Showing posts with label Fox C-6 School Board. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fox C-6 School Board. Show all posts

Thursday, March 24, 2022

2022 Fox C-6 School Board Candidates Voters Guide

Leader Publications posted their Voters Guide for the Fox C-6 school board candidates today. You can also find the Voters Guide in this week's Arnold-Imperial Leader newspaper. The community will be voting for 3 Fox C-6 school board members on April 5, 2022. Two board members for 3 year terms. One board member to fill the remaining year of the position vacated by Bob Gruenewald which he resigned from on May 19, 2021. Candidates for the two 3 year term seats are: Kenneth Woolsey Todd Scott Brandon Williams Cathey Michalski Curtiss Frazier Tara Hagin
Candidates for the one 1 year term seat are: Travis Lintner Vicki Hanson David Knoll Ryan Giesler (No Longer Running But Still On the Ballot)



ROCKWOOD VOTES TO HAVE TWO PUBLIC COMMENTS SESSIONS
The Rockwood School District recently voted to have two Public Comments sessions at their  school board meetings starting March 17, 2022.

The first public comments session is limited to topics on the agenda for that night's school board meeting.

The second public comments session near the end of the meeting after all regular board meeting agenda items have been completed. The second public comments will allow speakers to talk about anything, including items that weren't on the agenda.

You can read about Rockwood's new Public Comment policy in the Eureka Leader article noted below (until the page expires):



Fox C-6 Planned To Have Listening Sessions beginning November 2013
Rockwood's new public comment policy is similar to the open forum that I had asked Fox's school board for in October 2013.

In fact, I was told by former superintendent, Dianne Critchlow in an October 4, 2013 email that:
"The board is going to host listening sessions beginning in November before each board meeting."
That meant that Fox would begin hosting listening sessions like they were having in the Rockwood School District. The whole idea of listening sessions was to improve transparency and have open discussions with our school board.

However that idea was short lived. Fox's attorney, Ernie Trakas told Fox's board during the November 5, 2013 board workshop that he felt that community listening sessions were a bad idea.

I wrote about this in the article noted below:

Additionally, Fox's attorney decided that the board workshop needed to go into closed session during the open session discussion. That move prompted the following article:


Below are links to some of the past Fox C-6 School Board Candidate Voters Guides and related articles:

June 16, 2021 - Former Fox school board president appointed to vacant seat

2021 Fox C-6 School Board Candidates Voters Guide

2020 Fox C-6 School Board Candidates Voters Guide

2019 Fox C-6 School Board Candidates Voters Guide

2018 Fox C-6 School Board Candidates Voters Guide




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Monday, May 10, 2021

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Monday, April 5, 2021

Improvements in Transparency Helps the Community Perform Oversight

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

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

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









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Sunday, April 4, 2021

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

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

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

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

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

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

The article notes that former superintendent, Dianne Critchlow said:

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

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

The Post Dispatch article also noted the following quote from former superintendent, Dianne Critchlow:
"You don’t have the right to make up lies and defame someone’s character,”
Apparently, the statement above did not apply to her or her husband.

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


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

No Audio or Video Recordings of Meetings at Fox
I asked the Fox C-6 school board numerous times over the years during the Critchlow era to audio or video record school board meetings because of the lack of detail Fox's board meeting minutes.

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

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

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

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

Kansas City ED OCR Slowed the Process As Well
It took Ed OCR nearly 16 months just to respond to the district with their review of the district’s updated 504 manual. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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Monday, March 29, 2021

2021 Fox C-6 School Board Candidates Voters Guide

Read about the Fox C-6 school board candidates on the Leader newspaper's online VOTERS GUIDE for the April 6th, 2021 school board election:



School board elections can greatly affect whether or not people will be held accountable for their actions. A great deal of that depends on who the candidates are friends with or who they have worked with in the past.

Below are links to some of the past Fox C-6 School Board Candidate Voters Guides:

2020 Fox C-6 School Board Candidates Voters Guide

2018 Fox C-6 School Board Candidates Voters Guide


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Saturday, August 1, 2020

Must Watch! HBO's "Bad Education" Movie Receives Two Emmy Nominations

The movie "Bad Education" just received two Emmy nominations the other day.

Bad Education is a movie about the true story of the misuse of taxpayer dollars and the deception by some of the administrators in a Long Island school district in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. The movie may remind you a lot about what happened in the Fox C-6 School District in 2013-2014 and the misuse of credit cards by some of our former school district administrators.

I’ve watched Bad Education a few times already since it first premiered on HBO a few months ago. It’s an excellent movie. It reminds me of so many things that was going on in our school district during Dianne Brown-Critchlow’s tenure as superintendent that I was documenting on my FoxC6Watchdogs blog back then.

Of course, I was looking into several things going on in our school district at the time like the over the top salary being paid to our superintendent, the comments be posted about me online for asking questions at board meetings as well as the ongoing 504 issues in our school district.

No Audio or Video Recordings of School Board Meetings
And, since Fox wasn't audio or video recording school board meetings back then, the public was pretty much kept in the dark about what I was asking our school board and our administrators. School board meeting minutes didn't provide any details as to what I was asking during public comments.

I would bet that if any of Fox’s former school board members watched the movie Bad Education, that it would bring back quite a few memories for them as well. It was at the February 2014 school board meeting when I asked our Fox school board members during public comments how they could approve bill payments without good descriptions of bill payments and without being provided copies of the credit card statements.

Great Scene About Personal Purchases Brings Back Memories
There’s one scene in the movie when the superintendent, played by Hugh Jackman, tells the school board members about the amount of taxpayer money that the auditor found that was spent on personal purchases by the school district’s business manager. That scene makes me wonder if our school board members felt the same way when they started looking at the credit card statements that were received in bulk by fax after I made a Sunshine Request for copies of them in April 2014.
Shredding Documents
I’m guessing that the district credit card statements may have been part of the documents that were shredded by Mark McCutchen, Fox’s former Chief Financial Officer (CFO) during Dianne's tenure as superintendent. Mr. McCutchen abruptly left the district after I made a Sunshine Request for copies of the credit card statements. Mr. McCutchen didn’t respond to the auditor’s questions during the state audit. His input to the audit should have been crucial to the state audit.

Grandview School District Patrons Can Relate
The parents and patrons in the Grandview School District can probably relate to the movie as well.

Some of the administrators in the movie Bad Education and the business manager at Grandview were prosecuted for their improper use of taxpayer dollars.

No one was prosecuted at Fox related to the findings of the state auditor's report that I'm aware of.

U.S. Attorney Told Me They "Didn't Find Any Criminal Intent"
The U.S. Attorney’s office told me in November 2017 that their office “didn’t find any criminal intent” when they reviewed the state auditor’s report, the FBI report and the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office report due to the fact that our school board had approved all of the bill payments even though Fox's board members weren’t provided copies of the credit card statements. It was suggested by the U.S. Attorney's office that our school board needed to improve its approval processes.

Freedom of Information Act Request for FBI Report
I've made a couple of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the FBI for a copy of the FBI Report related to the state audit. I have a copy of the Jefferson County Sheriff's report and a copy of the state audit.

My first FOIA request response from the FBI informed me that the FBI was unable to identify any main file records responsive to my request related to Dianne Critchlow or the Fox C-6 School District. My second request was made with the actual FBI report number (46H-SL-7854210) provided to me by Jefferson County Sheriff Dave Marshak.

The FBI's response to my second FOIA request informed me that it may take up to 1500 days to respond to my request.

Is that what people refer to as sweeping things under the rug?

Bad Education is a great movie!

It shows what can go wrong when school board members and outside auditors don't do a very good job of oversight of a school district.


If you don't have HBO, you can always sign up for a Free 7 Day Trial just to watch the movie.
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Tuesday, June 16, 2020

Three New Fox C-6 School Board Members Take Oath of Office

Tonight, three new school board members will take the oath of office for the Fox C-6 school board.

The new board members are: Krystal Hargis

Michelle Chamberlain

Bob Gruenewald

Fox hasn’t had this many former school district employees on our school board for a very long time, if ever.

Fox’s school board will have 3 retired central office administrators, a retired central office human resources secretary and two retired school teachers.

Workshop/Special Meeting of the Fox C-6 Board of Education
Tuesday, June 16, 2020
Fox C-6 Service Center
849 Jeffco Blvd.
Arnold, Missouri 63010

3:00 pm - Oath of New Board Members/Election of Officers
3:15 pm - Closed Session
7:00 pm - Open Session

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Monday, May 11, 2020

Fox C-6's 504 Manual Finally Updated After 11 Years

On Friday, May 8, 2020 at 10:03PM, I received an email from Fox’s Section 504 Coordinator informing me that Fox updated the district’s 504 manual and posted it on the district’s website. It’s too bad that the updated manual still didn’t meet the terms of the March 2018 Resolution Agreement. I’d like to know who reviewed the changes in the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (ED OCR). It’s taken more than 11 years to make changes to Fox’s 504 Manual and it’s still not correct. Add to that, the fact that you can’t search for text in the new manual. So, parents, staff and administrators are going to waste a lot of time having to read the entire 71 page document to find something unless they have access to optical character recognition software that can turn images of pages into a searchable document. In Friday night’s email, I was informed that Fox had received feedback from ED OCR and that OCR had “approved” the district’s updated 504 Manual. A link to the updated document was included in the email. Here's the link sent to me: https://www.fox.k12.mo.us/departments/special_education Here's a direct link to Fox's webpage where the 504 Manual is listed: https://www.fox.k12.mo.us/departments/special_education/504_manual

Fox's 504 Manual has not been available on the district website until now. Here is a direct link to Fox's 504 Manual in PDF format: (This link may change with updates to the manual.) https://www.fox.k12.mo.us/common/pages/DisplayFile.aspx?itemId=37088403

Fox Originally Agreed To Update 504 Manual by June 2009 Fox’s Section 504 Manual and Procedural Safeguards document was originally supposed to be updated by June 2009 according to a Resolution Agreement that Dan Baker signed with ED OCR on May 1, 2009. Fox didn’t meet that June 2009 deadline. And, when Fox didn’t meet that original deadline, OCR gave Fox a new deadline. And, when Fox didn’t meet that deadline, OCR gave them another deadline and another and another. After a few missed deadlines, Fox refused to make some of the changes they had agreed to. There was a concerted effort to drag this issue out for years. But, before Fox’s 504 Manual was ever updated, the law firm representing the district was canned when the internet scandal became public involving former superintendent Dianne Brown-Critchlow and former 504 Coordinator Dan Baker. However, prior to being canned, the district’s law firm was able to bill tens of thousands of dollars related to the ongoing 504 issues at Fox between March 2008 and June 2014. Getting back to the recently updated Section 504 manual, it’s really interesting that Fox finally got around to updating the 504 manual just one week after I wrote about Fox not updating the district’s Section 504 Manual after 11 years after agreeing to do so. I was quite surprised to see the email from our district’s 504 Coordinator. I didn’t see it until early Saturday morning since it was sent to me at 10:03PM Friday night. I clicked on the link and began reviewing the document to see if the changes had been made as required by the terms of the March 2018 Resolution Agreement. There were at least 3 things that didn’t get updated as agreed to in the resolution agreement. It makes you question who reviewed the change or if the changes were actually reviewed and “approved” by ED OCR. I’ll have to make a Sunshine Request and a Freedom of Information Act Request to see if ED OCR actually approved the changes or not. The March 2018 Resolution Agreement spelled out exactly what needed to be replaced and/or updated in the 504 manual to comply with federal law. It also required including at least two examples of students who would qualify for Section 504. Fox also agreed to increase the amount of time that a parent can file an appeal to a 504 decision from 10 calendar days to at least 90 calendar days. This didn’t get updated in the “approved” Section 504 Manual that was posted on the district website.

The language in Fox’s updated 504 Manual still states: “If a parent, legal guardian or eligible student intends to challenge the action proposed or refused by the District, the parent/guardian or eligible student must file a written request for 504 Due Process Hearing within 10 calendar days from the date of the District’s written notice of the proposed or refused action.” The current name and job title for Fox's 504 District Section 504 Coordinator is not correct. It's no longer the Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources. The address for ED OCR is not correct in the updated 504 Manual as spelled out in the Resolution Agreement. I highlighted the required changes in Fox’s March 2018 Resolution Agreement in the screen capture below that are not correct or needed to be changed. I also highlighted where the changes still need to be corrected in Fox’s 504 Manual in the other screen capture below. Perhaps someday, this will get corrected. QUESTIONS OUR SCHOOL BOARD SHOULD ASK I’m hoping our school board members will ask some questions such as: Why wasn’t the March 2018 Resolution Agreement with ED OCR provided to the school board for review when it was originally sent to the district and signed by former superintendent Dr. Wipke in March 2018? (Your school board is supposed to ensure that the district is following the law and the March 2018 Resolution Agreement covers Section 504 law.) Why wasn’t the updated 504 Manual included in BoardDocs and presented as an action item if it needed to be approved by the school board prior to posting it on the district’s website? Who reviewed and approved the 504 Manual at ED OCR if the updated 504 Manual still didn’t meet the terms of the March 2018 Resolution Agreement? I’m also hoping that our school board requires the district to add language prohibiting retaliation to Fox’s 504 Manual similar to what’s included in the Kansas City Kansas Public Schools 504 Manual. The following language is posted on ED OCR’s website about retaliation on their Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page which is referenced in Fox’s 504 Manual:

“Retaliatory acts are prohibited. A recipient is prohibited from intimidating, threatening, coercing, or discriminating against any individual for the purpose of interfering with any right or privilege secured by Section 504.”
The Kansas City Kansas Public Schools Section 504 Manual addressed retaliation very well. I highly recommend reading the KCKPS 504 Manual for reference. It’s much easier to read and includes a Table of Contents. I’ll keep you posted on the ongoing efforts to get Fox’s 504 Manual updated to comply with federal law.

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Sunday, March 31, 2019

What Other School Districts Are Doing to Help Their Communities Meet Their School Board Candidates

For the Fox C-6 Community, it’s always good to see what other school districts are doing to help their communities meet their school board candidates such as hosting forums with their candidates and posting school board candidate information on their district website.

Here are some examples from other school districts that post school board candidate information on their district websites. Rockwood and Parkway have videos posted of their meet the candidates forums.

Fox's school board candidate information can be found on the Leader newspaper website.


Rockwood School District

Mehlville School District

Valley Park School District

Lindbergh School District - 2018

Parkway School District

Affton School District

Fox C-6 Board Candidates on Leader newspaper website:


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Sunday, January 20, 2019

Why the Fox C-6 Community Wasn't Aware of Problems in the District

So, why wasn't the Fox C-6 community aware of ongoing problems in our school district for such a long time? Why weren't charges filed during the investigation of the state audit findings? I was told that school board meeting minutes were reviewed as part of the investigation. So, the fact that our school board meeting minutes did not contain details about what concerns were being brought to our school board members and district leaders during Public Comment, investigators could only go on what was documented in the minutes. I voiced my concern about the lack of details in board meeting minutes for years and was met with a lot of resistance from our former superintendent on the issue. That's why I always audio recorded my Public Comments because I knew they wouldn't be documented very well in the board meeting minutes. Defending Lack Of Detail In Board Meeting Minutes In defending her position on the lack of detail in our school board meeting minutes, former superintendent Dianne (Critchlow) Salsman sent me the following statement in a September 17, 2013 email:
"Per MSBA council, minutes are not verbatim, it is merely an account of the meeting through the board secretaries eyes."
Below is an example of what Fox's board secretary saw through her eyes and documented for the January 15, 2013 school board meeting that I spoke at. PUBLIC COMMENT AS DOCUMENTED IN BOARD MEETING MINUTES: Rich Simpson - Requested more board information on the district website. PUBLIC COMMENT READ AT THE BOARD MEETING:
Over the last several years I have attempted to encourage you to do the right thing and you have repeatedly failed to do so. I have invested thousands of hours into researching how our school district operates as well as that of other school districts across the state, and across the country. During which, I have gained a tremendous amount of information and knowledge. Much to my disappointment however, I have come to the realization that the school district that I grew up in and loved as a child is not at all what I thought it would be when my children began attending. We have a lot of great teachers in the district, however, the leadership and school board has stifled their abilities to do a great job – even made them fearful for their jobs if they were to express their opinions. Tell me, is this how a school district should be run? I have requested for our community to have board meetings video or audio recorded due to the fact that our board minutes are vague or not always accurate. I have requested that school board meeting information packets be published online prior to school board meetings or after board meetings along with the minutes so our community can be more informed and involved in what is going on within our district. Our school board policies even require that board minutes be accurate and complete and without the board meeting information packets they are not. I have requested that school board member contact information be placed on the district website so our board members would be accessible to the community. All of these things are done in other school districts. 
Why can’t our school district do these things? 
I have never received an answer from our school board as to why these things cannot be done. Our superintendent has informed me that this information is not on our website which I am aware of and that is why I have been asking for it to be. It is my hope that you respect others in our community that may speak at this evening's school board meeting and that the individuals in our school community refrain from making defamatory comments in online forums in the coming days as has been done to me after I have spoken at previous school board meetings. Those who are making the defamatory comments have no business teaching our children, running our school, etc. if they are employees of our school district. I believe that they are, because no one other than those present in this room at those past board meetings had knowledge of who was present and what was said. They are simply playground bullies. Our district has a no bullying policy but it appears that it does not apply to school officials. It is clear that you have embarrassed not only our school district but our community. Our district is not as well respected or as academically advanced as you tout or would like to believe. You may complement each other here and pat yourselves on the back with the thought that you believe that you are doing a great job. However, a growing portion of the community does not share your same point of view and neither does the community of our peers in surrounding school districts. I respectfully request that our current school board members resign and that past board members do not seek re-election. There are administrators that should resign as well so our school district and community can get a fresh start towards building a new and improved school district and one that we can truly be proud of. Thank you!
Of course, there were defamatory comments posted on TOPIX shortly before and after the January 15, 2013 Fox C-6 school board meeting in an attempt to intimidate anyone from speaking at the board meeting. Below is a link to the article I wrote on January 27, 2013 regarding the documenting of school board meetings and how our former superintendent kept the community from knowing what concerns were being brought to our school board. The real question is, why didn't our school board act upon the concerns being brought to them at the time? Online Posts Traced to District Employees
I made sure that our school board members were aware of the online posts being made and that I believed that they were being made by District employees. In 2014, the online defamatory posts were traced to school district computers and school district employees homes. Imagine that! Since I wasn't a District employee, I couldn't be targeted by District leaders like others who have stood up against the district culture. Instead, District leaders had to tackle the problem in the online forums anonymously and by not documenting in detail the concerns being brought to our school board's attention.


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