Former Superintendent Critchlow Asked Her Cabinet To Post Positive Comments About the District on TOPIX

Recently, I posted the handwritten notes former Fox C-6 assistant superintendents Tim Crutchley and Todd Scott wrote after their conversation with former Fox C-6 superintendent Dianne Critchlow in which she told them that her husband Jamie Critchlow had been posting comments on the TOPIX.COM website. As I mentioned in that post, getting the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth from some of Fox's former school district administrators had been a huge problem for years.

According to Tim Crutchley's deposition, former superintendent Dianne Critchlow had been concerned with comments that were being posted on TOPIX.COM for quite some time. Mr. Crutchley stated that comments on TOPIX were discussed quite often in their "cabinet" (assistant superintendent) meetings. In fact, she asked her "cabinet" (the assistant superintendents) to post positive comments on TOPIX about the school district in response to the comments that were critical of the district.

Former superintendent Dianne Critchlow's directive lead to some administrators posting comments on TOPIX.COM during the school day as well as at home. Not all of the comments posted were positive as you can see by reading the ones listed in the exhibits in the lawsuit that was filed with Jefferson County courts in November 2014.

Comments Posted On TOPIX from Fox's IP Address Date Back to 2010

Some of the earliest posts made on TOPIX that came from the school district's IP address date back to October 2010. They were made by a user named "Bullwinkle" who responded to a post that I had made on Topix regarding my concerns about the school district's open District Wide Compliance Review.

Former superintendent Dianne Brown was not happy that we had filed an OCR complaint with the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights in August 2008. And then in March 2010, Washington D.C. Office of Civil Rights informed superintendent Brown that her school district would be undergoing a District Wide Compliance Review adding insult to injury.

Making the public aware of the District Wide Compliance Review was something that former superintendent Dianne Brown didn't want. When I would ask the school board about it during public comments, Dianne would respond saying that it couldn't be discussed due to litigation. But, there was no litigation related to the Compliance Review. Stating that there was ongoing litigation was a simple way to make everyone believe that it couldn't be discussed. It was simply another tactic used to keep people from questioning things in the district. The District Wide Compliance Review was an investigation of the school district's Section 504 practices.

So, when a comment was posted on TOPIX by Bullwinkle referencing the recent Due Process decision for the OCR complaint, it was very obvious to me as to who would have posted that online comment. I just couldn't prove at the time that the comment came from a school district computer.

Dianne Brown and former assistant superintendent and Section 504 Coordinator, Dan Baker, had both been involved with the OCR complaint and Due Process Hearing as well as the District Wide Compliance Review in 2010 and were aware of the recent ruling.

So, when it was confirmed that Bullwinkle's comment that was posted on TOPIX.COM on November 16, 2010 came from a the school district's IP address, it helped validate my suspicions.

Below is part of Bullwinkle's comment that was posted on TOPIX. The comment seems to have a bit of an attitude resonating from it: 

"Channel person. You must be the disgruntled parents over the OCR case. get over it! you lost."

The Due Process Hearing ruling had made by an attorney who was hired by the school district and who just happened to be a former law associate in two different law firms of the attorney who represented the school district during the Due Process Hearing. The attorney hired by the district to hear the Due Process Hearing was supposed to be "Fair and Impartial" but that was not the case. That's just how the game has been played in our state for a very long time.

Bullwinkle also responded to another comment in which I had talked about speaking to Fox's school board president in 2008 about speaking to the school board and superintendent Brown blocked the school board from speaking to me. When superintendent Brown arrived at the meeting, she told me that the school board had already decided not to speak with me.

However, the board president at the time wasn't aware of this decision as we were already speaking about getting on next months agenda since he had forgotten to put me on the agenda for that evening. Apparently, superintendent Brown forgot to tell him that "he" had already decided not to speak with me. Superintendent Brown seemed to be the only person who knew that the school board had decided not to speak with me.

Bullwinkle didn't catch that my comment was about speaking with the board president in the fall of 2008. I guess being angered by information being posted in a public forum that had been kept quiet for so long was causing unrest in the upper ranks. My comment related to this incident caused Bullwinkle to post the following comment on TOPIX.COM:

11/16/2010 - 08:10AM

"The school board president is a female and has been president since early last spring you dip stick. 

Mr Critchlow, I will call you and we can start our own campaign against these crazy parents.. LOL Perhaps we can find them something to do at your school... hahahaaa"

Bullwinkle posted 5 comments on TOPIX.COM during October and November 2010. Several of Bullwinkle's online posts made "positive" comments about superintendent Brown and the school district. Bullwinkle certainly wanted to make sure that the community was aware of the great job that superintendent Brown was doing for our school district.

What helped confirm my suspicions that Bullwinkle was most likely superintendent Brown, was that the language and writing style used by Bullwinkle was strikingly similar to that found in the Superintendent Messages written by Superintendent Dianne Brown that she posted on the district website and also published in The Rock newspaper.

There was no doubt in my mind as to who Bullwinkle was who was posting on TOPIX defending superintendent Brown and responding to criticisms that were made on the Fox High School Superintendent thread.

Even though Bullwinkle didn't post that many messages, the phrases and keywords used by Bullwinkle gave you the impression that you were reading comments written by superintendent Dianne Brown herself.

Here are some of the phrases and keywords that stood out in Bullwinkle's comments. Compare the phrases to those used in Dianne Brown-Critchlow's Superintendent Messages from 2010 to 2013:

• Kudos to you
• second to none
• I applaud
• I'm proud of
• positive attitude

Below are the comments posted on TOPIX by Bullwinkle in 2010 from the school district's IP address with the dates and local time that they were posted:

10/19/2010 - 9:51AM

This is obsurd. Those of you who are relishing in these rumors are worse than the rumors theirselves. Complete rubbish. I have two kids that graduated from the district. Couldnt be more impressed with their experience and education. I applaud the superintendent and all her efforts. Her personal life is exactly what it is. Hers...not yours! Get a life people!

In 2010 when the message above was posted, Dianne Brown did have two kids that had already graduated from the district.

11/05/2010 - 11:19AM

Who here has been divorced or has had a close friend or relative get divorced? Because your not a public figure does that give all of us the right to judge you/her? Nope dont think so. One thing thats a common factor here is about the kids. Do you think your children would be proud of you guys posting negative remarks about their teachers and administration? Think about that... 

I love humans nowadays. Collectively forming a cyber‐subpar lynch mob with nothing to do other than try to tear people down. 

As you judge others always keep in mind you too will be judged when your time comes. 

Im proud of the school district. Its teachers, faculty, administration and staff are second to none. Kudos to you guys!!! I know your doing everything you can to help our children succeed.

The next comment posted by Bullwinkle was quite intent on defending superintendent Brown who had been getting criticized online about her close relationship with Jamie Critchlow.

11/08/2010 - 10:33AM

"Dear unknowing fellow constituents,... 

I am amazed that any of you morality, podium pounding blabber‐mouths feel you have any right to judge. Do you know the superintendant or any of the people being accused on here? What are your facts? I'm sure you caught wind of a rumor and you took it to the highest level without knowing a damn bit of whats going on. Have you lived in her house? Have you been in her former marriage? Have you had her confide in you why she got a divorce? NO... you have not and don't kid yourself if you think you have a clue. This is where the term "hypocrite" applies. 

I know the parents and board hold her in high regard and have nothing but the utmost respect for her. And my opinion still remains the same. Get a life and find a positive place in your head to venture to. The world is crappy enough without this rubbish and your nonsense. Be a parent with a positive attitude...not a bad one."

11/16/2010 - 8:10AM

The school board president is a female and has been president since early last spring you dip stick. Again...more lies to harm others. 

Mr Critchlow, I will call you and we can start our own campaign against these crazy parents..LOL Perhaps we can find them something to do at your school...hahahaaa

Below is the complete post that was made by Bullwinkle in response to my comment about the District Wide Compliance Review being conducted by OCR. In that same post, Bullwinkle also responded to another person who used the screen name "Please" which was not me:

11/16/2010 - 10:03AM

Channel person. You must be the disgruntled parents over the OCR case. get over it! you lost. 

"Please" You are correct in that affairs in the work place are frowned upon and Im sure Paul would agree with you. However, making accusations without proof is slander and you, my friend, are crossing the line repetitely. You lose. get over it! 

Put your name out there like Mr Critchlow did. Hes being ripped on here too and I applaud him for his righteousness.

Bullwinkle certainly thought highly of former Fox C-6 superintendent Dianne Brown back then and also thought that the school board held "her in high regard". Bullwinkle's comments certainly had a familiar ring to them.

I wrote an article about this in July 2014 titled:

What Got Our Educators Riled Enough To Write Defamatory Comments?

Comments Posted From District and Home Computers and Cell Phones
If you read through the exhibits in the publicly available lawsuit, you will see date / time stamps and an IP address recorded for each post. The school districts IP address was documented by MOREnet. Other IP addresses that were traced back to individual homes and cell phones were verified by the respective Internet Service Providers.

You'll probably notice that not all of the posts made on TOPIX that were traced back to the school district or to the homes or phones of school district administrators were "positive" posts.

The dates and times in the exhibits from TOPIX.COM are in Pacific Standard Time. So, you must to add 2 hours to the times that are documented in military time in the exhibits. The text of the lawsuit didn't properly document the times when they were converted from the exhibits into the lawsuit text.

Did Jamie Critchlow Use a School District Computer to post comments?

In Tim Crutchley's notes of his conversation with Jamie Critchlow, Mr. Crutchley documented that Mr. Critchlow didn't use any district computers when he posted comments on TOPIX.COM, "We asked if he used personal or district computers and he said he used personal computer."

Did Mr. Critchlow tell the truth when he told Mr. Crutchley that he didn't use a district computer?

On November 16, 2010 at 7:49AM, there was a comment posted on TOPIX by someone using the screen name, "Jamie Matthew Critchlow". The online post was removed from TOPIX long ago but was provided by TOPIX when subpoenaed since it originated from the school district's IP address.

The original comment posted by the screen name, Jamie Matthew Critchlow was as follows except that I redacted part of the phone number that was made in the original online post and in the lawsuit exhibits:

Public...let me introduce myself. I am Jamie Critchlow. Principal of the Bridges program at Fox C‐6. I have been made aware of this website and rumors as of late. I am on here to speak to you as a concerned parent. I am truly apathetic for anyone who finds comfort in these negative words. Dr Brown and I are great friends who have found solitude in each others friendship through difficult times. The light in which both she and i have been shed on this website is at best ridiculous. If you have any questions you would like to ask please call my personal cell at 314‐775‐XXXX.

Read through the TOPIX.COM posts that are documented in the lawsuit that was filed electronically in the Jefferson County courts in November 2014. You can see just how many comments were made on TOPIX from the school district's IP address. The district said they were unable to trace which specific computers the posts came from when asked to do so. However, there's a definite pattern in the content that goes along with certain screen names in many of the online comments.

Hopefully reading through the online comments will give everyone a little more perspective as to why I've put so much time and effort into documenting what was going on in our school district. It's important to get the facts and the truth to the public so this type of behavior never happens again in our school district.

Fox's former superintendent, Dianne Brown/Critchlow invested a lot of time and effort into hiding information from the public for years. That allowed her to get away with a lot of things that never should have happened. It's very well documented in my emails to board members and administrators as well as audio recordings that I made when I attended school board meetings as to what was going on.

It's extremely hard for anyone to even imagine that this sort of harassment could or would occur especially since it was being done by some of the top administrators in our school district.

It's even harder to imagine that our Fox C-6 school board members did nothing to stop it. I repeatedly spoke to them and emailed them about this harassment for years.

In 2014 after obtaining IP addresses, we provided the lawsuit information to the Office of Civil Rights since this sort of behavior would surely be considered retaliation under Section 504 Law. However, the Office for Civil Rights told us they couldn't do anything until there was a court ruling. We also spoke to the Department of Justice as well.

There's a huge problem with the system and the people involved when this type of harassment cannot be stopped. Perhaps this will be a lesson that everyone will learn from.

The following document contains all of the online posts that were submitted in the original lawsuit along with the locations that the online posts were made from. Reading through the online comments that were posted and from where shows is a very sad example of how desperate people were to keep their jobs as I brought my concerns to our school board that our superintendent did not appreciate.

Lawsuit With Exhibits Electronically Filed in Jefferson County Court in 2014 over TOPIX.COM Posts

May 27, 2014 - Critchlow Tells Crutchley and Scott That Her Husband Was Posting on TOPIX.COM

I'm glad to see that the Fox C-6 community is finally questioning all of those denials of wrong doing over the years by former Fox C-6 superintendent Dianne Brown-Critchlow.

Telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth was a huge problem for some of Fox's school district during the Dianne Brown / Dianne Critchlow Era of our school district.

Seeing some of the comments posted by parents, taxpayers and students on some of the news sites and Facebook helps validate years of work spent chasing down and documenting the corruption going on in our district as school board members turned a blind eye.

Below is a link to a few pages of notes written by former assistant superintendent Tim Crutchley and former assistant superintendent Todd Scott on May 25, 2014 soon after Dianne Critchlow informed them that she knew that her husband Jamie Critchlow had been making posts on TOPIX.COM. Dianne met with Tim Crutchley and Todd Scott shortly after the Post Dispatch newspaper published a story about the internet scandal lawsuit.

Their notes aren't very detailed. But, I thought it would be helpful for the community to get a glimpse at some of the things that were going on behind the scenes two years ago.

It's hard to believe that it's already been two years since the internet scandal broke things loose for the school district. It wasn't long after the internet scandal, that the credit card spending scandal hit the news. What a crazy time it was!

While Dianne Brown-Critchlow was touting Fox as being a National District of Character, she was busy padding her pockets and using district credit cards to pay for red light tickets and meals as well as purchase logging tongs, cameras and softball equipment on Amazon.com.

As documented in Tim Crutchley's hand written notes, Dianne Critchlow asked Tim Crutchley and Todd Scott to tell the board  "about her wanting to to retire right away and that she has gotten bad health news and was going on FMLA right away. She also wanted us to get board to move Jamie's retirement up right away because of her health concerns."

I'm betting that Dianne Critchlow didn't feel too well after being contacted by her Internet Service Provider and being told that their IP information was being requested for a lawsuit.

Crutchley and Scott's Hand Written Notes Document Critchlow's Knoweledge of Posting On TOPIX.COM

The Bakers NOT Losing Their Jobs at Fox C-6 Was Discussed on Donnybrook Last Night!

What is Donnybrook?

Donnybrook is a weekly discussion / debate program that airs on Thursday night on KETC Channel 9 in St. Louis, MO. It's hosted by 5 journalists that discuss topics of local interest. Past episodes can be viewed online or seen on TV on Sunday evening if you missed Thursday's airing.

This week's discussion on Donnybrook started with the recent announcement of Dan and Angela Baker being allowed to keep their jobs at Fox C-6 after they had been placed on paid administrative leave June 4, 2014.

If you recall, online defamatory comments were traced to the Baker's residence as well as the residence of Superintendent Dianne Critchlow and her husband Jamie Critchlow the former Director of the At Risk program.

It needs to be noted that many comments were linked to the Baker's residence. There may have only been one comment documented in the original lawsuit petition but many more were posted in defense of the school district and our school board that were linked to the Baker's residence.

This is the second time that Fox C-6 has been a topic of discussion on the Donnybrook program. Superintendent Critchlow and the Internet scandal was first discussed on the June 5, 2014 Donnybrook program starting 19:15 in that episode. The prior episode of Donnybrook can be viewed online using the link found at the end of this article.

If you missed last night's episode you can view it online using the link below. It was a great discussion by the Donnybrook panelists regarding Dan and Angela Baker getting to keep their jobs as administrators at Fox C-6.

I believe the Donnybrook panelist's unbiased views believing that the Bakers should have been fired speaks loud and clear to our school board and the community.

Of course, I'm biased because Dan Baker's defamatory comments were directed at me. I pointed that out during my Public Comments at this weeks Fox C-6 school board workshop.

As a Fox C-6 administrator and school district Section 504 Coordinator, Mr. Baker should have been fired immediately once our school board knew that he did in fact post online comments even if they weren't as vile as Troop's comments.

Mr. Baker spent July 2013 through October 2013 in discussions with Missouri DESE and the USDA's Office for Civil Rights attempting to correct issues in our school district and bring the district into compliance with federal law. Fox's school board members were copied on many of the correspondences with the USDA during that time period.

Fox C-6 had been found Non-Compliant by USDA OCR in August 2011. Superintendent Critchlow forwarded that letter of Non-Compliance to the Fox C-6 School Board back then informing the board that she had "received a really long letter from the USDA" but the district attorney found some mistakes in the letter. Dan Baker told me at the December 2011 school board meeting that the district filed an appeal. Mr. Baker said it wasn't fair that the district wasn't offered a chance to file an appeal. That's because it was a Final Agency Decision. In August 2013, the USDA OCR finally took action to enforce the August 2011 non-compliance notification and bring the district into compliance.

It's Not Just Bullying! It's Retaliation!
As an administrator you can't post defamatory comments abut parents that you've been dealing with while being under investigation by federal agencies. It's not just BULLYING! IT IS RETALIATION!

Mr. Baker may not have enjoyed dealing with federal investigations and Section 504 complaints, but that was his job. Mr. Baker was being paid more than $150,000 to ensure that our district followed Civil Rights laws and he failed to do so. That's why Fox C-6 was found Non-Compliant in August 2011. Not only did Dan Baker violate federal law, he violated our district's anti-bullying policy.

The comment from the Bakers house directed towards me were libelous and were meant to discredit me and my efforts towards getting our district to comply with federal law and and for my advocacy efforts on Section 504 issues at Fox C-6.

Since Dan Baker has been handling Section 504 issues for the district for the last 6+ years and working with us directly makes the comments from his residence even more damaging for him because of his position. The board needs to read the 2013 Dear Colleague Letter from ED OCR to understand why Dan Baker's comments were retaliatory.

Even worse was the fact that he was in charge of ensuring that the district properly followed the ADA and Section 504 law. In his anonymous online comment posted under the pseudonym of "Seriously", he called out my "weird eye" which is due to paralysis from a 1978 car accident. I don't think a disability coordinator for a school district should be publicly be making fun of a parent's disability. I doubt Mr. Baker would have posted the comment using his own name. So, I'm betting he never thought that someone could find out that he posted comments online. His comments should have been cause for immediate dismissal once our school board reviewed the current lawsuit petition and knew which post he made.

Retaliation Violates Federal Law

Retaliation in Section 504 Law is a very serious offense as outlined in this 2013 Dear Colleague Letter from ED OCR.  Mr. Baker violated Section 504 Law and should be dismissed. The board cannot be allowed to be "satisfied with the discipline" that the Bakers received knowing that his comments violated Section 504 Law and school board policy. He should have been fired!

KETC's July 24, 2014 Donnybrook Episode 
Below is the link to the July 24, 2014 episode of Donnybrook that aired on KETC Channel 9. The discussion by the Donnybrook panelists about Fox is the very first topic of discussion. Guest host Eric Reid starts off the conversation by saying he asked a Fox High School student purchasing books at a bookstore what she thought about what had been happening lately in the Fox C-6 school district.

Watch the Donnybrook discussion about

the Bakers getting to keep their jobs!

Host Eric Reid started the discussion asking, "Bill, do you think that these two who weren't necessarily vindicated but didn't do as much emailing as the others, do you think they should get to keep their jobs?"

Panelist Bill McClellen of the St. Louis Post Dispatch said, "No I don't. I thought they should be fired. Matter of fact I thought the board members should resign as well. And the other thing that bugged me about this is the discipline they got was being disciplined with pay. I mean, I'd like to be suspended with pay. You know if my boss were to say to me that's enough McClellan we're going to suspend you from pay for a week, I'd say, teach me a real lesson. You know, the idea that somebody does something wrong and you suspend them with pay, is crazy. I don't know what the board is thinking."

Host Eric Reid said, "Well, obviously this has festered for a while. But I guess they figured they came back and said like these two basically weren't as bad as the other players in all this. Now I don't know if that's not enough reason but and as I said, I guess I could see them keeping their job."

Guest panelist Brenda Talent of the Show-Me-Institute said, "And maybe the contract didn't allow them to quite do that. But I would say this, what a statement, what role models are we setting up for our children when this is the kind of conflict resolution they engage in by posting comments, which are rather sophomoric on internet sites. I mean that's what really offends me. These are supposed to be administrators. They're supposed to be mentors to the teachers and they're role models for the entire district. Pretty sad comment on the district."

Host Alvin Reid said, "Well I agree and I would have, I'm one that I would have dismissed them just for being in this conversation with these people in the first place. Never mind that they said some really vile things about people. Just the fact that, you know I agree with you, in that, wait a minute, why are you even involved in this banter?"

Panelist Bill McClellan said, "And not using their names. I mean they had to be found out. It's one thing if a person that works for the district wants to stand up for the district and take on the critics. But to do all of this stuff anonymously, that, that's just wrong on many levels."

Guest panelist D.J. Wilson of KDHX was surprised that an assistant principal at a middle school would be paid over $100,000. (Everyone should now be aware that Fox's administrative salaries have been way out of line for some time.)

Brenda Talent said, "And you're not counting the benefits."

Host Alvin Reid stated that Fox wasn't one of the states lowest performing districts but that it also wasn't one of the highest. D.J. Wilson stated that Fox's Average Composite ACT Score was 23. (NOTE: DESE records for 2013 show Fox's ACT Composite at 22.3).

D.J. Wilson said, "I'd love to be a student in a classroom and someone corrects me about what I said on email. What will they say back to the teacher."

Brenda Talent then said, "Well their comments may not have risen to the level of being libelous, whereas the others might have. But again, it's just sort of, this is how you resolve conflict? We're supposed to be adults here."

Bill McClellan reminded everyone that, "This was the school board that, that one of the board member's daughters-in-law was it, who worked at McDonald's was made dietician over the schools." 

One of the guest hosts said,"I guess they thought she deserved a break today." They all had a pretty good laugh out of that comment and then another person said, "She had it her way!".

Thanks to our soon to be retired Superintendent and former school board members and some current long time board members, our district has made national news and not in a good way.

Watch the June 5, 2014 Episode of Donnybrook on KETC

Superintendent Critchlow has touted our National District of Character award as a way to garner big raises for herself while at the same time bullying parents and critics of the district. The public and the board have been fooled for quite some time and the employees and taxpayers of Fox C-6 are now paying the price.

Donnybrook June 5, 2014 Episode

Fox C-6 Discussion Starts at 19:15