Don't Forget to Vote on April 7 for Two "New" Fox C-6 School Board Members!

On Tuesday April 7, 2015, the Fox C-6 community must vote for two NEW board members to serve on the Fox C-6 school board for the next 3 years.


There are 6 candidates running for the Fox C-6 school board. Two of them are graduates of Fox High School. Another candidate is married to a Fox High graduate.

The Fox C-6 School Board Candidates are:

• Mark Jones (1985 Fox High Graduate)
• Dr. Robin Hanson (attended high school in Kansas)
• Drew Kriese (1997 Crystal City Grad, married to 1994 Fox High Grad, Endorsed by MSTA)
• Chris Hastings (Endorsed by NEA)
• Sherry "Chellew" Poppen (1961 Fox High Graduate)
• David Palmer - (Incumbent 4 term board member)

Also check out Jefferson County Penknife's endorsement article of Fox C-6 school board candidates using the link below in which he lists his reasons as to why is voting for or not voting for each of the individual school board candidates:

Jefferson County Penknife's Fox C-6 Board Endorsements Article

You may also want to read my previous article discussing the Hodge Elementary PTO meeting with the Fox C-6 board candidates using the link below after reading this article:

Hodge PTO Hosts Fox C-6 Board of Education Candidate Meeting

You can also read more about the candidates in the Voter's Guide from the March 26, 2015 Arnold Imperial Leader using the link below. There was incorrect information in the original Arnold-Imperial Leader Fox C-6 Board Candidate Guide regarding Dr. Hanson which was corrected in the April 2, 2015 Arnold-Imperial Leader.

Fox C-6 School Board Candidates Guide
March 26, 2015 Arnold-Imperial Leader

Fox C-6 Board Candidate Information

Mark Jones
Mark Jones is a 1985 graduate of Fox Senior High School. He does not have any family members or relatives working for the school district.

Mark has a son that graduated from Fox High School in 2013. Mark also has a son who currently attends George Guffey Elementary school.

Mark Jones is a senior consultant for Intervolve Inc., a software company that services beer distributors and energy companies across the country. Mark is also the owner of Jones Creative. Mark served in the U.S. Army Reserve.

Mark Jones ran for the school board in 2013 and 2014 and wasn't well known back then. Since then, Mark has spoken to the board several times during the 3 minute Public Comments time regarding various issues in the district. I believe there have been fewer than 5 people who have spoken more than once during Public Comments in the past 5 years at Fox C-6 board meetings.

Mark Jones is also an advocate for transparency and has reviewed board meeting packets and Bill Payments Reports.

Mark Jones voiced his concerns about the changes to the Voluntary Separation Incentive Plan (VSIP) at the November 18, 2014 Fox C-6 school board meeting. You can listen to his Public Comments and others by clicking on the link below which links directly Fox's Board Meeting Audio on YouTube at the time Mark asked the board to make changes to the Voluntary Separation Incentive Plan.

Listen to Mark Jones's Public Comments

about the Voluntary Separation Incentive Plan

at the November 18, 2014 Fox C-6 Board Meeting

Mark has also taken the time to personally speak with several of our current board members to discuss issues after board meetings. He has met with bus drivers and other staff to listen to their concerns in order to gain a better understanding of the district as a whole. Mark is very well spoken and would be an asset to our school board.

https://www.facebook.com/MissouriForJones
http://www.missouriforjones.org/
http://patch.com/missouri/arnold/meet-fox-school-board-candidate-mark-jones


Dr. Robin Hanson
Dr. Robin Hanson does not have any family members or relatives working for the school district. Dr. Hanson teaches American history, American government, cultural anthropology and sociology part-time at Jefferson College and St. Louis University.

Dr. Hanson stated at the Hodge Elementary PTO meeting that she personally ordered 4 new lab books online to send in with her daughter since her daughter's lab book was in such disrepair. She also spoke about teaching students at Jefferson College and St. Louis University and seeing the number of students that need to take remedial classes in college. She would like to see that change.

Dr. Hanson discussed the need for transparency at the Hodge PTO meeting which is necessary for accountability.


https://www.facebook.com/DrRobinAHanson


Drew Kriese
Drew Kriese has 4 children attending schools in the Fox school district. He is a 1997 graduate of Crystal City High School. His wife Christy is a 1994 graduate of Fox High School.

Drew is an area director for Taco Bell Missouri. His wife Christy was on the selection committee for the Seckman Elementary School principal position.

Drew Kriese was not able to attend the Hodge Elementary PTO meeting for the candidates because he was out of town. So I did not get a chance to meet him in person.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Drew-Kriese-For-Fox-C-6-School-Board/865497216793678


Chris Hastings
I've spoken to Chris Hastings a few times via email and in person since he first decided to run for school board in 2014. Chris has two young children who will be attending school in the district in the future. He is employed by ICS Construction Services.

ICS Construction Services did some of the 2013 bond issue work for the Fox district. Chris responded to questions presented to him from JC Penknife regarding his relationship with ICS and whether or not he expected ICS to bid on future work at Fox.

JC Penknife shared Chris's response with me regarding ICS after I independently pointed out possible concerns to JC Penknife after review board meeting packets.

Chris Hastings stated in his response to JC Penknife that he is only an employ of ICS and does not own the company or have any shares as an owner in the company. He is just an employee. Chris stated that ICS bid the work on the open market in the public sector and that ICS was the low bidder.

Chris requested to oversee the project since it was in his school district and so close to home. Chris wanted to work on the project because he had a vested interest since he lives here and it's his school district. Chris stated that if any work comes up in the near future, and he is voted onto the board, he will request that ICS does not bid on the work so there will be no issues or conflicts of interest.

According to Bill Payments Reports obtained from school board meeting packets, Fox C-6 paid ICS Construction Services LTD $3,018,829.18 for the bond issue work they performed in 2013. I have posted the pages from the bill payments reports from the board meeting packets online.

It's important that the community knows what Chris's relationship is with ICS Construction Services and that he responded to the concerns presented to him.

https://www.facebook.com/hastings4foxc6

The Rockwood School District saw board member Steve Smith resign days after the release of their state audit that concluded that Mr. Smith should not have voted on projects that helped the construction company where he was employed.


Sherry "Chellew" Poppen
Sherry "Chellew" Poppen graduated from Fox High School in 1961. She has a son who teaches at Seckman Middle School and a daughter who is a secretary at Seckman Middle. Mrs. Poppen didn't mention that she had a son and a daughter working for the district when she spoke to the Lone Dell parents club. I knew she had a daughter who was a secretary at Seckman Middle School but did not know that her son was a teacher as well. Sherry "Chellew" Poppen is the sister of former Fox C-6 superintendent Jim Chellew.

At Monday's meet the board candidates at Hodge Elementary School, Sherry Poppen said she would like to see more information made available besides just the agenda for board meetings like they used to have.

Updated: 6:05PM 04/05/2015
I received a phone message from Sherry Poppen at 3:24PM about my comments regarding the board meeting agendas additional information that she talked about in the meeting after her son had read this blog post.

I called Sherry back around 4:45PM and talked to her about the additional information besides the agenda. The additional information is the board packets that get supplied to the board members each month prior to the meetings. She remembered her brother taking them around to board members each month. She also remembered getting emailed copies of the board meeting minutes each month. I told her that when her brother was superintendent that you could sign up to get notified about the board meeting minutes.

Sherry wanted to let me know that she knew about the board meeting packets being available online. Sherry told me that she knew I had been instrumental in getting the board packets posted online and that's how she knew they were available online.

It took nearly 3 years of my asking the board to post the board packets online before the district finally began posting them. That delay was mainly due to our former superintendent providing different excuses as to why it couldn't be done.

Anyway, Sherry said that what she mentioned at Hodge Elementary was that she would like to have printed copies of the board meeting packets available at board meetings for people who don't use or have computers.

My apologies for the confusion about knowing about the board packets being available online.

I told Sherry that I checked some of the board packets before writing this article to see how many pages they contained because I knew she had talked about having printed copies available. One of the board packets I checked contained 354 pages. Sherry didn't realize that the board packets had that many pages in them.

I did more checking since I spoke to Sherry. The board packets for the 2014-2015 school year vary in size between 168 pages to 324 pages. Several of the board packets contain more than 300 pages.

Dan Kroupa pointed out to Mrs. Poppen that the district recently purchased BoardDocs for posting board meeting information like the board packets online. Many school districts have been using BoardDocs for years. Many of the school districts break up their documents into smaller sections using BoardDocs making it easier to download specific sections of the board packets each month. Not everyone may want to read all of the bids for a project. They might just want to download the Bill Payments Report.

Having BoardDocs should also make it much easier to search payments rather than the currently scanned Bill Payments Report as long as the documents are printed to PDF rather than being scanned. I've asked several times to have the Bill Payments Reports printed to PDF rather than scanned so the payments would include searchable text rather than an image of the text. This would make it easier to find checks for specific vendors.

I explained to Sherry that the district started charging me for copies of the board packets because Sunshine Law allows them to. However, the board should have made sure that the board packets were available to the public for free. John Laughlin made sure that I wasn't charged for the board packets after he found out I was getting charged for them. John Laughlin and Steve Holloway made sure that the board packets were posted online. So thank you for their help in improving transparency.

Sherry "Chellew" Poppen is a very nice lady. She wants to restore our district's image. I believe that restoring the district's image is important. However, I'm concerned that issues may get overlooked or swept under the rug as they have been in the past. The community needs to know what's gone on to keep from repeating them in the future.

We need board members who are going to hold people accountable for their actions as well as ensure that the superintendent and other administrators are following district policies, regulations and state and federal laws.


David Palmer
Incumbent David Palmer's wife Gee Palmer has been the Director of Nursing for Fox C-6 since she was promoted to that position in 2006 and given a 75% pay increase rather than a stipend. Mr. Palmer was school board president when his wife was promoted.

Mr. Palmer has a son and a niece who teach in the district as well.

Mr. Palmer has been willfully blind to the issues going on in our school district for years. He never replied to a single email that I sent the board.

Mr. Palmer did not even respond to Hodge Elementary PTO's invitation to attend the meet and greet with parents.

I brought it to the boards attention in 2012 that the district didn't have enough books for all students to take books home to study. Kristen Pelster pointed this out in an email regarding stating that teachers don't hand out books because the don't have enough. In Mr. Palmer's response to the Arnold-Imperial Leader, he said, "We must give kids the supplies, books and technology they need to be successful." Mr. Palmer didn't do resolve the book shortage for nearly two years and now he says we must give kids books. Interesting!

Hopefully, the community has become better educated over the past couple of years about what's been going on in our school district while Mr. Palmer served on the school board. He served on the board while former superintendent Dianne Brown-Critchlow's salary skyrocketed to being the second highest superintendent salary in the state before she took "early retirement".

Mr. Palmer also wasn't interested in having open discussions with the public as he pointed out at the November 5, 2013 board workshop. I wrote about this issue in November 2013.

I certainly hope everyone remembers what happened to our school district during David Palmer's 12 years as a school board member when you cast your vote on Tuesday April 7th, 2015!


Who you elect for to the Fox C-6 school board can either help or hinder moving our school district in a positive direction when you vote on Tuesday April 7, 2015.


Honesty and integrity are very important character traits for those serving on our school board.

School board members are elected to represent the community.

From the Missouri School Board Association's Principles of Effective Governance guide:

The school board is supposed to engage in ongoing two-way conversation with the entire community. The purpose of the conversation is to enable the board to hear and understand the community’s educational aspirations and desires, to serve effectively as an advocate for district improvement and to inform the community of the district’s performance.

Effective community engagement is essential to creating trust and support among community, board, superintendent and staff.

Principles of Effective Governance Guide

from the Missouri School Board Association

It's also the school board's job to do proper oversight of how your tax dollars are being spent and ensure that the community is kept well informed. For years our school board members did not review credit card statements. I also doubt that they have reviewed the legal bills from the district's former law firm.

Open Government and Transparency
In order to serve the best interest of the community and the taxpayers who elect them, our school board members must believe in open government.

Open government is the governing doctrine which holds that citizens have the right to access the documents and proceedings of the government (ie. our school district) to allow for effective public oversight. In its broadest construction it opposes reason of state and other considerations, which have tended to legitimize secrecy.

Former Missouri State Auditor Tom Schweich tweeted the following on February 18, 2015 after publicly releasing the St. Joseph School District audit, "If we want accountability in or schools, we must demand transparency."

Transparency has been an issue in the Fox C-6 School District for nearly a decade. Transparency has improved but not to the level that it needs to in order for the community to fully trust the decisions of our school board and administration.

Full disclosure by school board candidates is also very important in maintaining a healthy level of trust. Withholding information from the public should be cause for concern as to why it may have been withheld.

As a community, we want our school district to do a great job at educating our children. We want a school district that our children and students can be proud of when they are asked the question everyone in the St. Louis area always asks:

"Where did you go to high school?"

Our school board members need to make good decisions that represent the concerns of the community in order to restore the integrity and reputation of the Fox C-6 School District.

The recent unanimous decisions of (6-0) by our school board to hire assistant superintendents Dan Baker and Todd Scott as principals in the school district has certainly cast doubt in the community that our district is headed in the right direction.

The screening of candidates for the positions for the positions at Seckman Elementary and Seckman High were biased despite what our board members told the media.

How many of the 59 candidates for the Seckman Elementary School (SES) principal position were linked to online derogatory comments made against parents in their school district?

How many of the 59 candidates for SES principal are currently named in a libel suit for making derogatory comments against parents and patrons in their school district?

How many of the 59 candidates for SES principal played golf using taxpayer dollars while they should have been attending the educational conference they traveled to Orlando, Florida to attend?

How many of the 59 candidates for SES principal had their school district supplied credit card taken away from them due to misuse?

How many of the 45 candidates for the Seckman High School (SHS) principal position had their school district supplied credit card taken away from them due to misuse?

How many of the 45 candidates for the SHS principal position had appeared on the news for hiring an someone who didn't possess the credentials for the job but was very enthusiastic?

Those are valid questions that should have been asked and considered when candidates were being screened for those positions.


School Board Member Ethics
It's worth taking the time to read the Missouri School Board Association's Sample Policy on School Board Member Ethics. It will give you an understanding of what should be expected of our school board members.

Here are a few of the more important points listed in the School Board Member Ethics Policy:

• Remember that the first and greatest concern must be the educational welfare of all students attending the public schools.
• Render all decisions based on the available facts and independent judgment rather than succumbing to the influence of individuals or special interest groups.
• Encourage ongoing communications between Board members and stakeholders.
• Obey the laws of Missouri and the United States.
• Become informed concerning the issues to be considered at each meeting.
• Refrain from using their Board position for the benefit of family members, business associates or themselves.

Sample School Board Member Ethics Policy

from the Missouri School Board Association

One of the items listed in the Ethics Policy states that school board members are to follow the laws of Missouri and the United States.

Does that imply that school board members are to ensure that our school district follows federal Civil Rights laws such as Section 504, the ADA and ADA AA as well?

If so, then how do we educate our school board members on these laws so they aren't willfully blind to the Non-Compliance notices that the district has received over the years?

It was the Non-Compliance issues that led to the discovery of all of the wrong doing going on in our school district that has been uncovered and made public in recent years.

It's too bad that it took so many years to expose the problems going on in our district to the public because past school board members sat silent as questions and concerns were brought to their attention for years.

Hopefully you have done your research and you've had the opportunity to meet our school board candidates so you can make an informed decision when you cast your vote for Fox C-6 school board members on Tuesday April 7, 2015.

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

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

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

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

"A Common Sense Approach to Leadership!"

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

Fox C-6 School Board

Sherry "Chellew"

POPPEN

Common Sense Leadership

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

Article posted on 2004 Fox C-6 Website

"Brown hired as New Fox Super"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

August 2012 Cease and Desist Letter

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jamie Critchlow Charged with Double DWIs

Jefferson County Penknife

February 21, 2015 

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

More Trouble

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

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

School Superintendent Salaries Are Getting Some Attention!

The Fox C-6 School District made front page news again today on the St. Louis Post Dispatch.
Post Dispatch reporters Jessica Bock and Walker Moskop wrote an article concerning the extreme rise in public school district superintendent salaries in our state. Former Fox C-6 superintendent Dianne Brown-Critchlow's rise in salary is highlighted in the article.

It's good to see the rise in superintendent salaries getting some attention!

The article discusses how some school district's conduct performance evaluations for determining superintendent salaries. Fox C-6 computes superintendent and administrative salaries using a formula which is based on the highest amount on the teacher salary schedule along with factors for longevity and education.

The article points out some area superintendents that haven't seen raises in their salaries for several years. However, there may be other benefits that are "hidden" to offset not getting a salary increase.

One of the most important things to note is that retirement benefits are based on the average salary amount of an educator's 3 highest consecutive years of pay which includes medical benefits as well.

Spending on St. Louis area superintendents

has risen 30 percent in 10 years

It's certainly been a real problem in our district for quite some time. Perhaps the formula for administrative salaries needs to be reviewed so salaries don't get so out of line with our district's demographics in the future.

I first wrote about superintendent salaries back in November 2010 after learning about how much former Fox C-6 superintendent Dianne Brown's salary had increased in just a few years after being hired to oversee our district. Since then I've covered this topic many times over the past several years as we watched her salary nearly double in the past 9 years. I've even asked questions at school board meetings regarding superintendent salaries.

Perhaps superintendent salaries may have been increasing thanks to the Missouri School Administrators Political Action Committee (PAC) that former superintendent Dianne Critchlow supported using her school district credit card. Fox Chief Financial Officer John Brazeal pointed out the fact that it's illegal to donate to a Political Action Committee using school district funds.

One of the issues that the Missouri School Administrators PAC that Dianne Critchlow donated to using her district credit card (taxpayer money) was, "Changing the perception of some legislators that school administration costs are too high and that school administrators are overpaid". The money that Dianne Critchlow donated to the PAC was recently returned to the district.

The Post Dispatch article above links to a searchable database of superintendent salaries in the area for the 2013-2014 school year compared to Inflation Adjusted values of superintendent salaries for the 2003-2004 school year.

Jim Chellew was superintendent of Fox C-6 during the 2003-2004 school year. He retired at the end of the 2004-2005 school year. Dianne Brown took over the reigns when Jim Chellew retired.

Jim Chellew's salary as reported by MO DESE for the 2003-2004 school year was $148,132 compared to his Inflation Adjusted salary amount of $186,519.28 that's found in the superintendent salary database from the Post Dispatch article. Salary amounts are submitted to MO DESE by each school district in their CORE data reports.

Below are some of my articles covering Dianne Brown-Critchlow's ever increasing salary in date order:

Transparency in Schools for
Superintendent Salaries

Fox C-6 Superintendent Salary

Fox C-6 Superintendent Salary Update
Mid-Year Pay Hike?

SUPER SALARIES!!
Superintendent Critchlow's Salary

for 2013-2014 is $256,131!

How Much Extra Does It Pay
To Be Related to a Fox C-6 School Board Member?

Will You Be Earning More Than $15,000

Per Month For LIFE When You Retire?


Have You Seen A Copy of Fox C-6's
2013-2014 Annual Budget?


We Have A Problem!

Fox's Superintendent Was The 4th Highest Paid
in the State for 2012-2013!

New Post Dispatch Article Asking
Why Fox C-6 Superintendent's Salary
Nearly Doubled?

Long Time Fox C-6 School Board Member Cheryl Hermann Steps Down

Fox C-6 school board member Cheryl Hermann has officially stepped down from her position on the Fox C-6 school board.  It was announced in the September 18, 2014 Arnold-Imperial Leader newspaper article written by Kim Robertson.

You can find the story here:

GONE

Hermann to resign after
school board ‘unhires’ daughter

Cheryl Hermann served on the Fox C-6 school board as a volunteer for the past 15 years. I recently wrote about the issues surrounding the "unhiring" of her daughter earlier this week in my article about the upcoming state audit:

Looking Back In Time

State Audit Begins Today of the Fox C-6 School District!

Cheryl Hermann was on the school board during the 2002 state audit of the Fox C-6 School District. Cheryl stated incorrectly at one of the 2014 August BOE meetings that the state auditor didn't find any problems during the 2002 audit. I wrote about this as well in the following article:

Fox C-6 School Board Unanimously Agrees

To Request A State Audit!

Cheryl Hermann was also on the Fox C-6 school board when former superintendent Dianne Brown-Critchlow was hired as Fox's next superintendent in November 2004 taking over the job when former superintendent Jim Chellew retired June 30, 2005. 

Cheryl was there during the sky rocketing rise in Superintendent salary as well. She was Willfully Blind to the problems going on in the district even with years of requests to look into what was occurring in the district. 

Cheryl Hermann ran unsuccessfully for a seat on the Jefferson Count council a couple of years ago against Renee Reuter. When Cheryl ran for a seat on the Jefferson County council, she commented in the paper that she would step down from her position on the school board if she won a seat on the council.

The Fox C-6 school board can appoint someone to fill Cheryl Hermann's remaining term on the school board according to school district policies. Cheryl Hermann's term was set to expire in April 2015.

Thank you Cheryl Herman for your years of service to the Fox C-6 school district.

You can download the latest 2014 "draft" copies of Fox C-6's Policies and Regulations using the link below. I've compiled the entire set of Fox C-6's Policies and Regulations into a single PDF document. The single PDF file makes it very easy for parents and staff to search and locate school district Policies and Regulations.

Trying to find a policy on Fox's website is rather difficult since all of the policies are listed by policy number as individual PDF documents. If you don't know the Policy or Regulation number you will find yourself searching for a very long time.

Our school district's Policies and Regulations have been getting "revised" and "updated" for the last 4+ years while under Dianne Brown-Critchlow's watch. The first "draft" release was posted on the district website in March 2012 after having to make a follow up request that they get posted for the public per Dianne Critchlow's statement at the March 2012 BOE meeting.

With all that's going on in the district it will most likely be next year before the latest version of our school board Policies and Regulations are approved and adopted.

2014 Fox C-6 Policies and Regulations

for Review (7.1mb)

StopBullying.gov Website Needs to Include School Administrators!

Last night I found the following website called StopBullying.gov. It's a website created by the federal government to help parents and schools deal with bullying of students and young adults. Checking out the website reminded me of the first Public Comment made the other night at the Fox C-6 School Board meeting by Jim Osia. Jim made an excellent point when he asked the Fox C-6 School Board when they planned to put a Zero Tolerance clause for bullying into school employee contracts.

Last year, I made a similar comment when the district adopted their new Anti-Bullying policy. I said that the new Anti-Bullying policy needs to apply to school district administrators and board members as well. I consider it bullying when your school board members ignore your concerns regarding bullying that's being made by school administrators.

When I stated that the Anti-Bullying policy needed to apply to school administrators or leaders, I knew that some of the online harassment and bullying that's been made against me dating back to 2010 could only have been made by school district administrators due to the information contained in their remarks.  It took filing a lawsuit to confirm that the IP addresses from those comments were indeed linked to district administrators.

How did I know? Well, very few individuals had any knowledge of what was stated in some of the online comments. When one of the comments made by "Troop" referenced sparks would be flying soon for some which was in reference to the sending out of Cease and Desist Letters in early 2013, even the school board wasn't aware that those letters had been sent. Since they were sent by Superintendent Critchlow, that information could only have been given to "Troop" by her or possibly another administrator who Dianne confided with.

Former Fox C-6 school board member Ruth Ann Newman and former Fox C-6 school district superintendent Jim Chellew knew about the Cease and Desist letter that Dianne Critchlow sent to me in August 2012 because she copied both of them on my letter. So they were aware of what was going on.

Dan Baker "Apologizes" at School Board Meeting
At the August 4, 2014 school board meeting, Mr. Dan Baker was asked to make a statement at the start of the school board meeting by Fox C-6 School Board President John Laughlin. Mr. Baker read a prepared statement regarding his household being associated with posts linked to the recent internet scandal. I have to say that I was not impressed by his apology. But I admit I'm biased since I am the target of that post.

Dan Baker was mostly likely the person posting the comments. I don't know his wife at all and have never met her. But, Mr. Baker has been "working" with me and my wife on Section 504 issues in the district for more than 6 years now. So, he had a lot of knowledge of the issues and a lot of reasons to want to make the posts.

Mr. Baker is the reason that the National Director of the USDA's Office for Civil Rights began working on removing federal funding from the Fox C-6 School District last year for the National School Lunch Program.

Mr. Baker tried to pull a fast one on the USDA OCR National Director by changing documentation after it had been submitted it to USDA OCR to close a complaint. Of course Mr. Baker denied any wrongdoing. In an email, Mr. Baker clarified that he "accidentally" sent the wrong version of the document.

Luckily the National Director of USDA OCR FNS didn't believe Mr. Baker's story. But, it was a good try!

(Don't worry too much about Fox C-6 losing its federal funding for the National School Lunch Program. Removing federal funding is a very long and drawn out process. It takes an act of Congress for it to happen. Plus, it has never happened in the past since school districts typically comply with federal law when asked to do so. But that's not how Fox operates. They've been fighting USDA OCR for years.)

But back to Baker's online comment.  Dan may believe that his comments weren't that bad compared to those made by "Troop" and many others posted on the Topix website over the past 4 years. But, posting the comments that were made from the Baker's household while holding the position of Section 504 Coordinator for the Fox C-6 School District is extremely problematic for both Mr. Baker and the school district. Let me be clear on one very important point: Even if the comment traced to the Baker household were the ONLY comment made by a Fox school district administrator, it would be scandalous.

If our school board members were more knowledgeable about Section 504 Law, perhaps they would have terminated Mr. Baker and/or Angela Burns Baker for cause immediately after an admission was made to posting the comments that were made. But, that didn't happen. As I stated the other night at the school board meeting during my Public Comments, allowing the Bakers to keep their jobs, definitely sent the wrong message to our community. As I stated to the Board at Monday night's meeting, "Being the person who was attacked, definitely doesn't sit too well with me." since I was the person being called out in one of the comments made from the Baker's household.

Not only was I the one being targeted, but the comments were posted within hours of the January 2013 Fox C-6 school board meeting. I had just mentioned during Public Comment at the 2013 board meeting that I hoped that speaking that night would not lead to more online defamatory comments being made about myself and others for speaking that night by anonymous posters. But, someone in the Baker household took it upon themselves right after that meeting to post a comment that contained lies as well as libelous comments about me. Yes, that should be outside of Mr. Baker's "personal and professional standards" as he stated in his apology the other night. However, someone in their household did make the comments and should be held accountable and I don't mean just a "slap on the wrist".

Does posting comments such as those linked to the Baker's household violate Fox C-6's Policies and Regulations and Professional Code of Conduct?

I certainly think so. Of course I am biased. But, based on comments from others, I don't think I am alone in my opinion. Even the panelists on Donnybrook thought the Bakers should have been fired. 

The actions of Dan and/or Angela Burns Baker easily violate any employment contract that they may have had with the Fox C-6 School District. But, for those comments to come from the Fox C-6 School District's Section 504 Coordinator's home violates federal Section 504 Law. I believe that they may have also violated Missouri DESE's code of conduct for educators holding a teaching certificate in the state of Missouri.

The StopBullying.gov website has a page covering Federal Laws that apply to Bullying. The Federal Laws page instructs you to contact your school district's Section 504 Coordinator to file a complaint when bullying occurs.

So, what are you supposed to do when your school district's Section 504 Coordinator is the one doing the bullying?

Should your school board give them a slap on the wrist by docking them 2 weeks of pay and spreading the amount being docked over the next 24 pay periods?

I recommend reading about the Federal Laws that apply to Bullying at the StopBullying.gov website using the link below.

StopBullying.gov - Federal Laws that apply to Bullying

Certainly I'm biased in my opinions that Dan Baker should have been terminated for cause because I was the one that he was personally attacking online. But, I also know a lot about Section 504 Law. I have been dealing with it on a regular basis with Mr. Baker for the past 6 years. I also know that what he did by posting online comments directed at me violates Section 504 Law. It is considered retaliation due to the fact that we filed complaints with ED OCR and USDA OCR and those complaints were open at the time that his comments were made.

Dan Baker's newest contract states that, "Administrator agrees to comply with all federal, state and local laws." So, if he violated Section 504 Law, would that not be cause for termination? 

Previous contracts may not have stated this directly, but they were supposed to according to district policies and since district policies also states this, it should have been covered anyway.

Fox is Looking to Reduce the Budget

Fox's 2014-2015 budget was discussed again at the August 4, 2014 Fox C-6 School Board meeting. Leah Thorsen of the Post Dispatch wrote an article about what was discussed at the August 4th board meeting and even quoted me in the article. The article said that Fox is still looking to cut another $1.1 Million dollars from the 2014-2015 budget. Terminating the Bakers would save the district more than $300,000 in salary and benefits. The district contributes an amount equal to 14.5% of their salary to the Public School Retirement System which is roughly $38,000 per year on top of their combined salary of roughly $260,000. So cutting $300,000 from the budget by terminating the Bakers would be nearly one third of what the district still needs to cut.

I've had several people ask me what the Assistant Superintendent of Instruction does for the district. I don't know the answer to that. But, perhaps our school board knows. They recently moved Mr. Baker from the position of Assistant Superintendent of Elementary Education over to the Assistant Superintendent of Instruction. 

Since very few people seem to know what the position entails, it might be a position that can easily be eliminated!

New Post Dispatch Article Asking Why Fox C-6 Superintendent's Salary Nearly Doubled?

Today's St. Louis Post Dispatch has an article asking, "Why did Fox superintendent's salary nearly double?"

Below is a link to the article:

Why Did Fox Superintendent's Salary Nearly Double?

This is a question that I've been asking for quite some time but never received a response to. Perhaps if more people in the Fox C-6 community were asking this question the public would get a response.

Former Fox C-6 Superintendent Jim Chellew was quoted in the article as well as former Fox C-6 school board member Ruth Ann Newman.

Perhaps Superintendent Critchlow can write a check to the school district returning some of her pay increases like former superintendent Jim Chellew states that he did in the Post Dispatch article when he was superintendent.

There is a Fox C-6 school board meeting this evening at 5:30PM. If you plan to ask questions, you will need to turn in your Public Comments form prior to 5:15PM according to district rules. Also, you cannot mention any names or positions during your Public Comment or you will not be allowed to speak.

Perhaps the Public Comments rules need to be modified in order to keep our school board more informed about the public's concerns on administrative decisions.

A Little Digital Archaeology Documents Fox's Spending Spree!

How would you like to become a Digital Archaeologist and peer into the past of the Fox C-6 School District from the comfort of your home? It might not be ancient history. But, it's a historical record that allows you to look back into what's been happening in the Fox C-6 School District over the past 16 years. It's a window into our district's past that not too many people know about and it's an interesting one at that.

For example, you can go back in time and read articles that were published on Fox's website or view pictures of past administrators or school board members or old board meeting minutes as far back as 2001 simply by using the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. The Wayback Machine is a digital archive or snapshot of websites at the time the snapshot was taken. It's your portal to the past. It allows you to see a snapshot in time. You can find information that would have been difficult or maybe impossible to find or too expensive to obtain using Sunshine Law requests. Some of the information might even shock you. Wait till you find out how much our district our district was spending each year when Superintendent Critchlow became Superintendent compared to what we are spending now.

The Wayback Machine gives you the ability to travel back in time just like Google Earth gives you the ability to view older satellite imagery allowing you to see how things have changed over time in your neighborhood or just about anywhere on the planet.

I've already posted quite a few interesting links to older Fox C-6 website pages on the Fox C-6 Watchdog Twitter page which you can find here:

https://www.twitter.com/FoxC6Watchdogs

Traveling Back In Time

The Wayback Machine is a website much like Google's search engine that allows you to look up and review snapshots of websites by typing in the domain name for the website into the Wayback Machine. In order to see previous snapshots of Fox's website you'll need to go to the Internet Archive's website (http://web.archive.org) and type in Fox's web address or URL which is: www.fox.k12.mo.us. Or you can click on the link below to be taken directly to the Wayback Machine's historical record of the Fox C-6 website.

Fox C-6's Website on the Wayback Machine

Once you arrive at the Wayback Machine, you'll see a timeline at the top of the page which shows vertical lines on the timeline for each of the snapshots taken of Fox's website. The very first snapshot was taken in 1998 and the most recent one in 2014. In order to view one of the snapshots simply click on one of the vertical lines on the timeline and the Wayback Machine will transport you back in time to an archived version of the district's website. Not all of the links, images or documents may have been captured from that time. However, there's a lot of information that has. It allows you to review what happened back then and compare it to what's happening now in our district. It gives you an easy way to see if the district's been doing what it said it would do. Has Fox been a good steward of our taxpayer dollars? Or, have they been able to find ways to increase spending without anyone really noticing that the district has nearly doubled the amount of money being spent each year over the last 8 years?

2005 - Fox Approves $88 Million Budget
2013 - Fox Approves $137 Million Budget

Using the Wayback Machine to pull up snapshots of Fox's website from 2005, you will find an article written by Kim Robertson for The Leader titled "Fox Approves $88 Million budget" which talks about the board approving the 2005-2006 budget for $88 Million dollars. The budget that was just approved last year for the 2013-2014 school was approved for $137 Million dollars. That's quite an increase in just 8 years given the fact that the school district's student count has remained roughly the same over the past 8 years. The district's student count for this year was in the 11,000's as it was back in 2005. It's scary to think that the cost of education has increased that much over the last 8 years. 

So, how has Fox been able to increase it's amount of spending so much in 8 years?

According to records obtained from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education's website (MO DESE), Fox had the 2nd Highest Average Administrator Salary for the entire state of Missouri last year. Fox also had the 4th Highest Paid Superintendent Salary in the entire state of Missouri. But at the same time, Fox's average teacher salary was the 2nd Lowest Amount of the 9 District's of Distinction that Superintendent Critchlow compared our district to in her annual State of the District address to the board last fall. There are a lot more teachers than there are administrators in the school district, but over time Fox has increased the number of administrators in the district significantly while the number of students remained nearly the same.

Board Members Are Elected Officials and Don't Get Paid

School board members are elected officials and they don't get paid for their work in overseeing the district. This could also be one of the reasons why so many things have been getting the "rubber stamp" of approval from our school board over the years. It takes a lot of time to review board packets and look at the thousands of checks that the district writes each year. That is a lot of work and over time I believe the board has just come to trust that Superintendent Critchlow and her assistants are doing what they are supposed to do without question. That can lead to problems like we have now.

It also helps the superintendent to have happy school board members. It makes them much more willing to go along with her decisions. One great way to help influence board member decisions is to make sure that the board members feel like they are doing a great job for our district and for our kids. She tells the community repeatedly that they are doing a great job and thanks them at all of the board meetings. There's no better way to say thank you to a school board member than the promotion of their spouse or the hiring of their daughter in law to a high paying position in the school district. School board members aren't allowed to vote on decisions where there might be a conflict of interest. So, they step out of the room when votes are taken that involve their spouses or family members. This way everyone in the community knows that the decision made by the board does not give even the slightest hint that there was any possible conflict of interest.

Board Members With Benefits

In 2006 while Mr. Dave Palmer was the president of the Fox C-6 School Board, his wife was promoted to the district head nurse position. She received a 75% pay increase for that promotion. However, her new promotion required her to work more hours. In the past, head nurses only worked on a 9 month contract. Gee Palmer's new contract was a 12 month contract instead of a 9 month contract which made up for that 75% pay increase. The 25% increase in contract length was able to justify the 75% increase in pay.

Also, let's not forget that back in 2012 while Linda Nash was the president of the Fox C-6 School Board, her daughter in law was hired to be the new Food Nutrition Director. That position paid $65,000 per year and was able to be filled by a person with a high school diploma because she had worked at McDonald's for 17 years and had become an assistant manager. Since she didn't have the degree or the certifications that the district was looking for at the time, Superintendent Critchlow and Assistant Superintendent Todd Scott were willing to give her 2 years to obtain her degree and certification because Linda Nash's daughter in law was very enthusiastic about the job. However, in order to help her out with her new job duties the district had to promote to more people in the district to cover what was used to handled by one assistant in the past. So, there was a little more expenditure than expected due to the lack of experience in running a public school district's food nutrition program.

More interesting things to see on the Wayback Machine for Fox?

In Praise of the Board of Education

It was interesting to read former Fox C-6 Superintendent Jim Chellew's 2004 article titled "In Praise of the Board of Eduction". In his article, he mentioned that "Board members are some of the most accessible elected officials." Really? I'll have to disagree with Mr. Chellew on this point. Superintendent Critchlow tends to control access to our school board. A person isn't allowed to mention names during Public Comments at school board meetings. She's told the board not to speak with people. She's sent out Cease and Desist letters to individuals who try to bring things to the school board's attention. I have spoken at many school board meetings over the past several years and have sent emails and letters to our board and hardly if ever receive a reply. It doesn't appear to me that our school board is very accessible. 

So, I find Mr. Chellew's article quite humorous after trying to work with our school board over the years. I know it's the school superintendent's job to promote their school district and tell the public what a great job the district is doing in educating our kids. But, telling the public that the board is accessible when the public knows otherwise is sad.

Brown Hired as New Fox Super

Another very interesting article is the November 2004 announcement of Dianne Brown being chosen as the next Fox C-6 School Superintendent. The 2004 article titled "Brown hired as new Fox super" was written by Kim Robertson for The Leader newspaper. The article states that "The school board advertised the position only within the district, and Brown was the only candidate. The school board interviewed her Monday and voted unanimously to hire her. Chellew said he had hoped Brown would get the job."

Superintendent Salaries Then and Now

The above article also mentions that Superintendent Brown (now Critchlow) would be paid at least $135,217 for the 2005-2006 school year. Her salary as superintendent back then pales in comparison to the $256,131 that she is now being paid for the 2013-2014 school year.

Some More Interesting Links from the Wayback Machine

2007 Photo of Fox C-6 Central Office Administrators

July 2001 Fox C-6 School Board Meeting Minutes - No Tax Increase Bond Issue and Dianne Brown appointed as Section 504 Coordinator

Photo of Fox C-6's 2005-2006 Board of Education

2005 Version of Fox C-6's Board Policies and Regulations

So check out the Wayback Machine and see what else has gone on in our school district over the years. You might be surprised at what you can find. It might even make for a good research paper for some of our students. It's similar to digging up the time capsule that was buried under the flag pole next to the administration office back in 1976. It can reveal a lot about our district's past. Hopefully the information can help steer our district down a better path in the future.

My Wish List For the Fox C-6 School District!

There are a lot of things that people wish for in life and I have many. However, the majority of people probably don't wake up in the morning wishing they had a school board that responded to their concerns or that their school district had a new superintendent of schools. Those kind of wishes certainly weren't on my mind 5 years ago.

As a parent, you want to be proud of the school district that you are raising your kids in. I do so even more since my parents devoted their entire educational career to the Fox C-6 School District. It's where I was raised and went to school. I should feel more proud given the fact that there is a school in our district named after my father. My parents really cared and still care about our school district. My family has been connected to the school district for a very long time. I have always been a supporter as well. That is why I am so passionate about wanting our school district to always do the right thing and follow the law and its policies so it's not an embarrassment to me, my parents or our community.

I expect school administrators and principals to be honest and ethical and conduct themselves in a professional manner on a daily basis. Everyone expects school leaders to be honest. However, when they aren't honest or ethical, it reflects poorly on them as well as our community. Honesty is one of the character traits of the Character Education program taught by our school district. When our school district leaders don't set a good example, then we need new leaders. What started out as a simple issue has become a Pandora's Box for our Superintendent and our School Board. They've worked hard to keep that "Box" from opening and hide their misdeeds from the public. And, they continue to do so. In fact, five school district supporters showed up at the February 2013 board meeting to read words of praise for our Superintendent and our School Board during Public Comments. Their praise was well documented in the board meeting minutes compared to how poorly my comments were documented. Our Superintendent's will do what she can to try and save her job. It's too late. The "Box" has been opened and the misdeeds cannot be undone. Corrective action needs to be taken and make sure they don't repeat their mistakes.

For the last several years, I have been asking our school district to do the right thing. If presenting facts makes our Superintendent or School Board uncomfortable or embarrassed, that means they know they haven't been doing the right thing. They could have changed their ways but that didn't happen. It's very apparent that our Superintendent doesn't want my facts made public or she wouldn't have sent me a "Cease and Desist" letter in August 2012.

The cease and desist letter told me that I couldn't discuss my concerns with people in our community or school district except during Public Comments at school board meetings or the district would take legal action against me. The comments I make during board meetings haven't been and won't be well documented in the board meeting minutes. Since our district hasn't responded to my requests to audio or video record board meetings, you can assume they don't plan to. Other school districts in the area video record their board meetings. But, that would mean that concerns from the community would be seen by the public. Our superintendent only wants the community to get her spin on things.

Making a school district look good is part of a school superintendent's job. However, it must be done with honesty and integrity while showing respect for those who bring valid concerns to the district. Had our school board listened to my concerns and done something about them over the last several years, I doubt that they would be in the mess that they are in today. Their only course of action from here on out is to read our school board policies and state and federal laws and start following them like they swore to do when they were elected to represent our community. Excuses are no longer being tolerated by the community as shown by the recent ousting of two long time school board members.

Now that the information is starting to flow, our school board will have to change their ways and change the leadership of our school district in order to correct the problems and damage that they have done to our school district's reputation. There will be a few people who still support our school superintendent and some members of our school board. They will continue to try and discredit me and my information. There have been a few that have attacked me personally instead of the facts I present in online forums. I have a very good idea of who some of those posters are and if my analysis is correct, our Superintendent and her husband should be out of a job. I tried numerous times over the last couple of years to bring up these personal attacks to the attention of our school board but was ignored.

Why is it important to me to bring about change in our school district? I want my children to grow up in a school district that they can be proud of. I want them to have great memories of their school years just like I have. However, our current administration and school board has really overshadowed those great memories. It's not the same district that I was proud of while I was growing up when my parents worked for the district. I'm really hoping our community can start working together towards making a positive change in our district.

Five years ago, I would have never dreamed that I would have learned so much about school law and how school districts operate. My mother was a teacher in the district as well for more than 30 years. My father was a teacher, a principal and an assistant superintendent and retired as the acting Superintendent at Fox C-6 in 1997. My father spent 42 years working for the school district after starting his career at Fox in 1955. He has thousands of stories that I've heard many times over the years about things that happened in our school district. Most of the stories I remember are funny things that kids did in his class or excuses that students gave him for doing things they shouldn't have done. Once a student told my father that he was late to school because an airplane crashed and the student stopped to help them.

Another one of my father's favorite stories to tell was when he was a teacher and he had a snapping turtle in his classroom in a covered basket. He wrote on the chalk board, "Do Not Look In The Basket". A few minutes later there were screams coming from his classroom after some of the girls in his class decided to look in the basket. Those are the memories that last a lifetime for dedicated educators and you remember as a kid because you heard them so often while growing up with educators.

My career isn't in the educational field. But, I do have a passion for learning and sharing what I've learned. I'm an aerospace engineer and software developer. Little did I know that I would have to write a blog about my school district in order to get accurate and factual information to our community because you certainly won't find it in the media or get it from our school district.

Our school district has a lot of great teachers that really care about the kids. The teachers are the ones that spend the most time with our children and so they should get the most credit for how well our children are educated. Parents can also make a huge difference in the success of their child's education as well. So become involved in your child's education and your school district.

In order to get my points out quickly, I thought I would create a wish list of items that I would like to see our school district work on or do in order to improve things in our district and start rebuilding our district's reputation. Most of all I want a school district that I can be proud of like I was when I was growing up in the district. I will continue to add things to this wish list as I think of them. So, check this post fairly regularly for updates.

So, here are some of the things on my wish list:

Superintendent

• I wish we had a Superintendent who was honest and trustworthy. Hiding, falsifying or misrepresenting the facts can only be done for so long before truth starts to catch up you and it becomes public knowledge. Threatening or retaliating against those who know the truth only only hastens one's demise.
• I wish our school board hadn't voted to nearly double our Superintendent's salary over the past 7 years. It has given our Superintendent a false sense of worth to both our school district and our community. If it was truly "all about the kids", our school board shouldn't have voted to approve such a pay increase to our Superintendent. The board should have scrutinized her claims of accomplishments more. Likewise, our Superintendent shouldn't have accepted her lavish pay increases. To put things into perspective, the Fresno County Superintendent of Schools in California is paid $288,000 per year to run 325 schools and 35 school districts with 195,000 students. Our Superintendent is being paid $238,000 for the 2012-2013 school year to run 19 schools with almost 12,000 students. Even more impressive is the fact that the Fresno County Superintendent is giving back his $288,000 annual salary until the end of his 2015 contract by technically retiring early. He was rehired at a salary of $31,000 and is donating it to charity. It's easy to see why our community has lost faith in both our school board and our Superintendent.
  
  2012 Fox C-6 Superintendent Salary Information
  
  California Superintendent Gives $800,000 in Salary Back to Schools
  
  
• I wish our Superintendent would have simply told me that she didn't want the board packets on the district website because they didn't want the public to have all that information when I asked the board to post them online in August 2011. That would have been a much better answer instead of telling me that the district didn't have a full time person to manage the district website. Because it turns our that after I made a Sunshine Request for the board packets, I discovered that the district has had a full time web developer for more than 7 years. It's always best to tell the truth when in a position of power. Not telling the truth destroys a person's credibility.
• However, I will never forget the time when Jim Chellew our former school superintendent told me in December 2011 that "I'm sure they weren't intentional lies." when I told him about all of the lies that our Superintendent Dianne Brown (now Dianne Critchlow) had told me over the past several years. Mr. Chellew said he was sure that they weren't intentional lies. He explained to me that superintendents speak to so many people about so many different things that a person can't always remember what they've talked about. His explanation reminded me of Mark Twain's famous quote, "If You Always Tell The Truth. You Don't Have To Remember Anything!"
• I wish our Superintendent's contract contained a Morality Clause as contained in many School District Superintendent contracts.
• I wish our Superintendent would acknowledge the fact that her husband was promoted due to their relationship and not because of his credentials or experience. That would be a much more honest approach rather than denying what everyone already knows.
• I wish our Superintendent knew that a 200 Day School Calendar would result in 26 more school days per year rather than 16 more school days per year when based on a 174 day school calendar as was documented in the board meeting minutes.
• I wish our Superintendent knew that our school district is only 74.06 square miles and not 104 square miles as documented on the district website. I mentioned this to Dan Baker at the April 2011 school board meeting after she referred to the size of our school district in her Superintendent Message addressing snow days that year. You can find the square mileage of every school district in the state on the MO DESE website at:
  https://apps.dese.mo.gov/MCDS/FileDownloadWebHandler.ashx?filename=d608cc49-be5cSchool%20District%20Area%20in%20Square%20Miles.xls
  
• I wish Fox had enough books for all of our students despite what our Superintendent told KSDK News Channel 5. The teachers and parents know the truth.

School Administrators

• I wish the few school supporters making statements in the paper and in online forums who make claims that my information contains "lies and misleading statements" would point out to me what information is incorrect so I can correct it. Not being able to state what information isn't correct lessens their credibility. It's my opinion that our district has a few disgruntled administrators who don't want the public to know the truth. They've been successfully hiding the truth from our community for years and they aren't happy with the fact that their misdeeds are now becoming public. The school board has done nothing to correct the situation. The board simply ignores the problems and looks the other way.
  
  You won't find anyone working for the district documenting the problems and issues within our district. They know they would be retaliated against if they did. Therefore, the information needs to be reported by someone who has dealt with our district and experienced first hand how they conduct business and doesn't have anyone employed by the district that our administrators can lash out at. A handful of people with inside information continue to make personal attacks against me anonymously (they must be the disgruntled administrators) in an attempt to sway the public from the truth. Given that Perseverance is a Character Education trait taught by our school district, they should be commended for their Perseverance in attacking me and my family! Great job!!
• I wish ALL school administrators and principals were honest. I went to school with many of the administrators or have gotten to know them over the years through my parents and so there are many of them that I can trust. However, there have been a few that have told me lies during meetings or in face to face conversations and that doesn't reflect well on them as an administrator. It makes it difficult to have respect for a person once they lie to you. Administrators are in a position of trust and lying is unacceptable for anyone in an administrative position.
• I wish our school administrators had been honest with MO DESE when they informed them that the special education school buses depart from Lone Dell Elementary at 3PM as documented in the MO DESE reports that were forwarded to the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (ED OCR) since that isn't true. The buses may have departed at 3PM on the day that MO DESE came and observed our school district. However, it certainly doesn't occur on a regular basis. Being dismissed 5 minutes early every day for an entire school year is the same as being absent for 2 full days of school based on a 170 day school calendar. I am guessing that our administrators and staff aren't aware of USC 18 Section 1001.
• I wish our school administrators realized that Monday January 2 is a Federal Holiday when January 1 falls on a Sunday when planning the school calendar. Just as a reminder this will occur again in 2017!

School Board

• I wish our School Board members would respond to questions asked at school board meetings during Public Comments. Fox's school board policy states that our school board will always try to respond within a week. I don't believe our board has answered a single question of mine since I first spoke at a school board meeting in December 2010. I've had a few questions answered by our Superintendent. Her response berated me for asking questions and she told me that "many of my concerns are false or inaccurate". My concerns must not have been false or inaccurate since the district made corrections to our school calendar and website.
• I wish our school board members would read my emails before they deleted them. So far, our two newest board members at least opened my email according to the Read Receipt I received. It must be difficult for our board members to listen to the view points and concerns of citizens in our community if they don't read their emails.
• I wish the school board would have responded to my concerns when our Superintendent's husband approached me at the April 2011 school board meeting and told me that if I had any questions about him that I needed to call him directly. He said I should not be asking our school board questions about him. I took his comments as a threat. Our school board simply ignored my concerns. Our Superintendent responded and told me that I incorrectly stated his salary amount, even though it was the amount provided by the district to MO DESE in the CORE data. She never addressed my concerns of his confronting me at the board meeting. Of course, this all occurred prior to them getting married.
• I wish our School Board would post the Board Packets dating back to 2008 so I could total up the amount of money our school district has spent in legal fees since they decided to take on the federal agencies. I guess they are going to make a federal case out of this.
• I wish Dave Palmer would resign from the school board since he took advantage of the taxpayers when his wife was promoted to district head nurse in May of 2006 and was given a 75% pay increase. Previous district head nurses never had a contract longer than 9 months and they weren't paid 75% more than all of the other nurses in the school district. She made at least an extra $210,000 more than the next highest paid nurse over the past 7 years. That's just not right.
• I wish we had a district head nurse who didn't think that her extensive training and knowledge makes her smarter than two 25+ year board certified allergist in her attempts to discredit our doctor.
• I wish our district head nurse Gee Palmer would resign from the school district as she is obviously overqualified for the job that she is doing here in our school district. With her extensive knowledge and training that makes her smarter than doctors she should find a much more rewarding job. This would free up enough money for two entry level nurses to be hired by our school district. She could possibly work as an expert witness given the vast knowledge and training she has had as a school nurse on food allergies.
• I wish I knew how board vice president Dave Palmer's son was able to get paid as a full time Teacher's Assistant or Aide while still attending college full time to get his teaching degree according to Missouri DESE records. It's odd that MO DESE CORE data had him flagged as a Full Time Equivalent (FTE) of 1.0 meaning a full time employee. This data was entered into CORE data by our school district while he was working for the district prior to obtaining his bachelor's degree which he earned in 2009. He earned his associates degree in 2007. Perhaps Mr. Palmer can explain this to the public.
• I wish Linda Nash would resign from our school board for even allowing her daughter-in-law to apply for the job of Director of Food Service since she was not even remotely qualified for the job. Superintendent Dianne Critchlow said she didn't even realize that Kelly Nash had even applied for the job. She said she called Linda Nash to see if she was even aware that she had applied for the job after our Superintendent found out she had been recommended for the position out of all of the candidates.
• I wish Linda Nash's Daughter-In-Law would resign from her position as Director of Food Service so someone who has the proper education, credentials and experience can fill the position. Our former Food Services Director did not know that she needed to be knowledgeable in Section 504 Law. That's why our school district and the entire state of Missouri was found Non-Compliant by the USDA Office for Civil Rights (USDA OCR) in August 2011. When USDA OCR recently visited our school district to conduct a Compliance Review our school district refused to meet with them. That's why the case has now been turned over to the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). Our school district made this into a Federal Case.
• I wish I knew what the $3 Million Dollars Alcohol Prevention Education Grant Money was spent on. I do know that COMTREA received quite a bit of the money according to 2009-2010 Bill Payment public records.

School Board Meetings

• I wish the school district would have included the list of names of the other candidates that applied for the Food Service Director position in the November 2012 Board Meeting Packet in Section 8.0 Closed Session. This high paying position was given to Linda Nash's daughter-in-law while Linda Nash was the School Board President. If you compare the November 2012 Board Meeting Packet to the February 2013 Board Meeting Packet you will find that in February the school board was informed about how many candidates applied for the Assistant Superintendent position, how many they screened them down to before interviewing the candidates and it listed the members of the interview committee. Why wasn't this information provided to the school board for the Food Service Director position?
  
  It certainly seems odd that there wasn't a list of names in the publicly posted version of the November 2012 Board Meeting Packet posted online on Friday May 3, 2012 for this position. The list of candidates is public record and should have been included in the board meeting packet as the district has done for other positions.
  
  Superintendent Dianne Critchlow and Assistant Superintendent Todd Scott informed the media that there was a committee formed and interviews were conducted for the Director of Food Service. Why was this position documented differently than the Assistant Superintendent position? Were the school board members not interested in knowing who the other potential candidates were?
  
  You can now download the Board Meeting Packets from the district website for the 2012-2013 school year from here to see how this was documented: Fox C-6 School Board Meeting Packets
  
  Here is the information that was provided to the school board in the February 2013 Board Meeting Packet for the Assistant Superintendent position:
  Backgound: There were 10 candidates for the position (6 internal and 4 external); the applicants were screened down to 4 to be interviewed. The interview committee consisted of: Luann Domek, Monica Montgomery, Carla Duffey, Todd Scott, Bill Steis, Lorenzo Rizzi, Margie Passmore, John Laughlin, and Dianne Critchlow.
  
  The four candidates that were interviewed were: Don Grimshaw, Liz Anderson, Tammy Cardona, Andy Arbeitman.
  
  Recommendation: Approve Andy Arbeitman as presented.
• I wish Public Comments were accurately documented in our school board meeting minutes so the public would know what was really going in our school district. "Concerns within the district" or "Commented on School Calendar, School Board Policies, etc..." doesn't keep the public informed very well about what concerns our community has about our school district.
• I wish our school board meetings were video recorded or audio recorded so the public could watch or listen to board meetings at anytime if they weren't able to make it to the meetings. Many other school districts already do this. I've been asking for this for nearly two years and my requests have fallen on deaf ears. Could it be that our Superintendent doesn't want the public to know what really happens at school board meetings?
• I wish our school district teachers could attend school board meetings without being called into their supervisor's office and questioned as to why they attended a school board meeting.
• I wish more than 3 minutes were allowed for speaking during Public Comments at school board meetings.

School Board Policies

• I wish our administrators and school board members would read and correct our school board policies and regulations. There are typographical and grammatical errors that have existed in them since they were adopted in 1997.
• I hope it doesn't take another year or more for the school board to finish reviewing the newly updated and completely overhauled board policies before they get adopted. The United Stated Department of Education Office for Civil Rights (ED OCR) required our school district to make corrections to certain sections of our board policies to meet federal laws. The original deadline for those changes to be submitted to ED OCR was August 2009 according to the Resolution Agreement the district signed and agreed to in May 2009. After nearly 4 years, our school district still hasn't updated those policies as required by the Resolution Agreement. ED OCR is also at fault for extending deadline after deadline for the last 4 years.
• Our current school board policies such as Policy 311 refers to Policy and Regulation 0342 "Nepotism, Conflict of Interest and Financial Disclosure". There is no Policy or Regulation 0342 in our current set of policies and regulations. This makes reading finding those policies difficult. There is Policy and Regulation 0334 "Conflict of Interest and Financial Disclosure". Perhaps that is what they are referring to. The new Draft Policies contains a 0342 and 0342.1.
• I wish our Board Policies still included the requirement to list the names of ALL candidates who applied for a position in the board meeting minutes where the spouse of a school board member was hired by the district. This requirement has been removed form our policies. However, it is contained in the standard policies supplied to our district by Missouri Consultants for Education.
  (http://www.moconed.com/policy.php?action=ind&polID=3&catID=1)

Schools

• I wish that Lone Dell Elementary would delete the 2010 bus route from the school website so parents aren't confused by the information since it is not correct. Our superintendent and several assistants were made aware of this issue while we were discussing some issues after the August 2011 board meeting. Nothing was conveyed from the assistant superintendents even though it was a concern for them. This has been a frustration for many parents in our district for quite a few years. Asking our school board members to look through our district website hasn't resulted in improving the problem. Parents can find the correct Bus Schedule information on the District's Transportation page. Simply ignore the one listed on the Lone Dell page until they remove it.
• I wish Lone Dell Elementary had an Archery Team along with other schools that don't have them in the school district that have been wanting to have one.

Legal Counsel

• I wish I didn't have to audio record meetings. But, when meetings aren't accurately documented, you must have some sort of documentation to back you up if it's going to be your word against theirs. I've pointed this problem out to our school board in the past. But, since most of our school board members have employees working for the district, they don't want to jeopardize that income and so my concerns have been ignored. Why else would the school district attorneys be so mad and make a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the USDA so they could get a copy of our transcript of our meetings with the school district. If the school district's documentation doesn't match what actually occurred in the meeting, that would pose a problem for our school district now wouldn't it. Honesty is always the best policy!
• I wish the former school district attorney Mike Hodge hadn't told us during a 504 Meeting that we could always revoke our consent to an independent evaluation by a school district doctor if we didn't feel comfortable with a test he might want to do. Mr. Hodge gave us an example, "For example, if the school doctor wanted to hang your daughter upside down by her ankles for 3 weeks." He then explained that we could always revoke our consent to the Independent Evaluation if we didn't wish that test to be performed. He made it quite clear to us that if we DID revoke our consent, the 504 process would end here and now!
  
  I never knew that hanging children upside down by their ankles for 3 weeks was one of the tests that school district doctors performed during independent evaluations in our school district. When I asked Assistant Superintendent Dan Baker, (while he was giving testimony under oath during our Due Process Hearing) if he remembered the attorney making that comment during our meeting, Mr. Baker said he remembered the comment. Dan Baker said it was "only a figure of speech".  That certainly seems like an odd "figure of speech" for someone to make about what test school district doctor may want to perform for Independent Evaluation for food allergies.

U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights

• I wish the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights (ED OCR) enforced the laws that they are charged with upholding rather than allowing extension after extension of deadlines to school districts. No wonder ED OCR has such a backlog of cases. I was told by Karl Menninger from the Kansas City ED OCR office that the running joke is that ED OCR has so many cases on appeal that it would take ED OCR 5 years to catch up if they were to process 10 case per day.
• I wish ED OCR followed their Case Processing Manual that was referred to in their recent Dear Colleague Letter on Retaliation. By not following through with enforcement actions when am Recipient such as Fox C-6 doesn't fulfill the requirements set forth in their Resolution Agreement after more than 4 years costs both the local community taxpayer dollars in legal fees and is a waste of federal tax dollars as well.

Additionally:

• I'm hoping more people start reading my blog so they could become better informed as to how our school district has been conducting business. They can also learn about how other school districts in our state operate compared to Fox to see where improvements can be made to our school district.
• I wish our school district always did the right thing. Then, I wouldn't have had to spend so many hours reading and researching our school district policies as well as federal and state laws over the past several years.
• I wish Fox had tennis courts like they do at Windsor, Mehlville, Oakville, Parkway and Rockwood. Fox used to have tennis courts at the Fox High campus and the Seckman campus.
• I hope that our school district has movie nights using the new $278,000 Jumbotron scoreboard at Fox High School since it has "stadium seating". This would be much better than watching 16mm movies in the old Fox High gym on weekends without air conditioning.