Legal Fees in Fox C-6's September 21, 2021 Bill Payments Report

In reviewing Fox's Bill Payments report in BoardDocs for the upcoming September 21, 2021 Fox C-6 School Board meeting, I found another payment to the Mickes Goldman O'Toole, LLC law firm for $4,412.90 for services for June 2021.

Fox had already paid the Mickes Goldman O’Toole law firm $26,664.00 during the 2020-2021 school year. With $23,996.50 of that amount being paid out in April through June of 2021. It would be interesting to know if the fees were for a Due Process Hearing. If it was, I’d like to know what the Due Process Hearing Officer’s findings of fact and final decision was. Mickes Goldman O’Toole is the law firm that we dealt with for 504 issues at Fox between 2008 and 2014. It’s also the law firm that sent me a cease and desist letter in 2012 and to three other members of our community in 2013. Fox switched law firms after the internet scandal became public in June 2014. Looking through the entire 2020-2021 school year, payments were made to the Thomeczek & Brink LLC law firm in July and August 2020 totaling $24,010.00. This was the law firm that was selected by Fox to represent the district as the Due Process Hearing Officer in our 2010 Due Process Hearing. I’m curious as to whether or not the fees in 2020 were for a Due Process Hearing as well. If it was, I’d like to know what the Due Process Hearing Officer’s findings of fact and final decision was. Our Due Process Hearing in 2010 taught me a lot about the tactics used by attorneys to get around the law. You get a full transcript of your due process hearing providing some well documented examples of those tactics and how testimony and facts are manipulated. Recourse Options For Denial or Removal of a Section 504 Plan If your school district denies or removes a 504 plan, you have 3 options of recourse.

1. File for a Due Process Hearing where the school district gets to choose the hearing officer.

2. File a lawsuit in civil court heard by a judge.

3. File a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights.

However, you should be forewarned, speaking from first hand experience, filing a complaint with the Kansas City Office for Civil Rights may take 10 to 12 years or more to resolve.

Don't count on the Kansas City OCR office to do any “vigorous enforcement” of the law.

During the 2020-2021 school year, Fox C-6 made payments to 6 different law firms as reported in Bill Payments reports in BoardDocs:

Tueth Keeney Cooper Mohan & Jackstadt P.C. - $35,855.00

Mickes O'Toole - $26,664.00

Thomeczek & Brink, LLC - $24,010.00

Bryan Cave Leighton Palsner, LLP - $5,000.00

Gilmore & Bell a Professional Corporation - $6,500.00

Shands, Elbert, Gianoulakis & Giljum, LLP - $1,596.00

To review the Bill Payments report in BoardDocs for the September 21, 2021 school board meeting, use the link below:

http://go.boarddocs.com/mo/foxc6/Board.nsf/goto?open&id=C6NKWL533DEA

Post Dispatch Article Documented in Fox C-6 Legal Bills as "Press Release"

At the August 23, 2012 REACH Open House at Clyde Hamrick, I had a discussion with one of Fox’s former administrators about some of the issues going on in our district.

Our discussion occurred just days after I had received a cease and desist letter from Fox's law firm threatening me with legal action if I didn’t stop talking to administrators and former administrators as well as school board members at Fox about Section 504 issues and other issues such as in person and online bullying.

The former administrator's response really hit a nerve. Especially since I had just received the cease and desist letter days before which I mentioned during our discussion as well.

The discussion also inspired me to write an article about a Dear Colleague letter on Retaliation Law issued by the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights in 2013.

The former administrator told me:

"You should pick your battles and I don't think this is one of them you should fight. You've got to think about your parents. This is your home. You don't need to be doing battle here. You should let someone else do it. It's because of who you are and who your family is as to why you shouldn't fight this battle."

I took that as a challenge. The cease and desist letter also fueled my efforts to bring about change in our school district. And, it reminded me of when our former superintendent, Dianne Brown (Critchlow) called my dad into her office to talk about our complaint.

Bullying In the St. Louis Post Dispatch

I was already determined to bring about changes at Fox after Fox and their law firm had an article published in the Post Dispatch in August 2010.

The article's intent was to bully us for filing a complaint with ED OCR. The online title of the article was not the same as the print article. The online article title referenced the 504 Plan as a "Special Status".

The article incited online comments directed at me and my family, including death threats which the Post Dispatch refused to remove from their website. I forwarded the comments to ED OCR and USDA OCR since they were clearly harassing and retaliation for filing complaints with ED OCR and USDA OCR.

The article mentioned the cost of legal fees. The article failed to mention the fact that when the district removes a 504 Plan, your only options, if you disagree with the school's decision are to file for Due Process, file a civil suit against the district in a court of law or file a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights. The article also failed to mention the fact that we were going to withdraw from the Due Process Hearing so Fox's attorneys decided to file Due Process against us so Fox could settle the disagreement.

PD Article Failed To Document District Wide Compliance Review Investigation

The 2010 Post Dispatch article failed to note important information that they showed us during our interview such as their discovery of the March 2010 District Wide Compliance Review investigation of Fox.

Then there was the privacy issue with Missouri DESE

When I was first contacted by the Post Dispatch to interview me for an article, I asked the reporter how she had gotten my name. It immediately threw up red flags considering we were preparing for a Due Process Hearing with Fox. The timing was not a coincidence.

The reporter explained to me that the Post Dispatch made a Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) request with ED OCR to see if there had been any complaints filed against any school districts in our state for students with life threatening food allergies. I'm sure that's something that reporters do all the time. She told me that our complaint was the only one. First, I told the reporter that any complaint filed by a parent or advocate with ED OCR is redacted and would not have identified us.

I also told the reporter that there were other complaints filed against other districts in our state filed with ED OCR by families with life threatening food allergies. Our complaint was not the only one as the reporter had claimed.

Post Dispatch Sunshine Request Leads To Contact Information

The Post Dispatch reporter went on to explain that they found our name after they made a Sunshine Request with Missouri DESE to find out if there were any emails related to the complaint. The reporter explained that our names were contained in emails between Missouri DESE and Fox but that our daughter’s name had been redacted out of the emails.

Missouri DESE failed to protect our identity. Or, maybe it was just really good investigative reporting by the Post Dispatch. It could also be that this was the fight that I shouldn't fight and that was the reason why.

Fox's Legal Bills Documented the Post Dispatch Article as a "press release"

So when I finally received copies of legal bills from the district in 2014 and I saw the bill from 2010 from the law firm that referenced the “press release”, it confirmed how and why the article was written.

I found other articles over the years about parents who had filed complaints filed with ED OCR in other school districts. The same tactic was used against them by the same law firm in order to bully and retaliate against them as well.

The following article from 2013, was written prior to the tracing of IP addresses to Fox C-6 administrator's homes and cell phones. It covers the Dear Colleague Letter sent out to all school districts in the U.S. in 2013.

For some reason, the Kansas City U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has had a lot of trouble recognizing retaliation against parents in our region. It makes a person wonder just how much documentation is needed before it's considered retaliation. Perhaps online defamatory comments traced to administrator homes and cease and desist letters by the school district's law firm isn't enough documentation.

Or, perhaps the KC ED OCR office just didn't have time to read the Dear Colleague Letter regarding harassment and retaliation due to the backlog of complaints in their office.

Dear Colleague Letter On Retaliation Law To School Districts From ED OCR

Improvements in Transparency Helps the Community Perform Oversight

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

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

Fox C-6 School Board Meeting Minutes and Packets

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

What About Those Bill Payments and Credit Card Payments

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

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

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

Cease and Desist Letter

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

Defamatory Posts For Speaking at Board Meetings

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

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

The article notes that former superintendent, Dianne Critchlow said:

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

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

The Post Dispatch article also noted the following quote from former superintendent, Dianne Critchlow:

"You don’t have the right to make up lies and defame someone’s character,”

Apparently, the statement above did not apply to her or her husband.

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

Letters sent to Fox dissidents highlight school tensions

STLTODAY.COM

School Board Members Associated With 504 Issues in the District

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

No Audio or Video Recordings of Meetings at Fox

I asked the Fox C-6 school board numerous times over the years during the Critchlow era to audio or video record school board meetings because of the lack of detail Fox's board meeting minutes.

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

Examples Of What Other Districts Were Doing Compared to Fox

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

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

11 Years To Comply With an ED OCR Resolution Agreement

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

Kansas City ED OCR Slowed the Process As Well

It took Ed OCR nearly 16 months just to respond to the district with their review of the district’s updated 504 manual. 

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

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

ED OCR Failed Students At Fox For More Than a Decade

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

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

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

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

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

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

Superintendent Dr. Fregeau's Meet and Greet Presentation to the Community

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

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

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

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

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

Fox Has a New Website But the Same Old Problems

Invoices for Legal Services at Fox C-6 Still Difficult to Obtain!

This past Wednesday I testified in front of the Senate Education Committee in Jefferson City in support of a Senate Bill related to the amount of money that school districts are doling out in legal fees in our state.

I was invited to come and speak in front of the Senate Education Committee because of all the information that I've documented on this blog over the past several years including the amount of money spent in legal fees by the district. I still don't know exactly what the hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees were spent on because the District still hasn't provided copies of the invoices for legal fees in more than 5 years of requests.

I was also asked to share our experience about having Fox's former law firm file for Due Process against us. The district filed for Due Process against us because the attorneys wanted to make sure that things were settled once and for all. There was no reason to file for Due Process against us. The district had already made their decision. We had to file Due Process in order to challenge the district's decision.

This practice of filing Due Process against parents by law firms has been occurring across our state for quite some time.

The school district of the parents that were responsible for sponsoring the senate bill had their district file for Due Process against their child AFTER they had withdrawn their child from the school district. The district wanted to document that their decision not to provide special services to the child was correct. That should certainly raised some red flags!

The school district filed an insurance claim for $30,000 with Missouri United School Insurance Council (MUSIC) in to pay for the Due Process that was filed against their child. The district's legal counsel were the ones benefiting from the Due Process. The parents have spent more than $10,000 in legal fees related to their case. You should note who sits on MUSIC's Board of Directors.

This was the same tactic that Fox's former legal counsel used when they filed for Due Process against us when they learned from ED OCR that we were we were considering dropping our request for Due Process. We decided to drop our request for Due Process after learning that the hearing office chosen to hear our case was a former law associate of the district's legal counsel. There was no way that we were going to get a "fair and impartial" hearing. There was the appearance of a fair and impartial hearing. It was a very nicely played "smoke and mirrors" of a Due Process Hearing.

Traveling to Jefferson City also gave me the opportunity to see invoices for legal services that were billed to another school district by the same law firm that represent Fox C-6 until last year after the internet scandal became public.

The parent from another school district had been provided with 88 pages of invoices for FREE after making a Sunshine Request for the invoices which spanned roughly a two year period. None of the pages in invoices for legal services were redacted. They were public records!

The really interesting thing about the invoices was the amount of detail that they contained. The invoices contained time on task billed in tenths of an hour as well as the hourly rates that each of the attorneys and law clerks charged the school district. Those rates varied between $130 and $285 per hour.

I was told that the detail contained in the invoices for legal services is what led to the resignation ("early retirement") of the superintendent and CFO in their school district.

Could having all of that detail in the invoices for legal fees be why it's been so difficult to obtain copies of the invoices for legal fees from the Fox C-6 School District?

I've made numerous Sunshine Requests to Fox over the past 5+ years for the invoices for legal fees and I still haven't been provided with a single copy of an invoice in all of that time.

I most recently made request for copies of the invoices for legal fees on September 12, 2014 along with a request for other documents. I received a response letter on September 18, 2014 from Fox's former custodian of records Deborah Davis telling me that my Sunshine Request would take more then 3 days to fill.

It's now been more than 6 months and I still haven't received any copies of the invoices for legal fees. I received several other documents from my request and even documents from other requests sent since then. However, those invoices for legal fees have yet to be provided. Why is that?


Here is the list of documents that I requested via Sunshine Law on September 12, 2014:

Documents Requested:

• Electronic copies of all Fox C-6 DISCOVER credit card statements for the 2005-2006 to 2012-2013 school years to present.
• Electronic copies of all Fox C-6 AMERICAN EXPRESS credit card statements for the 2005-2006 to 2012-2013 school years.
• Electronic copies of all Fox C-6 VISA credit card statements for the 2005-2006 to 2008-2009 school years to present.
• Electronic copies of all receipts that were purchased using Petty Cash since the 2005-2006 school year to present for personal related items for Dianne Brown-Critchlow.
• Electronic copies of all invoices from the Mickes Goldman O'Toole law firm for the 2007-2008 school years to present. When redacting the invoices from the law firm please ensure that only names are redacted and that the descriptions or purpose of the legal fees incurred remain on the invoices. I previously made a similar request years ago and was informed that the district did not receive detailed billing.
• Electronic copies of any and all receipts associated with purchases made by former Superintendent Dianne Brown-Critchlow using ANY district credit card since it has been determined that she borrowed or used credit cards assigned to other people within the district.
• Electronic list of all items recovered to date from former Superintendent Dianne Brown-Critchlow.

After not receiving copies of the invoices for legal fees for more than 3 months, I sent a follow up on January 7, 2015 asking about the invoices for legal fees.

Fox's CFO John Brazeal responded to my request the very same day. Below is an excerpt of Mr. Brazeal's response to my request for copies of the invoices:

Record Request: 

The data to supply your request for “legal fees paid by year” was compiled by taking information from the ASBR reports filed with DESE. These annual reports are available online. Minimal time was required to compile that information for you. 

A request for copies of MGO legal invoices back to 2008 creates a time consuming task. As evidenced by the passage of time, we have been unable to fill your request. This is due to several factors, which include being able to locate old invoices (if they even exist) while simultaneously tending to the document production demands of the state audit and many other Sunshine requests, let alone the daily workload of an organization under stress. 

Which brings me to my point: As you know, there is law and policy regarding Sunshine requests. Policy (in conformance with law) provides that we respond appropriately to record requests in a timely manner, allows for charges related to copying and research time, and allows for charges to be waived when requests are in the public interest. I believe I have provided you many records in a timely manner and up until now, all were provided without charge. The “legal fees paid by year” was provided without charge because it was already available online, but still I spent the time to collect the data. Whether you realize this fact or not, your many requests absorb a significant amount of staff time to fulfill. 

Believe it or not, not all your requests rise to the level of public interest, in my opinion. Some requests appear to have more of a personal interest, which is the purpose of the charge for production when such requests become voluminous. At the moment, I am not seeing the public interest in compiling “legal fees paid by month” for three years in the distant past when “legal fees paid by year” is readily accessible. And to some extent, I am not seeing the public interest in legal invoices from years distant past. Please share your thoughts on the basis of public interest for your request. After I have had an opportunity to consider you input, I will respond with a determination on whether charges will apply. 

I have previously written to you my view of transparency in the public interest. I retain that viewpoint.

Transparency is something that is still a work in progress at Fox. I think it's reasonable for the public to know why the district spent more than $659,000 in legal fees between 2007 and 2013.

I also think it's reasonable for copies of those invoices to be provided to the public because they explain why the district spent so much money in legal fees. They are public records and if they can provide them to parents/patrons in other school districts, it seems reasonable that they would be able to provide them to the public in our school district.

Below is a compilation of the amount of money paid to Fox's former law firm between 2004 and 2013. The information was compiled from data sent to me by CFO John Brazeal for the 2004-2010 school years. The totals for legal fees from 2010 to 2013 was obtained from board packets and the bill payments posted in the board packets.

Fox C-6 Legal Bills 2004-2013

2004-2005 -   $21,906.50

2005-2006 -   $39,218.86

2006-2007 -   $45,929.39

2007-2008 -   $74,560.41

2008-2009 - $109,116.49

2009-2010 -   $71,083.37
2010-2011 - $100,342.74
2011-2012 -   $81,029.43
2012-2013 - $148,903.30

Really? Copyright Complaint Filed Over Sunshine Requested Legal Bills Report Posted for the Public!

Yesterday morning I received an email informing me that the 2004-2010 Fox C-6 Legal Bills report that I posted in my previous article had been removed by my document hosting provider due to a copyright infringement complaint that someone filed.

Wow! That should have Fox C-6 taxpayers scratching their heads wondering who would have filed such a complaint and also wondering how a report listing of legal bills and corresponding check payments to a law firm is considered copyrighted material and can't be posted for the public to review.

Who filed the complaint is currently being investigated after I responded to the complaint. I'll post an update when I find out who filed the complaint.

Most importantly, why would someone file a copyright infringement complaint and request that a document be taken down when legal bill payments are published in our board meeting packets each month and are posted on the district website for the public to review?

It should be noted that the bills prior to May 2010 had never been posted on the district website. I had to make formal requests numerous times over the years in order to obtain them. They were just made available to me on February 3, 2015 for the first time.

It should also be noted that there weren't any notices on the legal bills listing report stating that the material was copyrighted by the school district or anyone else for that matter.

I've dealt with copyright law since the early 1980's when I first started writing software in order to protect my work when writing software applications. For someone to file a copyright infringement complaint for a report created by our school district's CFO in response to a Sunshine Request for legal bills gives the impression that someone doesn't want the public to know the details as to how much taxpayer money has been spent in legal fees by our school district in an easy to read report.

I contacted the hosting service about the document that's been temporarily removed from my account per their email. I asked that the document be restored and asking who filed the copyright infringement complaint.

It will be interesting to see who filed the complaint and their reason for asking for the document to be removed.

The document in question was referenced in the article I wrote last week which can be viewed using the link below:

Fox C-6 Legal Fees Dating Back to 2004 Provided by District

It's probably not a surprise that someone doesn't want the public to know how much has been spent in legal fees by our district considering how many years I've tried to get copies of the invoices for those legal fees. I still haven't been provided a single copy of an actual invoice via my Sunshine Law requests.

It makes things even more intriguing for everyone as to why the legal bills are such a big secret and have been kept from the public. You would certainly hope that our school board members are reviewing the invoices each month when they approve the bill payments.

I certainly hope our school board members reviewed the bills prior to approving the bill payments at the August and September 2012 board meetings that totaled more than $103,000 for just those two months of bill payments. That's a lot of money just for legal fees in just two months. However, that's also the same time period that I was sent a cease and desist letter by the school district's former legal counsel informing me that the district may take legal action against me if I didn't stop speaking to the public and to former and current school administrators about ongoing issues in our district.

It certainly makes you wonder what's up with all of those legal fees.

Camdenton School District Similarities
Everyone should read about the issues that have been occurring in the Camdenton School Districtthat are very similar to what's been occurring in our school district for years by clicking on the link below. The superintendent and law firm in Camdenton appear to use the same tactics as those of Fox's former superintendent and former law firm.

The Wake of Laker Nation

Greeville School District Similarities
You'll find another story from the Greenville School District that follows the same pattern of bullying by their school superintendent when he had a cease and desist letter sent to a patron in their district who was critical of the superintendent's ethics in the hiring of an unnamed employee. An October 2013 news article in the Southeast Missourian documents what occurred. Sending out cease and desist letters appears to be a pattern of practice used time after time to silence critics of wrongdoing in their school district. Below is a link to that article.

Cease-and-desist letter issued by Greenville School District - (Southeast Missourian)

The Greenville story is very similar to what happened here at Fox when cease and desist letters were sent to myself and others by the same law firm of Mickes Goldman O'Toole. I received a cease and desist letter in August 2012 after posting articles on this blog and emailing friends regarding my concerns about former Fox superintendent Dianne Brown-Critchlow's salary and my concerns about how the the 2012 bond issue money was going to be used.

Three other Fox C-6 patrons who were critical of the district were sent cease and desist letters in February 2013. They were critical about the hiring of former Fox C-6 board president Linda Nash's daughter in-law as the Food Service Director since she didn't have the credentials the district required for the position as well as being critical of Fox's former superintendent Dianne Brown-Critchlow.

Post Dispatch Article about Fox's Cease and Desist Letters

December 2010 Board Meeting Public Comments
At the December 2010 Fox C-6 Board of Education meeting, I questioned Fox board members about Jamie Critchlow's credentials and who approved his salary amount when he was hired and promoted to the Director of the Bridges program in November 2009. If you recall, Jamie Critchlow was fired from that position in June 2014 after derogatory comments directed at myself and others were posted in an online forum were traced to the home of former Fox C-6 superintendent Dianne Brown-Critchlow and Jamie Critchlow.

Jamie Critchlow was originally hired by Fox C-6 as an assistant football coach and a Behavior Intervention Support Teacher (BIST) in September 2009. After just two months as a BIST teacher Mr. Critchlow was promoted to the Director of the Bridges program. Mr. Critchlow had a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in Interdisciplinary Studies in 2009 and had not taken the School Leadership Licensure Assessment test. I had been told by retired teachers that Mr. Critchlow's degree was in Ceramics. That's why I questioned his credentials at the December 2010 BOE meeting.

Jamie Critchlow's starting salary as a BIST teacher was roughly $36,000 per year. His starting salary as the Director of Bridges was more than $98,000 per year according to MO DESE's records. Jamie Critchlow's salary was $124,079 when he was fired by Fox C-6 in June 2014.

Former Fox C-6 board member Cheryl Hermann was board president when I spoke to the board at the December 2010 board meeting. She told me at the December 2010 meeting that I needed to call Central Office to get my questions answered. You can listen to my public comments at that meeting by clicking on the link below.

Listen to My Public Comments at the December 2010 Fox C-6 Board Meeting

Mr. Critchlow's quick promotion was a concern among teachers and staff in the district that were aware of the "rumors" in the district. The "rumors" were put to rest when former superintendent Dianne Brown and Jamie Critchlow both divorced their spouses and married in early 2012. It also explained the harsh email I received from Dianne Brown in May 2011 after I emailed then board president Ruth Ann Newman still trying to get answers to my questions from the December 2010 school board meeting. You can read the article I previously wrote about Dianne Brown's May 2011 email response by clicking on the link below.

Emailing Fox C-6 School Board President Results in Superintendent Response

It's amazing how long it took for the community to become aware of the problems in our school district. It's also no wonder harsh comments were traced back to the home of former superintendent Dianne Brown-Critchlow and to the home of assistant superintendent (now serving as Seckman Elementary principal) Dan Baker and his wife Angie Burns Baker.

It should be noted that there were harsh comments posted about me on Topix right after I spoke at the December 14, 2010 board meeting. Who could have made those comments when only 7 people attended that board meeting that night besides the board members and Central Office administrators?

St. Joseph School District Rated "Poor" in State Audit

Everyone in the Fox C-6 School District should also read the recent State Auditor's report that was released this week about the St. Joseph School District. It should be an eye opening report for the taxpayers of our school district and our school board members as to how in depth a state audit can be. There is a link to the St. Joseph School District state audit report below. The state audit report gave the St. Joseph School District a rating of "poor". Poor is the lowest rating given out by the state auditor's office.

Every Fox C-6 taxpayer needs to read the St. Joseph School District State Audit Report.

Fox C-6 is currently undergoing a state audit. It will be interesting to see how much more is uncovered when Fox's state audit is released hopefully later this year. Some of Fox's Central Office administrators made a lot of questionable purchases using their district supplied credit cards prior to having them taken away last summer.

2015 St. Joseph School District State Audit Report Summary

2015 St. Joseph School District Complete State Audit Report

Below are some of the news articles covering the recent state audit report released to the public by Missouri State Auditor Tom Schweich of the St. Joseph School District.

I highly recommend reading the comments posted to the articles below as well. One of the articles mentioned that teachers attending the meeting were afraid to speak about the audit for fear of retribution from administration.

State Auditor Gives "Poor" Rating to SJSD

Poor Audit Draws Harsh Reaction From Community

District Spending Called, 'startling,' 'staggering'

Fox C-6 Legal Fees Dating Back to 2004 Provided by District

It's been several weeks since I've been able to find enough free time to finish an article. It takes hours to write and edit an article. I haven't been home long enough or had other higher priority activities keeping me from get any articles completed. I've been bouncing between several different subjects that need to be addressed in separate articles and hope to get them published in the next week or two.

Between helping my wife run kids to or from practices to preparing for the annual pinewood derby race as well as running the pinewood derby race with the help of other parents and scouts, to helping scouts along with others help build an all natural material klondike sled over several weekends (losing several small trees on my hillside as wood was obtained for the sled and will most likely be noticeable in the next Google Earth imagery) and attending klondike; attending STEM committee meetings, leader training and other meetings and trying to run more miles in preparation for the annual marathon and spending hours on the phone with Sprint's customer service trying to get my bill corrected after attempting to switch to Sprint from AT&T and returning the phones due to many problems with Sprint's service (that story needs to be shared with everyone), there just wasn't enough time to complete an article.

I've been asked or had comments from many people over the last couple of weeks as to why I hadn't written any articles and that's my "excuse". I appreciate those that were concerned. Not being home for more than a few minutes almost every evening other than to pick up kids or items needed for a meeting and head off to a meeting or activity really cut into my research and reporting time.

There's been quite a bit going on over the last month and since the last board meeting. Everyone should know by now that the next Fox C-6 board meeting was moved from February 17th to February 24th. You should always check the board meeting schedule on the district website at: www.fox.k12.mo.us.

Fox C-6 Legal Bills
I've been trying to get an article out about the legal bills dating back to the 2004-2005 school year that I received from Fox's CFO John Brazeal on February 3, 2015 but haven't had time to finish researching why the name of the law firm listed on the bills from 2004-2008 didn't reflect the name of the law firm as documented by articles in the St. Louis Business Journal. Plus, I wanted to provide the amounts that were paid to date to them as well.

Researching that information led me to finding another blogger in the Camdenton school district that's run into similar issues with their school district which reminded me that I had found his blog before. Apparently, Camdenton has had similar issues with the same law firm that Fox C-6 used until last June when they were replaced.

I recommend reading some of the articles from the Camdenton blogger and how their community had similar issues communicating with their school board.

http://americanspring2011.com/2013/08/05/the-bully-system/

http://americanspring2011.com/2013/08/27/the-wake-of-laker-nation/

http://americanspring2011.com/2014/04/01/camdenton-school-board-race-local-control/

http://americanspring2011.com/2014/04/02/leaked-desemasa-email-reveals-spite-common-core-bigger-picture/

I received a report of the legal bill amounts and payments from Mr. Brazeal. However, I didn't copies of the actual invoices. I was provided a list of all of the invoices paid to the primary law firm for the district along with the amount that was waived for providing me that information. Mr. Brazeal reported that the total time listed for researching and providing me the documents was approximately 6 hours of staff time, which calculates to approximately $114 of fee waived by the district. Thank you for waiving the fee.

I've listed the totals below by school year from the report. I'll post the more recent years when I get them accurately totaled and broken out from the board packets for the law firm listed in the report.
I was charged for some of the board packets in the past. I refused to pay for the board packets prior to April 2010 because the district was asking for an amount I was unwilling and unable to afford.

Fox C-6 Legal Bills 2004-2013

2004-2005 -   $21,906.50

2005-2006 -   $39,218.86

2006-2007 -   $45,929.39

2007-2008 -   $74,560.41

2008-2009 - $109,116.49

2009-2010 -   $71,083.37
2010-2011 - $100,342.74
2011-2012 -   $81,029.43
2012-2013 - $148,903.30

2004-2010 Fox C-6 Legal Bills Report Provided by District

What I found unusual was that the legal bills provided to me had the law firm name listed as Doster Guinn James Ullom rather than Doster Mickes James Ullom as reported in the St. Louis Business Journal articles below. The firm changed names in 2008 when Mickes split from Doster Mickes James Ullom and joined up with Goldman and O'Toole to become Mickes Goldman O'Toole.

Mickes joins Doster James firm

Legal move: Doster Mickes brings in Benson & Guest

Partners oust Mickes from law firm he helped found

I've been requesting for years the legal fees paid by the district dating back to 2008. I asked for copies of the invoices from the law firm back in 2009 which was responded to with a letter informing me that the district didn't get detailed billing and that the district would have to charge me a fee in order to obtain copies of those invoices because they would have to be redacted before I could have them. It seems that getting copies of actual invoices with the amounts broken out for services for legal fees is difficult to obtain.

Parents Club Meets with Board Candidates
The subject of being able to communicate with our school board and get feedback from the board was brought up by other parents the other night at the Lone Dell Parent's Club meeting when school board candidates Mark Jones and Sherry "Chellew" Poppen came and met with the parent's club. There were quite a few interesting comments made at the meeting. One of them brought up by another parent was that she had heard that 240 teachers had applied for the Voluntary Separation Incentive Plan. She said that she had been given that number by another teacher. When someone asked the Lone Dell assistant principal how many had applied from Lone Dell, she responded by saying that 4 or 5 had applied. The high number of applications for teachers leaving alarmed many of the parents.

I'll cover more of what was discussed with the candidates in a future article. There was quite a bit discussed and quite a few concerns from the parents. There's still a large amount of distrust in the community. It's going to take time and good decisions to rebuild the trust with the community that has been shattered by former and current administrators as well as our school board.

How Much Does Fox C-6 Spend on Legal Fees?

Fox C-6 uses the Mickes Goldman O'Toole law firm for most of its legal services. On occasion the district will use other law firms such as Thomeczek & Brink to act as a Due Process Hearing Officer for the district. The district also has to pay a service to record and transcribe Due Process Hearing testimony.

Here are some past articles that explain why Fox spends quite a bit of your tax dollars on legal fees:

Documentation Contradicts Superintendent Critchlow's

Statements at June 2013 Board Meeting

June 2013 Fox C-6 Board Meeting Public Comments

You can find the payments to the law firms in the monthly school board packets in the Bill Payments section.

Below are the totals from all of the Bill Payments that have been provided in the school board packets dating back to April 2010. They are broken down by school year which runs from July 1 through June 30.

At the November 2013 board workshop, school board president Dan Smith wanted to make sure that things get passed through the district's legal counsel when responding to questions from the public unless they are just simple questions.

Fox C-6 Legal Fees

2009-2010 - $11,185.11 (Only April - June 2010 Data) 
Mickes Goldman O'Toole - $11,185.11
Thomeczek & Brink - $570.00

2010-2011 - $100,342.74
Mickes Goldman O'Toole - $82,974.52
Thomeczek & Brink - $17,368.22

2011-2012 - $81,029.43
Mickes Goldman O'Toole - $81,029.43

2012-2013 - $148,903.30
Mickes Goldman O'Toole - $148,903.30

2013-2014 - $80,579.43 (Through March 2014)
Mickes Goldman O'Toole - $80,579.43

Fox C-6: More "Memory Holes" In August 2013 Board Meeting Packet

It took nearly 3 years of requests to our school board to get school board packets for Fox C-6 posted on the district website. They were first posted on the district website in February 2013. See my February 23, 2013 post regarding Progress Is Being Made Towards Transparency! Since then, I've made numerous requests for the district to post the board packets dating back to the 2008-2009 school year on the district website. So far, the board has not responded to my request nor have they posted the packets. Posting those packets would correspond with the school board meeting minutes that already exist on the district website.

Why should the district post the older board packets? It's a very simple fact. The community needs to do its own oversight of the district and the school board.

The school board has been failing to do their job for nearly 10 years and has been relying on our Superintendent for answers. Therein lies the problem. Our Superintendent is prone to providing false or misleading information or only half-truths. She will say anything in hopes that you will believe her. I have documented this problem many times. Our Superintendent's friends or "inner circle" as some people call them will write to the local newspapers or in online forums stating that my information is false or that my information is only from some "select facts". The research I do is very thorough and well documented. Documentation obtained from federal agencies and from MO DESE is irrefutable. If a mistake is made in my documentation, it will be corrected. So far, no one from the district or the school board has asked for any corrections. They are simply hoping that you don't come across this information. Our superintendent sent out Cease and Desist letters to individuals in our district in an effort to deter people from informing the public about problems in the district. You need to know the Truth and the Whole Truth.

Just for your information, the last state audit of the Fox C-6 school district was in March 2002. It might be a good time for a state audit considering the limited amount of documentation that the district has been willing to supply to the public. A state audit is much more thorough than the annual audit done by the firm the district hires to review their financial records. To no one's surprise the district receives glowing reviews on their local audit. You can find the last state audit report here:

March 2002 State Audit of Fox C-6 School District

You can find a copy of the June 30, 2011 Fox C-6 Audited Financial Statements performed by the Daniel Jones company here for comparison:

June 30, 2011 Fox C-6 Financial Statements Audit

This is OUR school district. We elect people from our community to sit on the school board and watch over the district. It IS the school board's job to make sure that our Superintendent is doing her job and that our district IS following state and federal laws and our school board policies and regulations. If that doesn't happen and no one is watching out for the community, things will happen that shouldn't and no one will know a thing. That means that your tax dollars might not be getting used as well as they should in educating our children. Without our oversight, it makes it very easy for someone to take advantage of the system. This has already happened many times. 

Our district spent $135,935,354 in 2012. How well was that money spent? If you don't watch over things, you may end up not knowing what happened for years and by then it's too late. This recently happened in the Rockwood school district when the State Auditor discovered that the contractor where a former school board president worked had been inadvertently overpaid by $1.2 million dollars over the course of several years. Then it was determined that the district would not be able to recover the funds. Do you want the same thing to happen to your tax dollars?

Our Superintendent can tell you how great a job our school board does of watching over your money. But, should you believe what she tells you?

August 2013 Board Meeting Packet
Everyone in our community is very aware of the fact that the district has had several recent issues which didn't look good for our district, the school board or our community. The school board and the community are responsible for making sure that our superintendent is doing her job and is acting responsibly. If our Superintendent is withholding or not reporting information or is making it difficult or expensive to obtain, then you should be very concerned as to what is going on in our school district.

I highly recommend that you go to the Fox C-6 website and download the August 27, 2013 School Board Meeting Packet. It appears that the new website is allowing direct file links to documents such as the board meeting packets. So, you can click on the link above to download the file. The previous website didn't allow for direct links to many files on the Edline district website.

Below I have gone through and highlighted some of the important things that stood out in the most recent board meeting packet.

Missing Administrator Salary Schedule
This latest board packet is 332 pages long. It contains the Salary Schedule for Teachers and Classified Staff. However, it does not contain the Salary Schedule for our Administrators. It's quite convenient of the district to leave out the salary schedule for administrators. That would have given the public a clue as to how much the school board agreed to pay our Superintendent for the 2013-2014 school year. Our board paid our Superintendent $246,824 for the 2012-2013 school year. Our board members need to be made aware of the fact that the Administrator Salary Schedule is missing. It needs to be made available to the public for review. Remember, you are paying their salaries.

There are a lot of issues that need to be discussed and resolved with our school board regarding the information (or lack thereof "memory holes") that is being made available to the public for review. You probably never thought much about what goes on in our school district. But, when you start to see a lot of waste and issues that need to be addressed, you start reviewing things more closely. As many people have stated, there are many problems and what was highlighted by Fox 2 News was just the tip of the iceberg.

Salary Increases for Classified Staff of 2.5%

How is it that the salary schedule increases listed in the latest school board meeting packet show a 2.5% increase for many of the Classified positions while Superintendent Critchlow received a nearly 8% increase from 2012 to 2013? As you review the Classified Salary Schedules, take note as to how many of them state that there is a 2.5% Increase from the 2012-2013 school year to the 2013-2014 school year. Then read across the salary schedule and compare the salary amounts between 2013 and 2014. Either the description is incorrect for many of the entries or the formula for the increases are incorrect because many of the salary amounts are decreased. The spreadsheet file name at the bottom of the Salary Schedules show them as being C:\Users\Scott\Documents\Classified 13-14 salary schedule 062513.xls.

Memory Holes in Board Meeting Minutes

There are "Memory Holes" in the latest school board meeting minutes. At the June 25, 2013 school board meeting, I asked our school board about the open Resolution Agreement with ED OCR and the USDA Final Agency Decision ruling that was handed down to the district on August 18, 2011 which found Fox C-6 and Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Non-Compliant with Section 504, ADA and the ADAAA. Any reference to those questions were left out of the June 25, 2013 school board meeting minutes contained in the August 2013 board meeting packet. How convenient for our Superintendent to leave out that information and hide it from the public. Your Superintendent's job is to keep the public informed. Not misinformed!

This has been an ongoing problem ever since I first spoke at a school board meeting in December 2010. The board meeting minutes for that meeting documented my Public Comments as "Concerns within the district.". I wrote to our school board and asked that my comments be documented in more detail because the public has no way of knowing what problems were addressed to the board when they're only listed as "Concerns within the district." Superintendent Brown responded to my request to the school board via email. She informed me that the school board secretary had called the Missouri School Board Association the next day and was told that our board meeting minutes met state law. Our Superintendent DOES NOT want the public to know what is going on in the district if it is going to reflect poorly on her or the school board. That's probably why our school board meetings aren't being audio or video recorded. I have asked numerous times for this to be done as well and have never received a response. That should be a "red flag" for the community.

Bill Payments Review

This month the school board is being asked to approve $10,168,423.25. Every once in a while there are checks that stand out when reviewing the bill payments that the school board is asked to approve each month at the board meeting. This month was no exception. Perhaps seeing some of the following Bill Payments below will prompt you to start reviewing what our school board approves each month at school board meetings in a quick vote of approval.

Checks to Kelly Nash?
There were two payments to board member Linda Nash's daughter in law who was hired in November 2012 as the district's new Food Nutrition Services Director for $65,000. The two checks to Kelly Nash are flagged with asterisks. Since Linda Nash is a school board member and is related to Kelly Nash, she must abstain from voting and approving the bill payments.

The checks being presented to Kelly Nash are as follows:
07/31/2013 - Nash, Kelly D *** -     $37.55
08/08/2013 - Nash, Kelly D *** - $2744.00

What do you think the $2744 check to Kelly Nash was for?

I can venture to guess that the $37.55 check was for mileage reimbursement. The new Bill Payments report DOES NOT provide any detail regarding what the payments are for like the old Bill Payments Report. This will need to be corrected! The old report would include comments such as Mileage Reimbursement or Legal Fees, etc.

Motivational Speaker Flip Flippen Cost - $10,000

When I first saw Superintendent Dianne Critchlow tweet on August 13, 2013, "Flip Flippen, New York Times Best seller & motivational speaker, addressed the entire Fox C-6 staff to kick off the new year.", I immediately wondered how much that cost the district. Well in the Bill Payments from the August Board Packet, there is a check dated  07/25/2013 for $10,000 to The Flippen Group. I certainly hope everyone was very motivated for that amount of money.

07/25/2013 - The Flippen Group - $10,000.00

Who approved the spending of $10,000 to motivate district staff?

I would bet that hiring a new Superintendent would have proven to be Much More Motivating for our teachers and staff instead of paying $10,000 for Flip Flippen to "address the entire Fox C-6 staff to kick off the new year".

I wonder how much copy paper that would have purchased for our school district?

Credit Card Payments Without Details
This is one of those big checks to pay off a credit card. Certainly it is legitimate and the school gets a percentage of their money back in "cash back" offers. However, Fox doesn't include the credit card statements in their board meeting packets like they do in other school districts. So, you really don't know what the payments were actually paying for. Fox needs to include a copy of the credit card statements in our board meeting packets. The school board has been approving payments like this for years. This needs to be documented much more thoroughly.

07/11/2013 - SAM'S CLUB DISCOVER -  $11,027.10
07/16/2013 - CARD SERVICES              -   $11,290.59
08/13/2013 - CARD SERVICES              - $118,925.73
07/23/2013 - AMERICAN EXPRESS     - $233,231.50

Missing 2013-2014 School Budget
At the June 2013 school board meeting, each member of the school board was given a copy of the 2013-2014 School Budget for review and approval. After the meeting, I asked Debbie Davis the school board secretary and custodian of records to post the 2013-2014 budget on the district website. She told me it would be a few weeks before she could get to it if she was allowed to post it. Well, the budget hasn't been posted and it wasn't included in the board meeting packets like it should have been since it was provided to the school board members at the board meeting.

Fox C-6 hasn't been publishing school budgets on the district website like they do in many other school districts of our size. Why is that? The district doesn't want you to know how they are spending your money. If you knew, you would start asking questions and that would lead to more accountability. If the public can be kept in the dark, that makes it all the easier let money slip through the cracks. As I documented in a previous post about the June 25, 2013 board meeting, Rockwood does an excellent job of documenting their school finances for their patrons. Fox needs to have the same. Our superintendent and school board should be able to provide the same documentation as Rockwood considering that we are paying our superintendent more than Rockwood's superintendent.