After the Board of Education voted Monday, October 26, to hire an investigator to look into recently leaked communications, member David Freedman announced Tuesday, October 27, that he released one of the leaked communications.

An intraboard e-mail and a text message were released in recent weeks through social media and shared by nonboard members. The information shared in the communications pertained to then-upcoming board discussions, an executive session, and dialogue with the board’s attorney.

Mr Freedman took responsibility for releasing the e-mail, but not for releasing the text message.

By Wednesday, October 28, Board of Education Chair Keith Alexander said he was holding off looking into hiring an investigator until the school board can further discuss the most recent news on the topic at its next scheduled meeting, Wednesday, November 4.

“In an effort to shed some light on this very serious issue I released the email in question from our former board attorney, Floyd Dugas,” Mr Freedman announced in a statement on Tuesday evening.

Mr Freedman continued, saying the information contained in the e-mail and the replies to it “contributes to the culture of circumventing the proper process. Even this information should only have been discussed during a properly noticed executive session of the BOE.”

Explaining why he released the e-mail, Mr Freedman said he became “more and more discouraged this election season watching members of the BOE in both parties accuse other elected officials of back room politics when it is an ongoing problem on the board I serve on.”

After reading comments on social media and hearing allegations about a meeting in June between Legislative Council Chair Mary Ann Jacob, outgoing Board of Finance Chair John Kortze, and Superintendent of Schools Joseph V. Erardi, Jr, Mr Freedman said on Wednesday that he became frustrated.

“I may not have gone through the right channels,” Mr Freedman said, “but everyone makes mistakes.”

Mr Freedman said he reacted to the social media situation by sharing the e-mail — which was dated January 14, 2014 — when he “had had enough.”

“This is a way for me to allow this to hopefully be an educational opportunity for folks,” Mr Freedman said on Wednesday, adding that now the board can come together as a team to make changes internally to build up trust in the community.

Explaining that he did not believe he was violating attorney-client privilege — as the information contained in the e-mail was eventually voted on by the board and is now part of public record — Mr Freedman said in his statement that he would accept the judgment of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Commission on his actions, “rather than accept responsibility to go on a witch-hunt spending taxpayer dollars to uncover who sent the email, which is unacceptable.”

The statement later said, “So [I] am coming forward to accept full responsibility as the person who released the email in an effort to expose wrongdoing. I can only hope that by doing so we can now move forward and correct the issues that led to this place and ensure that we no longer engage in meeting via email, text messaging, or telephone. The voters who elected us deserve better.”

Saying that his hope for the school board, other boards, and elected officials in town is that they educate themselves fully on the FOIA, the statement added that he hopes the school board “will not only watch the letter of the law but actually embrace the spirit of the law, which is to conduct all its business, with the exception of those items under the very narrow confines of executive session, fully in the public eye, as those who elect us expect.”

Mr Freedman concluded his statement with, “If the voters decide they want me to continue to serve, I pledge to go directly to the FOIA Commission with any future concerns as soon as they occur.”

Mr Freedman is up for reelection on next week’s ballot.

Hiring An Investigator

Before Mr Freedman’s statement was released, the Board of Education conducted a special meeting on October 26, and voted, following an executive session that lasted about two hours, to hire an investigator to look into the leaked communications.

The school board had discussed the leaked e-mail during its meeting on Tuesday, October 20. At that meeting, Mr Alexander said no one had come forward to accept responsibility for the leaked e-mail, and, “To my knowledge this was not [brought] through FOI, because it would have been singled out as an item that was attorney-client privilege.”

After speaking with two attorneys, Mr Alexander said both believed the e-mail was “acceptable under the terms of how it should be done, but also attorney-client privilege.”

By the end of last week the special meeting had been scheduled for Monday, October 26.

Following the executive session on Monday, Mr Alexander said the concern was that a “board communication that was covered by attorney-client privilege … was released to the public. We are concerned about how that would happen and what we should be doing about it.”

Mr Alexander said the board did not want to have mistakes and would prefer to have “everything above board.”

“If someone intentionally sends out a piece of information that they are not supposed to, then we kind of need to know who it is so that we can feel comfortable that our own privacy is being properly managed as far as the board is concerned,” said Mr Alexander.

Board members present for the executive session, in addition to Mr Alexander, were Vice Chair Laura Roche and members Debbie Leidlein, Michelle Ku, and John Vouros. Secretary Kathy Hamilton and Mr Freedman were not present for the special meeting.

After reviewing board policies, Ms Roche said she feels the school board needed to come to an understanding of how the breach occurred.

“The integrity of our board is something that I think we all value, and we need to really understand how this happened so we can speak to it and make sure we can go forward,” said Ms Roche.

Ms Leidlein and Mr Vouros spoke about trust.

“It is very difficult to sit on a board and not be able to trust members of a Board of Education where we are supposed to be collaboratively working here,” said Mr Vouros.

Saying undermining the board prevents work from being done, Ms Ku added, “Those who have received the confidential information could also come forward. That would allow us to… clarify where it came from.”

The members present voted unanimously to have Mr Alexander initiate the “retention of an independent investigator for the purpose of conducting an investigation regarding the unauthorized disclosure of attorney-client privilege information.”

Mr Alexander said he would work with Superintendent of Schools Joseph V. Erardi, Jr, and the school board’s attorney to find an investigator and assess the cost.

“Obviously we don’t have to spend the money if we have somebody come forward and clarify everything,” Mr Alexander said.

Following the special meeting, Mr Alexander said the cost of hiring an investigator was a concern for him, “Particularly because there are people who could remove the need for an investigation simply by accepting responsibility. This was disclosure of privileged information and any board member who felt there was an issue with the privilege or the information could have gone through the proper channels to address either concern. Instead of working through this breach, we are left with a lack of trust that we need to deal with.”

By early in the afternoon on Tuesday, October 27, before Mr Freedman released his statement, Mr Alexander said the plan was to present details on hiring an investigator to the Board of Education during its next meeting on November 4.

The announcement that evening changed those plans.

On Wednesday, Mr Alexander said he is holding off looking into hiring an investigator, regarding the leaked text message, and the topic will be brought up with the school board at its next meeting.

While Mr Alexander said he has no idea how the board will address all the issues of trust, he said the situation is “a loss of trust that needs to be managed. And I think the board works hard to try to follow these rules.”

Mr Alexander said the school board may decide to bring in an FOI presenter, as it has in the past when new board members are seated, and it may ask a presenter to speak about attorney-client privilege.

When asked how the board would address the leaked information, Mr Alexander said the board would discuss its options, which could include a decision to censure the board member(s) in question.