Julie Zupfer-Anderson
Sartell
As school-district residents, we all want an ethical school board, right? Here are a few examples why I question the ethics of our three new board members.
At board meetings, residents are able to sign up to speak. That involves filling out a google form with name, address and the public-address topic. Once the forms are submitted, only eight people have access to that privileged information – the six school board members, the superintendent and the superintendent’s executive assistant. Anyone else wishing to receive that information would need to follow the public-data request process. From personal experience I know that public-data requests can take a long time to receive, not just a few days.
On March 13, I submitted a “Public Forum Speaker Request Form” for the March 20 board meeting. My topic was “School Board Ethics and the Recent Behavior of Scott Wenshau (board member).” The behavior I wanted to address was Wenshau’s “slow clapping” while a high school student was speaking during the February board meeting and the photos he took of teachers that found their way onto the “Kids Over Politics” Facebook site. Both are examples of disrespectful, bullying behavior.
Imagine my surprise when I received a copy of the following email on March 19:
“Hi Everyone!
It appears the opposition is intending to attack one of our new board members in a serious way on Monday night. That is a tremendous burden to carry if only the opposition is in attendance and they will be there with numbers to attack! Please encourage everyone in your sphere of influence to attend and support our board members. We have gained a lot of ground in the past 20 months and now is the time to make sure we keep it!!! Our board members desperately need you on Monday night!
Thank You!”
(That email was signed by a St. Cloud man.)
As soon as I saw that email, I knew my public forum topic was the impetus for it. So how did the St. Cloud man receive information that would cause him to send out that email? He clearly identifies the three new board members as “our” board members, not once, not twice but three times.
Would the other three previously elected board members or the superintendent or his executive assistant have any motivation to provide that privileged information to the St. Cloud emailer? Hardly a logical conclusion.
A pattern is developing here. Our new three board members seem to be just fine with providing privileged information to a group that will use it for political gain.
The man who wrote the email and another man whom I won’t identify are the purported leaders of the group “Kids Over Politics,” a group extremely critical of our school district. Neither of those two men live in our school district nor do they have children in our school district. Yet that writer had no problem claiming board members as “ours,” as if they were bought and paid for by the Kids Over Politics group.
Our school board has two superintendent searches coming up in the next year, searches that will involve the board members having access to highly confidential information. If that confidentiality is not maintained, our district could be in serious legal peril. And guess who ultimately pays when school districts and/or school board members get sued? We the taxpayers do! I have grave concerns about that information in the hands of our three new board members.
Speak up. Call or email board members. Attend board meetings. Before the involvement of the Kids Over Politics group, our district had a reputation as one of the best in the state. That excellence is still there in our students, teachers, administrators and staff.
Let’s not let a small group of politically motivated people with a negative, combative agenda tarnish our reputation or put our school district in jeopardy.
(Note: Zupfer-Anderson, a former member of the Sartell-St. Stephen School Board, who served on that board for 10 years.)
