By Randy Evans, Iowa FOI Council president
As Iowans headed to the polls this week to elect local school board members, they faced an issue beyond the usual ones of taxes, student achievement, teacher pay, curriculum and enrollment.
This year, school board and administrators’ performance and trustworthiness were front and center in some school districts. And on that, for voters, it is what they do not know that might hurt them.
Case in point: The state’s largest district, the Des Moines Public Schools, was thrust into the national spotlight two months ago when federal agents arrested Superintendent Ian Roberts for being in the United States without legal permission.
Only then, and only by the belated work of journalists, did the public learn that he had fictitious entries on his resume and that the district had withheld facts and information about him.
Then last month, the district placed Robert Lundin, the chief academic officer of the Des Moines Public Schools, on paid administrative leave without giving any explanation to the district’s residents. If that were not frustrating enough, school officials waited two weeks before announcing his suspension.
So, Des Moines voters went to the polls still wondering why the district suspended a key administrator.
Had Lundin misled school officials about his academic credentials as Roberts did? Were there performance questions about Lundin’s past work that were not disclosed in his pre-employment background checks? Or does his suspension have something to do with his work in Des Moines?
Whatever the case, this is not a matter of idle curiosity. Lundin received $16,000 in pay over the past month for doing no work.
On the heels of the embarrassment over the Roberts mess, the unexplained issues with Lundin fuel fresh doubt about the quality of the management and hiring decisions within the Des Moines Public Schools and the level of oversight school board members provide, including two who sought reelection Tuesday.
Those two and their counterparts on the publicly elected school boards overseeing Iowa’s 325 districts erode the trust and confidence of their constituents each time they push aside openness and accountability and choose to shroud controversies with secrecy.
Des Moines has not cornered the market on secrecy-induced skepticism and distrust. Its board members are not alone in thinking the preferred practice under Iowa’s open meetings and public records laws is to follow a code of silence when tough issues arise.
The board overseeing the Sioux City Community Schools, Iowa’s fourth-largest district, has taken the code of silence approach regarding its new superintendent. Juan Cordova began work on July 1, with an annual salary of $275,000.
But three days before classes started in August, the board met in closed session and approved Cordova’s request for a one-month leave of absence. No reason was given to the public for his absence, the Sioux City Journal reported.
Four days into the new school year, Cordova returned to work. Coincidentally — or maybe not, no one will say — the Iowa Board of Educational Examiners issued him an Iowa superintendent’s license that same day. The school district’s communications director said the district would not provide additional information concerning Cordova’s leave.
Three weeks later, in mid-September, the Sioux City board called a special meeting for the stated purpose of evaluating the professional competency of an individual whose appointment, hiring, performance or discharge was being considered. Board member Lance Ehmcke urged the board to meet in public, not in private, to discuss what he said were rumors about Cordova, the Journal reported.
“What I’m saying is, this going and having a secret meeting with all the stuff that’s rumored around the community … we have a public figure, we might as well have a discussion so that the rest of the community knows what it’s really about,” Ehmcke said.
Board President Jan George disagreed. “What you’ve done, Mr. Ehmcke, is you already named that person, and to have a discussion out here, a free and frank discussion, could potentially take that person’s performance or reputation and harm it.”
The board did not have enough votes in favor of a closed session, so the meeting abruptly adjourned.
Whatever the facts or rumors were, the matter has not gone away. Neither has the code of silence.
In mid-October, the board hired Lynch Dallas, a Cedar Rapids law firm that regularly represents schools, to investigate a personnel matter. The school board did not say what or who was under investigation.
Materials provided to board members and the public said the investigation was related to a matter affecting student achievement. The materials elaborated, “Ensuring appropriate review of personnel matters fosters a safe and welcoming work and educational environment. In a safe educational environment, students can have the support they need to thrive academically.”
George, the board president who ran for reelection this week along with two other board incumbents, told the Journal, “We’re hoping to have everything cleared up and cleaned up in a couple of weeks.”
Last week, just days before the election, the school board held two more closed sessions. The board received the Lynch Dallas report in the first session and then discussed the report in the second session.
The board and a Lynch Dallas attorney spent 90 minutes in the first session. They prevented Cordova from entering that meeting.
In voting to go into the second closed session, the board cited the “professional competency” section of the open meetings law that allows boards to exclude the public “when necessary to prevent needless and irreparable injury to that individual’s reputation.”
Cordova did not attend the second session, which lasted an hour and 45 minutes. But his attorney attended part of the session.
After reconvening in public, the board adjourned without comment or action.
Whatever its reasons for holding the closed meetings, the school board’s silence will not stop the rumor mill in Sioux City from grinding, any more than the secrecy in Des Moines has quelled concerns over Robert Lundin’s suspension.
So, voters were sent to the polls uninformed, while the reputations of high-ranking and well-paid officials like Cordova and Lundin are left to the rumor and innuendo that fill the void whenever public officials withhold facts.