he thought he wouldn't get caught because what happens behind closed doors in 504 meetings stays behind closed doors? You know there is a problem with how your district is handling things when district attorneys lie to ED OCR federal attorneys and the ED OCR attorneys brush it off. The law that I am referring to is United States Code (USC) 18 Section 1001. It is known as the Federal Law on Lying. It's the same law that was used to put Martha Stewart in jail. It should be noted that a person does not have to be under oath when making false statements in order for it to be a crime. The person doesn't even have to make the false statement directly to the federal employee or agent. For instance, let's say that a school district official makes false statements or falsifies documentation to MO DESE during an investigation. Now, let's say that the results of that MO DESE investigation are then turned over to a federal agency such as ED OCR. Those false statements or falsified documentation would violate this law. Under this statute, it is a crime to knowingly and willfully make any materially false statement concerning any matter that is within the jurisdiction of the United States. The Department of Education and the US Department of Agriculture fall under this jurisdiction. The penalties for violating this law are up to 5 years in prison and up to a $250,000 fine per count and the statute of limitations under this law is 5 years.

Here is a great article covering USC 18 Section 1001:

http://gbr.pepperdine.edu/2010/08/businesspersons-beware-lying-is-a-crime/

So, it appears that this is how things have been done for years by our school district. If it weren't for my audio recordings it would have been my word against the school's word. Since there is no school board policy at Fox C-6 that prohibited the audio recording of 504 meetings at that time and there still isn't. I started recording our 504 meetings. There is a policy that prevents someone from recording IEP meetings unless you request permission prior to the meeting to do so. NOTE: The new school board policies that our school board has been reviewing since March of 2012 and are still working to adopt includes a new policy that will prohibit audio recording 504 meetings just like IEP meetings. I wonder what prompted our school district to add this to their policies?  

After all of the false statements I had heard during our 504 meetings, I began recording the meetings as a way of documenting what was going on so I could review them later and make notes as to what they were trying to pull. I was not as knowledgeable in Section 504 law back then. For parents that don't do this on a daily or regular basis, the district can easily walk all over you. They will tell you things that aren't true hoping that you don't catch them in their lies so they don't have to do things that they are required to do but may not want to do. It still begs the question as to why attorneys were brought into this entire process in the first place. But, I am guess that it was because we got up to speed on the laws very quickly and were able to go toe to toe with their attorneys so well that they had to resort to misrepresenting the facts.

School Districts Get To Choose Due Process Hearing Officers

I am guessing that our school district attorneys kept assuring our superintendent that they would win this case. They were able to pull off a win in a Due Process Hearing when the school district hired a former law associate of the school district attorney to act as a Due Process Hearing Officer. We handled our side of the case pro se. Every attorney we spoke with told us we would be wasting our money if we hired an attorney because the school district had already rendered their decision. The Due Process Hearing was simply a formality. According to our school district's Procedural Safeguards, the school district gets to choose the Due Process Hearing Officer. It just happened that the district chose an attorney that used to work closely for years with the district attorney representing school districts in other law firms. In fact the two of them even spoke at a 2007 Missouri Speech and Hearing Conference on "How To Testify In Due Process Hearings". So, you can probably see that chances are pretty slim that any due process hearing with the school district will be "fair and impartial". In fact, within a few seconds of getting the name from the school district as to who the Due Process Hearing Officer would be, I was able to find his name on several court cases with the district attorney representing school districts against parents when they worked together in other law firms.

When we talked about backing out of Due Process (we had no chance of getting a fair hearing), the school district informed us that they would exercise their right to file a Due Process Hearing against us because they wanted to get this decision finalized once and for all. Once the district attorney got the decision she wanted, she put it into her presentations that she made across the state. The USDA reviewed the school district's Due Process Hearing decision and gave it very little credibility. So, even though the district attorney was able to get the decision she wanted, the USDA found that the hearing officer did not properly apply the law and that is why they are stepping in. ED OCR didn't step in at all. I will go into my theories as to why in another article. It has something to do with the fact that the lead attorney for ED OCR in the Kansas City OCR office is a former Missouri School District attorney. We have a long list of excuses as to why ED OCR can't seem to enforce the law after nearly 5 years of handling our case.

Our Superintendent Did Inform the School Board

The district filed an appeal to the USDA Final Agency Decision which Mr. Dan Baker was so proud to tell me about after the December 2011 school board meeting when I asked him if the administration had ever informed the school board about the ruling. I told Mr. Baker and Dianne (Brown at the time) that the board members I had spoken to didn't know anything about the USDA ruling. Dianne informed me that she had sent an email to the board. She sent me a copy of the email that she sent the board dated August 24, 2011 the next day as proof that she informed them. She sent it to me on December 14, 2011. This is how she described the USDA Final Agency Decision to the school board in her email:

Good morning, 

I received this 12 page document from our attorney regarding the Simspon case. I am sending it to you and will provide a copy in your backup materials in case you can't open the document. In summation, it is a long letter from USDA and their OCR. Terry (attorney) has noticed many inaccuracies in the document. 

However, I am just reminding everyone that since this is pending litigation. We cannot talk to the Simspons about the case. Per our attorney, please ask them if you are notified to contact myself or the district's attorney. 

Thank you!
Dianne

Did the School Board Read the "long letter" From the USDA?

I know that Ruth Ann Newman wasn't aware of the "long letter". Dan Smith didn't recall seeing the "long letter" when I asked him if he had after the December 2011 school board meeting. He also wasn't aware of it when another friend of mine had asked him about it prior to the board meeting. However, he did recall seeing it when Dianne Critchlow walked up and told him that he had. It was quite humorous to see Dan's recall improve when he was told that he had seen it because Dianne had emailed it to everyone on the board. The question is, did anyone read it? I'm guessing that they didn't.

Since Dianne reminded him that he had seen it and that I was wrong to assume that the board members were unaware of the letter since I had asked them and they didn't know anything about, she pointed out in her email to me in her normal arrogant attitude that, "Your statement last evening that the Board of Education was not informed is false and inaccurate." Thank you Dianne for correcting me! My mistake. She had informed the school board in an email about the USDA ruling. Our superintendent didn't seem too concerned with the fact that our school district and the entire state of Missouri had been found Non-Compliant by the USDA at the time. She also had trouble spelling my last name in her email. At least she was consistent. I guess that's OK because the USDA had trouble spelling the school name in their document which was one of the inaccuracies that the district attorney noticed. It is very important note that the school district was eventually informed that there was no appeal because it was a Final Agency Decision. That's why they are now conducting a Compliance Review of our district and MO DESE.

Fox's new Food Nutrition Services Director (school board president Linda Nash's daughter-in-law) is going to get thrown into the frying pan or get grilled this week when she gets to meet with the USDA and the Office of Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights (OASCR). Wow! All of this effort because our school district didn't want to fill out some paperwork like other school district do. Also, I guess our superintendent didn't like getting caught doing something wrong. That's why the district pays the attorneys to make things "look" proper. Well, that's at least what they want you to think. It will be interesting to see what the outcome of this Compliance Review brings given the fact that the US Department of Justice (DOJ) is now involved and given the fact that attorneys from the DOJ recently contacted us.

If You Find Wrong Doing In Your School District, Report It!

If you find wrong doing in your school district, it is your duty as a citizen to report it.  That's what I was told to do by the Missouri DESE Compliance Officer back in 2008 after a phone conversation as to what was going on in the Fox C-6 School District.   The MO DESE Compliance Officer told me that I should file a complaint with the United States Department of Education Office for Civil Rights (ED OCR) because it appeared to him that our school district was not properly following the law.  However, if you file a complaint, you should be prepared to be retaliated against by your school district.  Well, at least that has been my experience and the experience of a couple of other parents that I know that have filed complaints or expressed their concerns with our school district, school board or school administrators.

MAY 2009 - Department of ED OCR Resolution Agreement
After 4 Years, Fox C-6 Has Yet To Fully Comply With Resolution Agreement
If our school district is truly following the law, then you should ask Mr. Dan Baker, assistant superintendent and the Fox C-6 School District 504 coordinator as to why the school district has still not fully complied with the Resolution Agreement that Mr. Baker signed in May of 2009 with ED OCR.  It has been nearly 4 years since Mr. Baker signed that agreement and the district has still been unable to comply with it.  There are several areas of the agreement that the district has not yet fully complied with.  One part of the agreement required the school district to update its policies and procedures, student handbooks and district website to more properly document and comply with federal laws.  It is my understanding from ED OCR monitoring letters, that this has still not been completed as of January 1, 2013.  The district has not yet updated their policies and regulations for simple grammatical and typographical errors. I first officially reported the errors to the school board at the April 2011 meeting.  Jim Chellew was documented in 2004 school board meeting minutes stating that school board policies and regulations are reviewed every year.  However, many policies and regulations still have typographical and grammatical errors that have existed since they were first adopted in November 1997.  As an example, one policy still has the text {common district name} in the policy where the template was not updated with the school district name.

MARCH 2010 - Washington DC Department of ED OCR District Wide Compliance Review
Fox C-6's District Wide Compliance Review Is Still An Open Investigation
Next, you should ask our superintendent and school board why the Fox C-6 School District is still undergoing a District Wide Compliance Review that was initiated by the Washington D.C. ED OCR Office in March 2010.  The District Wide Compliance Review WAS NOT initiated by a parent complaint as the school district and the school district attorney would like you to believe.  Mr. Dan Baker testified during a Due Process Hearing while being questioned by the school district attorney that it was.  However, documents from ED OCR show that this is not true.  District Wide Compliance Reviews are ALWAYS initiated out of the Washington D.C. Office.  The District Wide Compliance Review was requested by the Kansas City ED OCR Office to the Washington D.C. Office as a potential school district to perform a District Wide Compliance Review on.  Our school district was then chosen by the Washington D.C. ED OCR Office to undergo a District Wide Compliance Review after reviewing information provided by the Kansas City OCR Office.  Our U.S. Senators were notified of the District Wide Compliance Review in 2010 by the Washington D.C. office.


The District Wide Compliance Review is still open and ongoing.  I have asked our school board about the Compliance Review on multiple occasions.  I even received a response from the school district attorney telling me that there is nothing to report to the public about the review at this time because it is still ongoing and in doing so would possibly interfere with the compliance review.  If other law firms across the country are informing their school districts that Fox C-6 is undergoing a District Wide Compliance Review and teaching them how to avoid one, it would seem that it is only our school district that does not want the public to know about it.  It should be noted that Fox C-6 was only 1 of 2 school districts out of more than 20,000 districts across the country to be chosen in 2010 to undergo a District Wide Compliance Review for the area of concern that our school district is being investigated for.

AUGUST 2011 - USDA OCR Final Agency Decision Ruling
Fox C-6 and state of Missouri Found Non-Compliant With Federal Laws, Regulations and Guidelines
Next, you should ask your school board and superintendent why Fox C-6 and subsequently the entire state of Missouri was found to be Non-Compliant by the United States Department of Agriculture Office for Civil Rights Office (USDA OCR) Food Nutrition Services department in August 2011 with ADA, ADA AA, and Section 504 Laws and the USDA's Federal Regulations and Guidance.   Our school district filed an appeal with USDA OCR in November 2011.  However, the USDA denied their appeal in 2012 and has since been in involved in multiple discussions with the school district and the school district attorneys in an effort to bring our school district and the state of Missouri into compliance with Federal laws and regulations.  From information obtained from the USDA OCR Office, Fox has not yet complied with the USDA OCR Final Agency Decision as of January 1, 2013.  It has been nearly 18 months since the USDA Final Agency Decision ruling was sent to the school district and the school board.  Perhaps the school district does not want to comply with the ruling.  The USDA OCR Office has now handed the case over to the Department of Justice for enforcement.

As a patron of the school district, I will report wrong doing and will follow up with the federal agencies and the school district.  It is your taxpayer dollars that the school district is using to fight the federal agencies rather than comply with their requests.

You must ask yourself, why is our school district unwilling to comply with Federal laws?

Why would school district attorneys make Freedom Of Information Act Requests of the USDA for all correspondences between myself and the USDA?

My research has uncovered many issues and concerns.  In 2008, I forwarded a link to the USDA OCR Office of a video I found online that was made of a presentation given at the 2008 Missouri Annual School Law Seminar.  The video covered Section 504 Law and was being presented by school district attorneys from our state.  The presentation was educating Missouri school officials on Section 504 law.  The USDA OCR Office found the training in the video to be alarming and they considered some of the information being presented in the video to be incorrect according to Federal laws.  The video prompted training for the state of Missouri which was initiated by the USDA Colorado regional office.  No one from the Fox C-6 School District Food Nutrition Services department attended the training.

Speaking at School Board Meetings Results in Retaliation

I have spoken at several Fox C-6 school board meetings over the last couple of years.  The first time I made Public Comments at a Fox C-6 school board meeting was at the December 2010 meeting.  There were only 7 people from the community in attendance at that meeting.  My speaking at that board meeting resulted in defamatory comments being posted on the TOPIX.COM website.

The first TOPIX.COM post was made shortly after the board meeting that night. Since I was the only person who spoke at the December 14, 2010 school board meeting, the following post on TOPIX.COM was directed at me.

"I went and almost made a public comment then decided that in reality all of this chatter and such is really is none of my business. There was one guy who talked but I thought he was kinda MR so I didn't take him serious. Other than that.... Nothing. no matter what I type on here to stir the pot I truly don't have any proof or knowledge of these rumors. I am sorry for being so belittling and dumb. I just hope they can't get my ISP number and find out who I am."

Post #271 on the Fox High School Superintendent - TOPIX.COM thread

The 7 people from the community, not including myself, that attended the meeting that night were two students who spoke at the meeting and their parents, Kim Robertson, the reporter from The Leader newspaper and a representative from an accounting firm. So, that only leaves school board members and some of Fox's administrators who were in attendance that night, who would have known that I had just spoken at the meeting.

I certainly doubt that the post was made by any of the community members who attended the meeting. However, it makes one question who would have posted the comment or conveyed the information to the person who actually made the post:

There was another post made on TOPIX.COM that was directed at me and my parents a week after the December 14, 2010 school board meeting.  The comments were mostly directed at me, but they indirectly referred to my parents.  I didn't realize that expressing concerns to our school board about their hiring practices would result in such comments.  However, once you've gone to a school board meeting at Fox C-6 and expressed your "concerns within the district" as my Public Comments were documented in the December 2010 school board meeting minutes, you become branded for life by the powers to be at the Fox C-6 School District.

I made my second Public Comment at the April 2011 school board meeting.  This was the meeting that had everyone under shelter for quite a while as a severe storm with tornado warnings blew through the area.  It was so windy that you could see the outside walls of the service center flexing in and out.  You can read about the questions that I presented to the school board at the April 2011 school board meeting in my May 17, 2011 email to the school board.  In that email, I documented the fact that Jamie Critchlow had approached me at the April 2011 school board meeting and told me that I was simply trying to, "stir the pot". It's funny how the post that was made on December 14, 2010 used the same phrase of "stir the pot" that Mr. Critchlow made to me at the April 2011 school board meeting.

I don't recall any specific retaliatory comments that were made on TOPIX.COM shortly after my April 2011 board meeting presentation, but there had been quite a few made between January 2011 and April 2011 and several were quite vulgar in nature.  I guess when you start asking questions of our school board and the school administrators, that a little intimidation usually puts an end to those types of questions.  But, I did not let them deter my efforts.

I next spoke at the August 2011 school board meeting and this time I started off by complimenting the school board for having the school district correct the 10 Elementary Student Handbooks that weren't up to date after downloading the Lone Dell Elementary Student Handbook from the district website.  I found that the Lone Dell Student Handbook was dated for the 2009-2010 school year and had the 2009-2010 calendar of events in it.  Lone Dell parents were told at Open House for the 2011-2012 school year that the student handbooks weren't going to be printed anymore and that they could be downloaded from the website.  I complimented the board after being scolded by Ruth Ann Newman, the school board president at the time, for never complimenting the school board for the great job they were doing.  So, after thanking them for correcting the handbooks which is required by state law to be kept up to date, I moved on to my concerns.

The next school board meeting that I made a Public Comment at was the December 2012 school board meeting.  I asked the school board again as to why they have been unwilling to publish the board meeting packets on the school district website like they do in other school districts.  That was the only concern that I presented at that school board meeting.  However, there were two other presenters at the December 2012 school board meeting that also voiced their concerns.  One was an NEA representative from Festus who spoke to the school board.  The other was a parent who expressed his concern over the recent hiring of our school board president Linda Nash's daughter-in-law as the Food Services Director for the school district with a salary of $65,336.  He expressed his concern after reading about it in the Arnold-Imperial Leader newspaper.  The newspaper article stated that her daughter-in-law Kelly Nash only had a high school diploma and had been an assistant manager at McDonald's for the past 17 years and that the school district was going to give her 2 years to obtain her degree or certification.  I didn't express my concerns to anyone on the school board or administrators that night about the recent hiring practices.  However, I did express my concern about the textbooks shortage in the middle schools though in discussions with school board members and administrators after the school board meeting.

So, I was quite surprised to learn that on Saturday December 15, 2012, there were new defamatory comments posted about me and my family on TOPIX.COM again.  I guess that the powers to be at Fox do not share the same interest I have in ensuring that our school district keeps the community informed about what they are doing by publishing the board meeting packets on the district website and exercising transparency to the fullest degree as one of our board members Dan Smith touted in his most recent election campaign for Missouri State Representative.

So, why do people attack my character and make defamatory and derogatory comments about me on the TOPIX.COM website?

I guess they attack me and my family because between November 2010 and January 11, 2011, I posted a total of 18 comments on TOPIX.COM which were all facts regarding my concerns in the Fox C-6 School District.  I found the TOPIX website while researching information in relation to issues going on in the Fox C-6 school district.  I found many people posting their concerns about Fox on the TOPIX website.  And, it was my opinion that the school district was not keeping the public informed or informed in a timely manner.  School board meeting minutes aren't posted until after the next school board meeting.  So, the school district has more than a month before anyone in the community really finds out about it.  So, I thought I would post the facts that I had researched.  I verified my facts before I posted them as I always do.  However, my postings were met with many negative responses and those responses could have only come from a very few people that were in the know of what had been going on in the school district if you know what I mean.

So, for everyone in the know at the Fox C-6 School District which would include school board members and administrators, I recommend that you re-evaluate your thinking because I am quite sure after reading many of the posts that were slanderous in nature and directed at me and my family that you believe that I have been posting on TOPIX.COM for the past 2 years.  Sorry, but you are ALL quite wrong in your thinking.  The comments on TOPIX don't count the attacks against me and my family that were posted by people in the know on STLTODAY.COM after the August 2010 Post Dispatch news story that I believe was written for the school district to make it appear as if they were properly following the law.

For our school board members and school administrators to even consider thinking that I would make the comments that people have pointed out as being made by me simply shows a lack of knowledge of my character, integrity and intentions.  You may wish to attack my character because in doing so, it makes you feel better about the things that have been going on in our school district for the last several years.  But, the comments that have been posted online and directed at me have been beyond belief.  The comments really do reflect poorly on the people that have posted them.  I never asked TOPIX to remove them as I wanted to make sure that when the truth did start coming out as to what has been going on in our school district that the community would be able to see first hand how a National District of Character treats the patrons and citizens in the school district for voicing their concerns.  Over the past couple of years, I have forwarded many of the comments on to our U.S. Senators and Congressman as well as to the USDA OCR and U.S. Department of Education (ED) OCR and the Department of Justice.  I guess everyone in our school district hasn't read Policy 0215 as they don't seem to be following it very well.  Perhaps it would also be a good idea for our school board members to read their Code of Ethics policy as well.

It certainly has been quite a learning experience over the last 4+ years when I began researching all of the issues and concerns going on in our school district.  I grew up in the school district and my parents devoted their entire professional careers to the district.  I also learned a great deal about the law as well as the founding of our countries education system and a lot about human nature.  I can say that I am a much more informed and better person for it.  It is definitely not what I had planned on doing with the thousands of hours that I have put into this project.  I can only hope that we soon get a completely new school board and a new administration who can show respect to the community and to the teachers and staff that work within our school district.

On January 11, 2013, it will have been two years since I made my last post on TOPIX.COM.  I think that an apology from those that have been posting negative comments about me and my family is in order to both me and my family and the community.  Your comments really do reflect very poorly on our school district!