Lessons Learned from the School Board — the Hard Way.

By DEBRA RADE

CHAPTER TWO -- Criminal Acts and Cover Ups

 

Readers are reminded that Chapter One reviewed the preliminary part of the Whistleblower Letter sent to Gerry Meister and me in October 2018 — “Background and Overview.” That section focused on the results of an initial independent investigation conducted by Robbins Schwartz in 2016. As a result of that investigation, School Board of Township School District 113 directed Superintendent Christopher Dignam to issue a “Confidential Memorandum and Final Warning Resolution” to the Highland Park High School (HPHS) Principal who had intentionally falsified a school report and submitted it to the State of Illinois. The Resolution was issued in July 2016, and included a five-day, unpaid suspension as the primary reprimand.

The Principal returned to the job and continued in his position throughout the next academic year. In March 2017, he announced his departure from District 113 at the end of the school year 2017 and that he had accepted a job as principal at a nearby high school.

 

Reasonable minds might differ on the appropriate discipline of a principal for any variety of possible non-compliance or malfeasance. People might disagree on whether a principal, or a superintendent, should ever be disciplined with an unpaid suspension — if it was conduct egregious enough to be suspended, it may be conduct bad enough to be worthy of termination. In any event, intentionally falsifying records is a significant act, violates Illinois law, and goes to the very core of character. Yet, this report would likely have never been written if the saga stopped at this point.

 

The Whistleblowers did not mince words about what happened next: “Criminal Acts and Cover Ups.” This next section of the Whistleblower Letter alleges wrongdoing the following year, in June 2017, not just by the Principal, but also by Assistant Principal No. 1 (AP#1) and Assistant Principal No. 2 (AP#2) who departed District 113 at the same time. What followed next appears to be a coordinated, conspiratorial event among this group of former District 113 administrators. There is no intention to protect these individuals by not referring to them by name. Rather, this report is about holding the School Board accountable, not about school administrators who are long gone from District 113.  

Before starting to read the section of alleged “Criminal Acts and Coverups,” please remember:

 

This report is based on allegations from the Whistleblower Letter. Even though some allegations are confirmed in supportive documents, readers are reminded that, ultimately, no one mentioned in this report has ever been charged with an alleged crime(s) or convicted of one.

 

 

The Whistleblowers provided detailed, serious allegations:

 

• “On June 30, 2017, what would turn out to be one of the worst acts of vandalism and destruction of school district property and record destruction in Illinois history by employed principals was discovered by incoming principal Liz Robertson… “

 

• “In June 2017 (between approximately June 12 - 28), [Principal, AP#1, and AP#2] destroyed tens upon tens of thousands of pages of public documents (threw them in the dumpster and removed documents/files/materials from HPHS's property) upon resigning from District 113. They destroyed district property and records and left their offices almost 100% empty with nothing in them for the new principal and assistant principals.

 

• “[AP#2] also destroyed and trashed 44,555 emails and went into the district's server and deleted and trashed 1,233 documents and the district's Google drive and deleted and trashed 1,007 electronic documents. These criminal acts were memorialized as "electronic trail" evidence and their identification and retrieval was performed and attested to by district witnesses…”

 

• “When the acts of destruction, vandalism, and theft were discovered and documents could not be found, the new HPHS administration and superintendent Dignam reported it to the board of education. Both [AP#1’s] office and [AP#2’s] office were next to completely empty. [Principal’s] office was almost completely empty. New principal Liz Robertson found student records in the recycle bin in the principal's office. One set of records was for a student who had hired an attorney regarding a discipline matter and another for a student who experienced a … injury during a football game …[details deleted for privacy reasons] and was still experiencing the physical effects of the injury ([their] files were destroyed and thrown away). The student's medical records were in the trash along with some notes but the vast majority (95%) of the student's entire file was destroyed…”

 

• “The empty offices, documents in the recycle bin and the retrieval of materials from the compactor were all memorialized in video and still images. The actual removal of documents from the assistant principals' offices in a gondola to be placed in the garbage compactor was also captured in security video footage. In addition, [AP#2] was captured on security cameras removing two enormous cartloads of documents, files, etc. to [their] automobile. These were all property and work products of the district.”

 

• “By the end of September/early October 2017, the superintendent, the superintendent’s assistant…, and [other, remaining] HPHS principals had sorted and organized the materials from the compactor. This was work that should have never had to be performed by senior school leaders and took time away from them performing normal, expected duties, not those as the result of criminal misconduct performed by former principals/administrators.”

 

• “In November 2017, [Superintendent Christopher Dignam] reported to the board yet again about the crimes and vandalism committed and informed the board of education that he would be hiring an independent law firm to once again handle a matter due to Tony Loizzi's conflict of interests. Robbins Schwartz would be handing the reporting of potential crimes to the state's attorney. The law firm would be providing an impartial review and identifying any statutes that were broken to protect the district and community. In addition, if statutes were broken the superintendent reported to the board he fully intended on pressing charges and reporting it the police and ISBE (the Illinois State Board of Education) and ROE (the Regional Office of Education). Board members [Julie] Gordon, [Debra] Hymen, [Stacey] Myer [sic], and [Elizabeth] Garlovsky were not supportive and very unhappy that the superintendent was moving forward with investigating the incident. Dr. Dignam informed the board he "was not asking for permission" as he believed ‘crimes were committed and had to retain the law firm and report the findings.’”

 

• In December 2017, Robbins Schwartz determined several crimes may have been committed and statutes violated and eventually referred the matter to the States Attorneys Office for an investigation.

 

• “An independent law firm (other than the district's firm HLERK) had to be hired because [Principal] is friends with the district's law firm attorney, Mr. Tony Loizzi, who used to also be an employee at the district (he was the district's HR director). Mr. Loizzi was and still is to this day, conflicted. He is a former employee and has multiple conflicts of interest with his position.”
  
  
• “On January 16, 2018, District 113 received a Grand Jury Subpoena from the Lake County States Attorney’s Office for documents related to the acts of vandalism and destruction of public records/document.”

 

The Whistleblowers provided a list of laws that they considered relevant to the destruction of District 113’s records: [all will be hyperlinked]

 

• Illinois Criminal Code – Tampering with Public Records (720 ILCS 5/32-8)
• Illinois Criminal Code – Theft (720 ILCS 5/16-1)
• Illinois Criminal Code – Criminal Damage to Government Supported Property (720 ILCS 5/21-1.01)
• Illinois Criminal Code – Official Misconduct (720 ILCS 5/33-3); and,
• Local Records Act (50 ILCS 205/1 et seq.)

 

They did not mention other laws that may have been violated, including federal and state privacy laws such as FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act), HIPAA Privacy and Illinois School Student Records Act 105 ILCS 10.

 

The Whistleblowers now had my full attention. Next steps were clear. I arranged to meet with the Lake County States Attorney’s office to hand over the Whistleblower Letter and register a complaint as a resident of Highland Park.

Links to other chapters of this report:
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Three
Chapter Four


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