Lessons Learned from the School Board — the Hard Way.
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]
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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