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.

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

The April 7, 2015 School Board Election is only one week away!

It's very important that you learn as much as you can about the candidates who are running for the Fox C-6 school board so you can make an informed decision.

This past year has definitely been a pivotal year for our school district. This past year will easily overshadow all of the previous problems that have occurred in the history of our district.

I don't remember any time in the history of the district where almost every single Central Office administrator left the district or was demoted/moved out of the Central Office.

The election of the next two school board members for the Fox C-6 School District is a very important decision and one that needs to be well researched. You need to talk to your neighbors and make sure that they get out and vote and are well informed.

It's important that we elect two new board members who will represent the taxpayers and not special interest groups or family members. We need school board members who are going to represent the community.

We need board members who are approachable and willing to listen to the concerns of parents and the community and stand up for those concerns.

There is only one long time incumbent left on the Fox's Board of Education. That is Mr. David. He is up for re-election. I certainly hope the community is educated enough by now to know that David Palmer sat silently for years and was willfully blind to the problems being brought to his attention. Enough said!

Meet the Candidates
Last night Hodge Elementary's PTO hosted a meeting with the Fox C-6 Board of Education candidates at 6:30PM at Hodge Elementary School. Hodge is located on off of Prairie Hollow Road.

There was a fairly light turnout of parents and concerned citizens. Less than 25 people in attended the meeting. I believe the meeting was only announced on Facebook and Twitter. I didn't know about the meeting until this past weekend.

It would have been much better if there had been a meet the candidates meeting at the Service Center or at Rickman Auditorium. When Rockwood went through their big scandal a couple of years ago, they hosted large meetings for their candidates to meet the public.

Four of the six Fox C-6 BOE Candidates attended

• Dr. Robin Hanson
• Christ Hastings
• Mark Jones
• Sherry "Chellew" Poppen

Drew Kriese could not attend the meeting because he was out of town. Mr. Kriese had a handout available for those who attended the meeting.

Fox C-6 Board of Education BOE incumbent David Palmer did not attend attend the event. No reason was given as to why he did not attend.

Each of the four school board candidates that attended gave a short introduction explaining why they were running for the board.

A Current and Former Board Member Attended
Fox C-6 board member Dan Kroupa attended most of the meeting. Mr. Kroupa left a little early so the focus of the discussion could get back to the candidates rather than answering questions from parents and patrons about the recent decisions that were made at the March 2015 BOE meeting and some of the other decisions over the past year. Early questions from some of the parents wanted to know how the candidates would have handled the recent decisions which led to discussion with Mr. Kroupa. I would say that there was some anger and frustration over some of the decisions made by the board over the past year.

I mostly sat and listened. I did provide some information as to administrator salary schedules from the past and the recent 1% raise given to the administrators.

I asked the board candidates if they would support hosting listening posts prior to board meetings where the community can speak openly with the school board rather than the limited 3 minutes for Public Comments.

The Rockwood School District hosts listening posts with their community. I brought this to the Fox C-6 school board in September or October 2013. I was told in an email from former superintendent Dianne Critchlow that the district was going to start hosting them at the November 2013 board meeting. However hosting open discussions with the school board was shot down at the November 5, 2013 school board workshop. You can read more about that by clicking on the link below when I wrote about it back in November 2013:

Fox C-6 School Board Fails the Public Again

Former Fox C-6 school board member Linda Tramel also attended the meeting. Mrs. Tramel was asked to serve on the school board after board member Don Earl passed away. Mrs. Tramel was on the board after Bourisaw was fired by the district. This was also during the 2001/2002 audit of the school district by Claire McCaskill. My father also served on the school board during that time replacing Ron Clark.

Linda Tramel talked about the board training that all new board candidates have to attend by state law. She talked about how the board is responsible for hiring the superintendent and developing/approving school board policies.

Overall, there was some really good and healthy discussion that went on about some of the recent decisions with the board candidates. I don't have time to get into all of those points this morning but plan to write more and post an update to this article or write a more in depth article.

Several people thanked me for helping provide information to the community so they can be more informed. I also had a parent thank me for helping their child get a Section 504 plan which had been previously denied by the school district. I will continue to work on holding the district accountable and working towards getting them to do the right thing and follow board policies.

Here are a few of the items that were discussed:

• Board member responsibilities and who they represent.
• Transparency or lack thereof
• The hiring of Dan Baker and Todd Scott as principals in the district.
• Administrative Salaries and the 1% pay raise for the 2015-2016 school year
• Teacher raises for the 2015-2016 school year which ranged from 2% for new teachers to a small amount for long term teachers as explained by Mr. Kroupa.
• The Voluntary Incentive Separation Plan payouts which was responded to by Mr. Kroupa.
• Board Members visiting schools and talking to parents and teachers so they are more in touch with what's going on in the school district.

Wow! Dan Baker Chosen as Seckman Elementary Principal Over 58 Other Applicants

I do believe that Fox made some good decisions in the hiring of the new Fox Senor High School Principal, our new assistant superintendent in charge of Human Resources as well as Fox's new Food Nutrition Director.

However, it's quite obvious that Dr. Wipke, Fox's BOE and the selection committees never read the May 2009 Resolution Agreement with the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (ED OCR) that Dan Baker signed on May 1, 2009.

Dan Baker was Fox's Section 504 Coordinator when he agreed to make corrections to bring Fox into compliance with federal law. It's now been nearly 6 years since Dan Baker signed the Resolution Agreement and it's still open.

It also appears that Dr. Wipke, Fox's BOE and the selection committee never read the USDA OCR's August 2011 Final Agency Decision that found Fox C-6 Non-Compliant with Section 504 and the ADA AA. That agreement told the district to immediately reinstate a Section 504 that was removed in September 2008. It took until August 2014 and the removal of Dan Baker as the Section 504 coordinator before the district complied with that decision.

Did Fox's board of education not take the district's Non-Compliance issues into consideration when the they voted 6-0 to hire Dan Baker as the next principal of Seckman Elementary School?

As Dan Baker and Dianne Brown-Critchlow told me many times at board meetings, they kept the BOE informed about what was going on with the Resolution Agreement, the District Wide Compliance Review and the USDA's Final Agency Decision. However, the district never publicly acknowledged the problems. David Palmer is the only person that is still serving on the board when the Resolution Agreement and District Wide Compliance Review was initiated and he is running for school board again.

Did David Palmer ever ask why the district still hasn't complied with the May 2009 Resolution Agreement?

David Palmer's wife Gee Palmer also played a huge part in the Non-Compliance issues as the Director of Nursing. She participated in 504 Team meetings and was deposed during the Due Process Hearing.

Dianne Brown-Critchlow and Dan Baker have made comments about the Resolution Agreement and the District Wide Compliance Review during Public Sessions at board meetings but I don't believe any of their comments were documented in board meeting minutes. This all occurred before the district began audio recording school board meetings. Luckily, I've been recording meetings ever since I began attending them.

It would certainly be interesting to see if any of the other 58 applicants denied Section 504 protections to students for 6 years like Dan Baker did while he was the Section 504 Coordinator for the district.

It's interesting to note that after Dan Baker was removed as the district's Section 504 Coordinator in June 2014, students that had been previously denied Section 504 plans under his watch are now being found eligible for Section 504 and are being provided 504 plans in the district.

That fact alone should certainly be cause concern for the Fox C-6 community when being told that Dan Baker was the best candidate for the job.

Yes, Dan Bakers home was linked to derogatory comments that were posted online. But Dan has never admitted to actually making any comments online. However, he did apologize that his home was linked to those comments.

Fox's CFO John Brazeal told me that he asked Dan Baker directly if he had posted comments online and he said that Dan Baker did not answer.

So if Dr. Wipke did not read the USDA OCR's August 2011 Final Agency Decision that found Fox Non-Compliant with federal law, it would appear that he didn't have all of the facts that he should have taken into consideration when he made his decision to recommend Dan Baker to the Fox C-6 Board of Education as the best candidate for the job.

Reading the article in this week's Arnold-Imperial Leader about the hiring of Dan Baker and Todd Scott demonstrates that the "rigorous process" wasn't rigorous enough in it's screening of candidates.

Was Todd Scott still the assistant superintendent of Human Resources while he was going through the "rigorous process" when he applied for the principal position at Seckman Senior High School?

Fox C-6 board member Dan Kroupa told the Arnold-Imperial Leader that Todd Scott was selected after a "thorough and unbiased screening process." You can take that comment for what it's worth!

Acting superintendent Tim Crutchley, incoming superintendent Dr. Jim Wipke and the Fox C-6 Board of Education must be hoping that the community won't be able to see through all of the "smoke and mirrors" that they are feeding the public in the media.

Perhaps they're hoping that the community will eventually forget about all of the wrong doings and that everyone will just give up on trying to making changes in our district so they can get back to doing what they've been doing for years.

Should Fox's BOE publicly acknowledge the May 2009 Resolution Agreement with ED OCR that Mr. Baker agreed to uphold. It's very entertaining to read the years of "monitoring letters" that were sent to the district informing them that they still hadn't complied with the Resolution Agreement. ED OCR just kept giving the district new deadlines to meet which they never did.

How many years does it take a school district to comply with federal law?

Should the district publicly acknowledge the District Wide Compliance Review investigation that was initiated by ED OCR in March 2010 that is still an open investigation?

Since Dan Baker was responsible for all of the OCR Non-Compliance issues along with Dianne Brown-Critchlow that are still hanging over the district after more than 5 years, one would think that Fox's Board of Education would have taken that into consideration before they voted 6-0 to hire Dan Baker as Seckman Elementary School principal.

Did Dan Baker not know or understand Section 504 law when he was the district's Section 504 coordinator from 2008 to 2014?

Is that why the district spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees between 2008 and 2014?

Did Fox's Board of Education ever review any of the invoices for legal services between 2008 and 2014 while Dan Baker was the district's Section 504 Coordinator to see why the district was spending so much money in legal fees?

It's certainly hard to believe that the other 58 candidates that applied for the principal position at Seckman Elementary School were given a fair chance considering who was on the screening committees and final interviews. It was stated that the Seckman Elementary School teachers heavily influenced the decision to hire Dan Baker as the new principal at Seckman Elementary. Are the teachers responsible for hiring their own boss?

You can read Tim Crutchley's response as to who participated in the hiring process in my previous article:

Fox's Rigorous Process that You Should Trust for the Latest New Hires!

Is moving an educator who denied services and protection to students for 6 years what's really best for our students and parents at Seckman Elementary School?

Read the Arnold-Imperial Leader article to learn more about what some of our school board members had to say about the recent hiring of Dan Baker and Todd Scott by using the link below.

March 26, 2015 Arnold Imperial Leader Article on Hiring Dan Baker and Todd Scott

Fox's Rigorous Process That You Should Trust for the Latest New Hires!

Nikki McClain, a parent in the Fox C-6 School District and the administrator of the Facebook page NO MORE MONEY OR RESOURCES For the Fox C-6 Superintendent recently received a Sunshine Request response from acting superintendent Tim Crutchley regarding the hiring of administrators that were recently announced at the March 17, 2015 Fox C-6 Board of Education meeting.

Thank you to Nikki McClain for sharing with me the response she received from the district.

I had emailed all of the current Fox C-6 school board members early Tuesday morning March 17, 2015 asking for the same information but never received a response from a single board member.

I had also emailed incoming superintendent Dr. Jim Wipke and Fox C-6 board president John Laughlin on Monday March 16, 2015 asking how Dan Baker was even considered as a candidate for the Seckman Elementary School principal position.

I did not receive an email response from Dr. Wipke or Mr. Laughlin. I did receive a Read Receipt message from Mr. Laughlin's email software at 12:18AM on Monday March 16, 2015. I did not receive a Read Receipt message from Dr. Wipke. However, Dr. Wipke told me he received my email when I spoke to him immediately following the March 17 BOE meeting.

Mrs. McClain submitted a Sunshine Request for the list of candidates for the recent new hires for the Seckman Elementary School, Fox Senior High School and Seckman Senior High School principal positions as well as the new Food Nutrition Director. I believe the district did an excellent job in choosing the new Fox Senior High School principal and the new Food Nutrition Director. I haven't dealt with Todd Scott on any school matters other than the time he stood up for Dan Baker and Dianne Critchlow when I asked Dan Baker about the USDA's August 2011 Final Agency Decision that found the Fox C-6 School District Non-Compliant with Section 504 law and the ADA AA. That conversation occurred after the December 2011 Fox C-6 BOE meeting.

I would think that a rigorous hiring process would do a much better job at filtering out potential candidates who have been linked to online bullying of parents in our district as well as not being able to bring our district into compliance with federal law after more than 5 years. Dan Baker signed a Resolution Agreement to do so with ED OCR on May 1, 2009.

After you read Tim Crutchley's response as to who screened the applications and who served on the committees, you may understand why those concerns were overlooked.

Is the Ms. Kriese that is listed on the Seckman Elementary School principal selection committee related to 2015 board candidate Drew Kriese?

A friend of mine told me that the Kriese's attend Oak Bridge Community Church with Tim Crutchley and Kristen Pelster. This person told me that Drew Kriese was speaking with Tim Crutchley at church the Sunday before the announcement of the new hires. Did that perhaps have any influence on the candidate screening as well? I was told that they are also all friends on Facebook as well. Interesting!

March 2015 BOE Meeting Audio
Some of the Fox C-6 BOE members talked about the new rigorous process that was used to hire our new administrators at the March 2015 BOE meeting. Click on the names to listen to the comments from BOE members Dan Kroupa, Dawn Mullins and John Laughlin about the new process from Fox's YouTube recording of the 2015 BOE meeting.

It was stated during the BOE meeting that the Seckman Elementary School teachers heavily influenced the board's decision to hire Dan Baker as the principal at Seckman Elementary. Mr. Baker was surrounded by his cheering teachers at the March 2015 BOE meeting as you can hear in the audio of the meeting.

Yesterday, I posted some tweets linking to the comments from the March 2015 BOE meeting but they appear to have been deleted by Twitter at someone's request.

I also received another Copyright Infringement notice this morning for the same public records report of the 2004-2010 legal bills paid that was paid with taxpayer money to the district's former law firm.

It's difficult to understand how a printed report from your school district for legal fee payments is a violation of copyright infringement. It just gives the impression that someone doesn't want you to know what Fox has been paying in legal fees.

Mr. Baker may have skills and credentials to be a principal in our district. However, it doesn't negate the black cloud that has been hanging and will be hanging over our school district since his "home" (and cell phone) was linked to online posts.

According to the district's response, the district is also keeping the list of candidates for the positions from the public since Missouri Sunshine Law ALLOWS them to do so but does not require them to do so. You can read about Missouri Sunshine Law that is referenced in Tim Crutchley's email response by using the links below.

Top 10 Things You Should Know About Sunshine Law

Revised Missouri Statutes Section 610.021

The following email was sent to Nikki McClain by acting superintendent Tim Crutchley in response to her Sunshine Request regarding the recent administrative hires that were announced at the March 17, 2015 Fox C-6 BOE meeting:

From: Crutchley, Tim - CO Admin.
Date: March 24, 2015 at 2:44:13 PM CDT
To: Nikki McClain
Subject: response to request 

We are in receipt of your March 19, 2015 email request for records. 

Please be advised the identity of candidates considered for employment is a closed record pursuant to Section 610.021(13) R.S.Mo.  As a result, we are unable to provide names of job applicants. 

The District does not have a list of committee members used in the hiring process for the Assistant Superintendent HR, the SHS, FHS or SES principals or the Director of Nutrition Services to provide in response to your request. Although the District is not obligated to do so, it will provide the following narrative in response to your request. 

The screening of applications for the principals and human resources position were done by a committee of district administrators, specifically Dr. Wipke, Mr. Crutchley, Dr. Rizzi and Mr. Brazeal.  The same committee interviewed first round candidates.  Screening and the first round of interviews for the Dir of Nutrition Services was performed by Mr. Scott and Mr. Brazeal. 

Second round interviews  were conducted by the following committees: Fox High School: Ms. Wucher, Mr. Williams, Ms. Schwalbe, Ms. Seliga, Ms. Greene, Ms. Hoeltzer, Mr. Reese, Mr. Sansoucie, Mr. Meadows, Ms. Weisemann, Ms. Rissi plus two students; Seckman High School:  Ms. Adkins, Mr. Prezzavento, Ms. Scott, Ms. Montegomery, Ms. Hildebrand, Ms. Kraus, Ms. Fritz, Ms. Thompson, Ms. Labelle, Ms. Hill, Ms. Rissi plus two students; Seckman Elementary School consisted of Ms. Randolph, Mr. Werner, Ms. Fisher, Ms. Callahan, Ms. McFerran and Ms. Kriese. 

Second round interviews for the human resources position were conducted by Ms. Werkmeister, Ms. Ferranto, Ms. Bambini, Ms. Fritz, Ms. Waller, Ms. Missey, Mr. Wilken and Ms. Mijangos.

Second and final round interviews for the food service director were conducted by a committee that included Mr. Scott, Mr. Brazeal, Dr. Cardona, Dr. Reese, Dr. Schwalbe and Ms. West plus one student. 

Third and final round interviews of high school principal finalists were interviewed by the Assistant Superintendent for Secondary Education (Dr. Rizzi) and incoming Superintendent (Dr. Wipke). 

Third and final round interviews of elementary school principal finalists were interviewed by the Interim Superintendent (Mr. Crutchley) and incoming Superintendent (Dr. Wipke). 

Third and final round interviews of the human resources finalists were interviewed by Interim Superintendent (Mr. Crutchley), incoming Superintendent (Dr. Wipke), Assistant Superintendent for Secondary Education (Dr. Rizzi) and the Chief Financial Officer (Mr. Brazeal).

Tim Crutchley 

Acting Superintendent 

745 Jeffco Blvd 

Arnold, Mo 63010 

636-296-8000 

636-282-5170 fax

Achievement - Character - Excellence
National District of Character

Fox C-6 Board Candidates Vow Transparency in Recent Post Dispatch Article

A March 21, 2015 article in the St. Louis Post Dispatch states that the Fox C-6 School Board candidates vow to restore the public trust.

There are 6 candidates running for the Fox C-6 school board election on Tuesday April 7, 2015. This past year has put our school district into extreme turmoil as we are seeing an exodus of talented teachers leaving the district encouraged by the Voluntary Separation Incentive Program which used to be called the Voluntary Early Retirement Incentive Program prior to 2014. 

David Palmer is an incumbent. His wife, Gee Palmer, is currently the Director of Nursing for the Fox C-6 School District and his son is a teacher in the school district. The article also states that David Palmer has a niece that is a teacher in the district as well.

David's wife was nominated by Dianne Brown in 2006 to be promoted to the Director of Nursing position while David Palmer was the president of the Fox C-6 School Board. Gee Palmer's promotion was approved by the school board in June 2006. She was given a 75% pay raise rather than a stipend amount as previous Directors. 

The Post Dispatch article states that Gee Palmer "is about to retire". However, Gee Palmer's name hasn't appeared on any of the Voluntary Separation Incentive Program (VSIP) lists that have been provided to the public so far. If she is retiring and walking away with 50% of her pay, her name won't be appearing on the VSIP list until after the April 7 election.

David Palmer certainly hasn't helped to improve transparency during his years on the school board. I' made requests for years for the board to publish the board packets on the website and publicly acknowledge the district's problems with ED OCR and USDA OCR.

Mr. Palmer also wasn't a fan of talking to the public about issues in the district because of his fear of being misquoted at the November 5, 2013 board workshop. That's when the school board voted in Closed Session not to have "Listening Posts" with the public like I was informed they would by former Superintendent Dianne Brown-Critchlow in an email. Fox's former legal counsel Ernie Trakas voiced his concerns for having open discussions with the public which caused our school board to vote against doing what they do in the Rockwood School District.

You can read about David Palmer's comments in my article below about the November 5, 2013 workshop.

The Fox C-6 School Board Fails the Public Again!

David Palmer has kept the public in the dark far too long and DOES NOT need to be on the Fox C-6 school board anymore. Mr. Palmer is the last of the "old regime" school board members left. He was first voted onto the school board in 2002.

To say that Sherry "Chellew" Poppen is vowing to restore Public Trust seems disingenuous. Sherry Poppen DID NOT mention or tell the Lone Dell Parents club parents that she has a son that is a teacher in the district and a daughter that is a secretary in the district. I knew that she had a daughter who was a secretary in the district but I had not researched to see if she had any other family members working in the district. So I first learned about her son being a teacher in the district in the Post Dispatch article. What's even stranger is the fact that Fox alumni classmates of hers wrote into this past week's Arnold-Imperial Leader telling the Fox C-6 Community to vote for Sherry Poppen. Her classmates telling Fox patrons to vote for Sherry Poppen live in Festus. There is certainly a strong effort in signage to get Sherry Poppen's name out in front of the public along with her brother's name Jim "Chellew" who was Fox's superintendent prior to Dianne Brown-Critchlow.

You can read the details of the Voluntary Early Retirement Incentive Program in Regulation 4740.1 which can be found on the district website by clicking on the link below. The program was changed in February 2014 by Dianne Brown-Critchlow with suggestions from Fox's former legal counsel and approved by the board to become the Voluntary Separation Incentive Program.

Regulation 4740.1

Voluntary Early Retirement Incentive Program

March 21, 2015 Post Dispatch Article
Candidates for Fox School Board vow to restore Public Trust

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

Dan Baker Probably Doesn't Want the Fox C-6 Community to See the Invoices for Legal Fees!

It was announced that Dan Baker was selected as the new principal at Seckman Elementary at the March 17, 2015 Fox C-6 Board of Education (BOE) meeting.

I voiced my concerns about Dan Baker being selected as a finalist for the Seckman Elementary School principal position to Fox C-6 board president John Laughlin and Dr. Wipke in an email early Monday morning March 16, 2015. Then after not receiving a response I sent another email to all of the Fox C-6 board members at 6:30am Tuesday March 17, 2015.

I also voiced my concerns to the Fox C-6 BOE meeting during Public Comments. Click on the link below to listen to my Public Comments. There were a total of 7 Public Comments made at the BOE meeting. There were two public comments in support of hiring Dan Baker for the principal position at Seckman Elementary which was made by teachers from Seckman Elementary. I wonder if Mr. Baker will give them any special treatment now that he's been selected principal?

My Public Comments Made at the March 17, 2015

Fox C-6 BOE Meeting

Dan Baker's selection reminds me very much of when the community was told that Kelly Nash was the best candidate for Fox's Food Nutrition Director in December 2012 by Todd Scott even though she didn't possess the certification and schooling required for the job as required by board policy.

Dan Baker, possesses the proper certification for the principal job. He was a principal at Hodge Elementary School prior to being promoted to the position of Assistant Superintendent and Section 504 Coordinator for the Fox C-6 School District in the Central Office.

Unlike Kelly Nash, Dan Baker has to face scrutiny from the public for his involvement in the internet scandal that made national headlines at Fox C-6 in 2014 after it was discovered that derogatory posts were linked to the home and cell phone of Dan and Angie Baker as well as to the home of former superintendent Dianne Brown-Critchlow and her husband Jamie Critchlow who was fired by the district in June 2014.

Dan Baker was the Section 504 Coordinator for the district at the time the posts linked to his home were made in 2013. Mr. Baker was also involved in our Section 504 case and had been since May of 2008. Having derogatory comments linked to his home that were made against me could be considered retaliation by the Office for Civil Rights because we had filed complaints with the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (ED OCR) and the USDA's Office for Civil Rights (USDA OCR) back in 2008 and 2009 respectively.

Section 504 law prohibits retaliating against any individual who files a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights or advocates for someone's civil rights. Therefore, it's very important that everyone understands what the law says on Section 504. It's also very important to know that it was Mr. Baker's job as the district's 504 Coordinator to ensure that Fox C-6 complied with Section 504 law and the ADA AA.

Had the public been properly informed of the district's run in with ED OCR and USDA OCR six years ago, Dan Baker may not have been considered for the principal position at Seckman Elementary School.

Dan Baker, Dianne Brown-Critchlow and Todd Scott have been working hard for years to keep the district's non-compliance issues out of the news and hidden from the public. Board meeting minutes didn't document my questions or letters about the OCR issues. In fact, the district's former law firm sent me letters telling me that the public had no need to know about the Resolution Agreement that Dan Baker signed on May 1, 2009 with ED OCR or the 2010 District Wide Compliance Review investigation until ED OCR released their findings.

The Resolution Agreement signed by Dan Baker has been open now for nearly 6 years and the District Wide Compliance Review has been open for 5 years. 

How long does it take ED OCR to complete an investigation and report their findings?

That means that for nearly 6 years, Dan Baker and the district were unable to meet the terms of the agreement that Dan Baker agreed to in order for the district to be compliant with Section 504 law and the ADA AA. It certainly doesn't seem that Dan Baker was doing his job as Section 504 Coordinator.

I would think that not being able to meet the terms of an agreement with a federal agency for nearly 6 years would weigh heavily on Mr. Baker's job performance reviews over the years. But, since Dianne Brown-Critchlow and the former law firm kept ED OCR at bay for years as well as the USDA OCR, no one knew that Fox was non-compliant with federal law. The Resolution Agreement and District Wide Compliance Review and Monitoring Letters were never documented in the board meeting minutes or board packets.

I don't believe that Dr. Jim Wipke has been fully informed of all of the non-compliance issues with ED OCR and USDA OCR. I spoke with Dr. Wipke this evening after the board meeting about my concerns of hiring Dan Baker as the principal at Seckman Elementary School and Todd Scott as the new principal at Seckman High School. Dr, Wipke offered to get together and discuss my concerns further regarding this issue and that he would like to work with me on this issue.

I think it's time for the public to get involved and make a Sunshine Law Request and demand that the invoices from the district's former law firm be released to the public. Your taxpayer dollars were used to pay legal fees to keep ED OCR and USDA OCR at bay for years. In fact, one of the training sessions by the district's former law firm was titled, "OCR Is Gaining On You! How to Run Faster!".

It's seems quite obvious that someone in the district doesn't want the legal fee invoices to be made public. I've asked for copies of them for years via Sunshine Law Requests and the district still hasn't provided me a single copy of an invoice. 

As a Fox C-6 taxpayer, wouldn't you want to know why the school board approved paying more than $103,000 in legal fees between the August 2012 and September 2012 board meetings?

By the way, the $103,000 in legal fees corresponds time wise with emails we received from USDA OCR informing us that they were in discussions with the district and their legal counsel regarding the USDA's August 2011 Final Agency Decision that found the district non-compliant with Section 504 law and the ADA AA. It also corresponds with the time I was sent a cease and desist letter by the district to keep me from speaking with the public and school employees and former employees about my concerns with the district.

If Dan Baker and Dianne Brown-Critchlow were responsible for being found non-compliant with Section 504 law and the ADA AA in the USDA's August 2011 Final Agency Decision, shouldn't the public have been told about that?

Spending $103,000 in legal fees in just two months in 2012 was two times more than what the district paid the same law firm for legal fees for the entire year in 2005 from information recently provided to me by Fox's CFO John Brazeal.

It seems to me that paying out that much in legal fees in just two months in 2012 would have raised red flags for our school board members. In fact, we sent a letter to Dave Palmer and other board members back then asking them about the amount of money that the district was spending in legal fees because it appeared that the district wasn't following board policy on legal fees. We never received a response from our letter. You may want to make note of that since Dave Palmer is running for school board again this year.

I've made numerous Sunshine Requests for actual copies of the invoices for legal fees but I've only been given the dollar amounts for the invoices. Why is that?

Transparency is what keeps your school district and school board accountable. If there's a lack of transparency then there will be a lack of trust and lack of accountability in both the district and and the people in charge of running and overseeing the district.

Back in August 2010, the Post Dispatch wrote an article in which Dan Baker was quoted as saying, "the district had spent a lot in legal fees during the dispute, but he did not know an exact amount." What Mr. Baker didn't tell the newspaper was that the district decided to bring their legal counsel to a 504 meeting in August 2008. We asked why an attorney was need for a 504 meeting. The explanation given by the attorney was to ensure that the district was doing things properly. Well, it took from September 2008 when Dan Baker removed a 504 plan until August 2014 to get the 504 plan properly restored by the district. Restoring the 504 would not have occurred if the the district hadn't changed law firms.

Between 2008 and 2014 my wife and I worked to get the district to properly follow Section 504 law and restore what was improperly removed in 2008. However, some of our administrators decided to resort to bullying tactics using the internet as well the media in an attempt to halt our efforts to expose what was going on in the district.

So now, nearly a year after it was discovered that derogatory comments were traced to the home and cell phone of Dan and Angie Baker, Mr. Baker was selected as the principal of Seckman Elementary School despite his being linked to the internet scandal and to large sums of money being spent defying ED OCR and USDA OCR.

What do you think motivated the Bakers to post derogatory comments online?

In order for the community to believe that Dan Baker was the right person for the job, the district needs to release the invoices from the former law firm dating back to 2008 since he worked closely with the former law firm to get around the law.

Who Were the Other Job Candidates?
The district also needs to provide the public with the list of other candidates that applied for the job as well as the members of the selection committee that narrowed down the field of candidates. Without full disclosure of that information, the public is never going to believe that Dan Baker was the best candidate for the job!

Please contact you school board members and request that they release the invoices for legal fees from the Mickes Goldman O'Toole law firm.

Also ask the school board to publish the list of candidates that applied for the Seckman Elementary School principal position and the names of the selection committee members for the job.

Perhaps a community of requests for how your taxpayer dollars were spent on legal fees will finally encourage the district to release the invoice information. Other school districts publish that information, why can't Fox?

My Open Letter to the Fox C-6 BOE Regarding the Hiring of School District Leadership

I emailed the Fox C-6 School Board the following letter this morning regarding the hiring of future leaders in our school district.

I emailed board president John Laughlin and Dr. Wipke very early Monday morning in which I expressed my concerns about the hiring of the next Seckman Elementary School principal. I never received a response to my email.

I decided to send this email after I noticed last night that Angie Burns Baker, the wife of assistant superintendent Dan Baker, was listed as the 2015-2016 Director of Federal Programs in the March 2015 board meeting packet that was posted online Friday March 13, 2015.

The link below contains a copy of the Employment of Certified Employees Report from the March 2015 Fox C-6 school board meeting packet.

March 2015

Fox C-6 Employment of Certified Employees Report

The Fox C-6 Board of Education (BOE) will be meeting tonight in Closed Session at 5:30PM prior to Public Comments. Therefore the board will most likely be making hiring decisions prior to hearing any Public Comments from the community.

Fox's BOE is expected to be making hiring decisions for the Fox High School, Seckman High School and Seckman Elementary School principal positions as well as the Fox C-6 Food Nutrition Director.

Below is the letter I emailed to the Fox C-6 BOE Tuesday morning March 17, 2015.

It is critical that the Fox C-6 school board be completely transparent in the hiring of future leaders of the Fox C-6 School District. This includes the Fox and Seckman High School and Seckman Elementary principals as well as the next Food Nutrition Director.
 The school board failed miserably in December 2012 when it approved the hiring of Kelly Nash as Fox’s Food Nutrition Director over individuals who already possessed the credentials required for the job. That one decision was the straw that broke the camel’s back and the one that led to the public disgrace of our school district and the embarrassment and humiliation of the Fox C-6 community.
 School board policy requires that the superintendent only recommends individuals to the board for hire who already possess the proper certification and education. School board policy was not followed when the board hired Kelly Nash in 2012. It was obvious then and now that she was chosen because she was the daughter in law of former Fox C-6 board member Linda Nash who was the board president at the time of her hiring. The taxpayers paid the price for that decision as well as members of the community who spoke out about that decision.
 Kelly Nash’s hire was very similar to the hiring of Gee Palmer, the wife of current school board member and incumbent school board candidate David Palmer as the Director of Nursing in June 2006.
 David Palmer was the president of the Fox C-6 school board in 2006 when his wife was promoted to Director of Nursing position and given a 75% pay increase ahead of other nurses who were more qualified and who had many more years of service with the district.
 You are now faced with another decision that will forever shape the legacy of the Fox C-6 School District and the Fox C-6 board when you select new leaders for Seckman Elementary, Seckman High School and Fox High School.
 The individuals you choose to lead our teachers and our students should not bring with them any immoral or unethical baggage from the past.
 You are practicing Willful Blindness by even allowing Dan Baker to be a finalist for the position as Seckman Elementary School principal given his past misdeeds and inability to ensure that Fox C-6 was compliant with federal law as assistant superintendent for more than 6 years.
 You will forever be judged by the community by the decisions in choosing new district leadership.
 I am extremely disappointed to learn that you have already given notice in the March 2015 board packet that Angela Burns Baker will be the 2015-2016 Director of Federal Programs.
 Since you are elected officials and represent the taxpayers and patrons of the Fox C-6 School District you are entrusted to make the best choices for our school district.
 How did Mr. Baker become one of 3 finalist for the Seckman Elementary principal position given the fact that derogatory comments were traced to his home and a cell phone owned by the Bakers? Were any Fox school board members part of the screening process for the principal position? Please provide a list to the Public of the candidates for the principal positions in the school district and the members of the committee panels that interviewed the candidates and made recommendations to the selections. It’s imperative that the Fox C-6 school board be transparent and represent the community in an honest and open manner and that all decisions are made aboveboard according to school district policy.
 I am requesting that you please email me a list of all persons that served on the interview/hiring committees and all candidates for the recent job openings in the school district for the Fox and Seckman High school principal positions,  the Seckman Elementary principal position and the Food Nutrition Director position. It’s imperative that this information be published on the school district website in order to rebuild the trust of the community. There are rumblings that individuals that participated on the selection committees were chosen in order to narrow the selection to favor our disgraced assistant superintendents.
 It’s hard to believe that anyone in our community would have considered Dan Baker as a potential candidate for the Seckman Elementary School principal position. Very few people are going to believe that Mr. Baker was ranked above other candidates in terms of integrity and honesty given his past indiscretions. His selection as one of the best candidates gives the impression that our district is still not operating aboveboard.
 In order to maintain any trust with the community everything done by the board needs to be done with full disclosure to the community. If not, all hires will be extremely scrutinized by the public!
 I certainly hope that you can face the public and be proud of your decision after approving the hiring of new leadership in our school district.
  Thank you,
 Rich Simpson

KMOV News 4 Covers Fox C-6 Voluntary Separation Incentive Plan Payout

Robin Smith of KMOV News 4 covered the Fox school district Voluntary Separation Incentive Plan (VSIP) payout on Friday March 13, 2015 at 5PM.

I posted an article about the most recent VSIP payot totals to date on Wednesday March 11. That article has already had more than 1,000 page views.

News 4 reporter Robin Smith interviewed Fox's Chief Financial Officer John Brazeal. John Brazeal is a fellow Fox graduate. Mr. Brazeal's father taught in the district years ago when my father was principal at Fox High School.

Mr. Brazeal told News 4 that current projections are that between 140 and 150 people will be taking advantage of the incentive payout which will cost the district about $4 Million dollars.

The March 17, 2015 board meeting packet was posted Friday evening March 13, 2015 but did not contain an updated list of employees that are taking advantage of the VSIP payout. The most recent VSIP report listing found in the February 24, 2015 board packet had less than 100 people listed at a cost of $2.72 Million dollars.

The cutoff to apply for the VSIP program was January 16, 2015. Employees then had 45 days to decide whether or not they would be taking advantage of the VSIP after reviewing the documents and having the opportunity to consult with their tax advisors. So, the list of employees taking advantage of the VSIP should be known by now but that information was not included in the March 17, 2015 board packet.

Fox is losing some very good employees who are taking advantage of the VSIP because they are tired of all of the disgraceful things that have gone on in our district over the past decade.

Fewer Fox employees would have been eligible for the VSIP program prior to last year, Prior to February 2014, Fox C-6 employees were required to work in the district for a minimum of 10 years before being eligible for the Early Retirement Incentive Plan which was changed to the Voluntary Separation Incentive Plan in the summer of 2014.

In February 2014, changes were made to remove the cap on the maximum number of years of service that kept some people from qualifying for the VSIP. It was considered discriminatory by the district's former legal counsel. However, when the upper cap was removed from the Employment Retirement Incentive Plan, the 10 year minimum requirement was also removed and approved by the board.

Fox's school board planned to make the 2014-2015 school year, the last year that the Early Retirement Incentive Plan was offered to employees as it had been offered year after year for years and was no longer being used as intended.

The 10 year minimum requirement of working for the school district was replaced with the requirement of only having to be vested in Missouri's Public School Retirement System (PSRS) or Missouri's Public Education Employees Retirement System (PEERS). A minimum of 5 years of qualified service is all that is required to become vested in PSRS or PEERS. This means that anyone who has at least 5 years of qualified service under the PSRS or PEERS retirement system would be eligible to take advantage of Fox's incentive payout program.

So, thanks to the changes made to Fox's Early Retirement Incentive Plan in February 2014, Fox C-6 taxpayers will be footing the bill for incentive payments to employees who have worked for the Fox C-6 School District for as little as 1 or 2 years. Lack of thorough oversight and lack of transparency by our school board allowed for this blunder to occur when the changes were made to the Early Retirement Incentive Plan last year.

Changes to Fox's early retirement incentive plan were made prior to the public learning that derogatory comments had been posted about myself and others in online forums that were traced to the home of former disgraced superintendent Dianne Critchlow and her husband Jamie Critchlow the former Director of the Bridges program. Jamie Critchlow was fired in June 2014. Dianne Critchlow was allowed to walk away with an incentive payout of more than $130,000 in October 2014 even after the public learned about all of the things that had been going under her rule as superintendent.

Derogatory comments were also traced to the home of assistant superintendent Dan Baker and his wife Angie Burns Baker who is Fox's Director of Federal programs. Comments were also traced to the home of former Fox High Assistant Principal Bill Brengle.

Dan Baker was Fox's Section 504 Coordinator for the school district between June 2008 and June 2014. As Fox's 504 Coordinator, Dan Baker was responsible for Fox having to sign a Resolution Agreement with the U.S. Department of Educations Office for Civil Rights (ED OCR) on May 1, 2009 in which the district agreed to take corrective actions and update policies as well as conduct an evaluation in order to comply with Section 504 law and the ADA AA.

As of March 2015, the district still hasn't fully complied with the May 1, 2009 Resolution Agreement with ED OCR that Dan Baker signed and agreed to comply with despite OCR's "vigorous enforcement of Section 504" as they state they do in ED OCR's October 21, 2014 Dear Colleague Letter on Bullying that was sent to all school districts across the country reminding them about their responsibilities in following the law.

I'm being sarcastic when I say that ED OCR performed "vigorous enforcement of Section 504". It's been well documented by the Kansas City Office's "monitoring letters" starting in December 2009 to the Fox School District that ED OCR was anything but vigorous. In fact, ED OCR did nothing but extend deadline after deadline when the district failed to comply with the Resolution Agreement.


What's Happening With the Bakers?
Dan Baker and Angie Burns Baker are both still employed by the district at this time. In fact, Dan Baker has been the interim principal at Seckman Elementary School after the previous principal was moved to an assistant principal position earlier this school year.

Dan Baker was also recently selected as a finalist for the principal position at Seckman Elementary School despite having derogatory comments traced to his home that were made against me in 2013 while he was Fox's Section 504 Coordinator.

It was also discovered last year that Mr. Baker played golf instead of attending the Marzano Conference while in Florida on the first day of the conference. The golf game was paid for with taxpayer money using Todd Scott's school district credit card that was loaned to Jamie Critchlow for the trip. Dan Baker also used his school district credit card numerous times to pay for personal meals and other items which violated school district policy.

Dan Baker's ethical and moral decisions over the past 6+ years should have kept him from even being considered for the principal position at Seckman Elementary School. He was caught bullying parents anonymously in online forums. He cost the district easily close to $200,000 if not more in legal fees as he and Dianne Critchlow tried to get around Section 504 law and the ADA AA for 6 years while Dan Baker served as the district's 504 Coordinator.

There is plenty of documentation to back up Dan Baker's failure in ensuring that the Fox C-6 School District properly followed Section 504 law and the ADA AA.

Read the USDA's August 2011 Final Agency Decision when the district was found to be in violation of Section 504 and the ADA AA.

The Post Dispatch had been informed about the May 2009 Resolution Agreement and the March 2010 District Wide Compliance Review but did not mention either one of those facts in the August 2010 Post Dispatch article that asked us if we had considered moving out of the district. Intimidating parents seems to have been a pattern of practice in the district for the last decade. Comments were posted online about the article within minutes of it being published. Many of them were very derogatory in nature. I asked that some of them be removed but the Post Dispatch refused to remove them. The Post Dispatch eventually removed all of the comments when they switched over to their Facebook comment system. We did ask for the IP addresses of the comments but the paper did not retain those records.

The 2010 Post Dispatch article was very much like a "House of Cards" attempt at using the media to silence parents for attempting to get the school district to do the right thing and do what they were supposed to do as documented in the District Wide Compliance Review.

Read the documents from the ED OCR and USDA OCR to see if you think Dan Baker's comments from the 2010 Post Dispatch article hold true when he told the paper that he "strongly believes the district has handled the situation appropriately".

Baker said he could not discuss the Simpsons' case because of confidentiality rules but strongly believes the district has handled the situation appropriately. He said the district had spent a lot in legal fees during the dispute, but he did not know an exact amount.

Getting around Section 504 law was easy, all for Dan Baker had to do was say he felt the student didn't qualify for Section 504. Then he would inform the parent that they could file a complaint with OCR, file for a Due Process Hearing or sue the school district if they didn't believe his decision was correct.

As the District's 504 Coordinator, Dan Baker was the person who ultimately decided whether or not a student qualified for Section 504 as the district's attorney pointed out several times during 504 meetings over the years.

Since Mr. Baker publicly made the claim that the district spent a lot in legal fees, then the fees spent by the district should be made public. To date that has not happened despite numerous requests. The district was in dispute with USDA OCR and ED OCR between 2008 and 2014 because the district and their legal counsel weren't going to back down from their position after spending all that money.

Dan Baker also violated the public's trust and most likely school district policy in his use of his school district credit card.

The Fox C-6 school board's ethics should be called into question for even allowing Dan Baker to be interviewed for the principal's job at Seckman Elementary School in the first place. Dan and Angie Burns Baker should have been fired last summer after the internet scandal broke but fear of violating their contracts kept the board from doing so.

Dr. Wipke and the Fox C-6 School Board will have to answer to the public and the media if Dan Baker and Angie Baker are offered contracts for anything other than a teaching job in our district. They both are automatically eligible for a teaching job due to teacher tenure law. Administrators don't have tenure but have tenure as teachers if they taught for 5 or more years in the district.

Doug Flowers in the St. Joseph School District (SJSD) was recently offered only a teaching contract after the recent release of the SJSD's state audit. Doug Flowers was the assistant superintendent of Human Resources at SJSD prior to being reassigned to other administrative duties until his contract expires June 30.

Please contact Dr. Wipke and your Fox C-6 school board members before Dan Baker is offered a contract for another administrative position in the Fox C-6 School District. The morale in the district cannot be seriously improved until the Bakers are no longer employed by the district.

Click on the link below to watch KMOV News 4's coverage of Fox's Voluntary Separation Incentive Plan payout.

KMOV 4 News Covers Fox's $2.72+ Million Dollar Voluntary Separation Incentive Plan Payout