During last Tuesday’s Park City School District meeting, the school board voted to reimburse its members for legal fees incurred while defending themselves against charges of electioneering during last Fall’s bond campaign. During the meeting, board member Nancy Garrison said, “it’s important that each of us know from these many months since several community members, in an effort to defeat the bond, made unsubstantiated accusation about board members that resulted in an enormous waste of tax payers, not taxpayers, but the state Attorney General’s office and county attorney’s office had to investigate claims that were found without basis and required us to hire legal council.”

Board member Phil Kaplan supported the reimbursement by saying that the law said that the school district had to reimburse board members for any charges, and that since the County Attorney found the issue was baseless, that it was even more imperative that school board members be reimbursed. School Board member Julie Eihausen said, “Being investigated for a criminal act was very difficult.”

During the bond election, I pushed hard that the school board should be investigated. There were two main issues that were brought up by the public. One was that school board members Nancy Garrison and Tanya Knauer made a video, at the High School, likely using school equipment, likely involving school personnel that some construed as pushing the bond. According to Utah Code: “Unless specifically required by law, and except as provided in Section 20A-11-1206, a public entity may not make an expenditure from public funds for political purposes or to influence a ballot proposition.” The second issue was that some students alleged, that during assemblies, school board members told students to have their parents vote for the bond.

Did these actions occur and did they violate the law? This is the entirety of the press release issued by the County Attorney’s office on the topic. “Summit County Attorney Robert Hilder has completed an investigation into citizen concerns regarding the school bond ballot proposition included on the November 2015 ballot. He has determined that there is no legal or factual basis to file charges against any elected or appointed officials.”

So, the County Attorney felt there was not a basis for filing charges. Fair enough. That doesn’t mean that there was not a basis for investigating the charges. These are serious accusations and I’m glad that the County Attorney took them seriously. We should be glad that we live in a system where there is judicial oversight and elected and appointed officials do have checks and balances.

So, lucky for citizens in Park City, our system both worked the way it should and the County Attorney found that no wrong-doing took place. Great.

Yet now we get to the school board’s decision to be reimbursed for hiring individual attorneys regarding the matter. It appears that Mr. Kaplan is right that Utah code says that public employees or officers will be reimbursed if they are indicted or charges are filed against the person and the charges are dismissed are quashed. The question I’ve had since I heard about the reimbursement is why they didn’t wait until they were formally charged to hire attorneys. Now reading the Utah Code, what I really wonder is if these fees are really reimbursable per the law, since they were not even charged?

I also found a response to a question by school board members during an interview on KPCW a little self-serving. KPCW asked the school board members, “Does this [being investigated] have a chilling effect for someone who wants to be on the school board?” The curt response was, “I don’t know, I would think so.” However, also keep in mind, that the anti-bond people also thought they were being investigated by the County Attorney for passing out material outside of Ecker Hill School during a bond presentation. Whether they ultimately were being investigated wasn’t addressed in the County Attorney’s press release. However, I know some of the members were concerned. Does that have a chilling effect on free speech?

The truth is that public service is messy.

Do you have one of those friends that continually finds himself in a mess? As time goes on you start wondering, “Does he just enjoy the drama, is he just unlucky, or is there something about the way he acts that continually brings on issues?”

I’m starting to ask myself that question of the Park City School District. There are many historical examples, from a former Park City Principal who sued the district, to firing of employees, to the recent bond process, to the fact we have over $8 million in deferred maintenance (not done) that stretches back almost a decade on TMJH, and culminating in this week’s (or perhaps better said… Last October’s) security incident at Park City High School.

Don’t get me wrong, I know school systems are complicated, especially with all the kids, parents, teachers, and administrators that often have different objectives and methods. Yet, if we take the example of this week’s “terrorist threat” to Park City High School, the mess surrounding it was avoidable. How? Be Transparent. ALL THE TIME.

And when I say BE TRANSPARENT ALL THE TIME, I don’t mean the lip service we often get that “we are trying to be more transparent.” That’s not acceptable. True transparency is a way of thought and being. It’s a default stance on EVERY issue, and only when transparency is impossible due to legal or safety issues, do you do it differently.

In this case, back in October the district could have notified parents of the threat. I have seen some claims that the district thought the issue was handled, that information couldn’t be released due to FERPA laws (student records release laws), that the district was doing everything necessary by working with the police and internal teams, and that the system worked like it should.

Yet what happened? The issue spun out of control led by students, then parents, and maybe even some teachers. Was the uproar unwarranted? No. It’s what happens when information is withheld and then people find out about an event of serious nature. They become angry because they weren’t told about what is going on … and especially about a subject (their kids) that is of utmost importance.

If the district had notified everyone of what happened in October (in real time), parents would have been concerned. They would have contacted the district. They may have held their kids out of school for a day or two. However, their ire would be directed at the person making the threats, instead of the school district. The district would be the good guy — the entity protecting our kids!

Instead, the school district is the villain. People ask questions about why the district “covered up” the incident and didn’t tell people about May 3. Rumors start and take on a life of their own. People (like me) demand to know that the person(s) making threats was/were punished per school policy. People question both the capability and decisioning making of school district administrators and the school board.

Perhaps worse, it causes people to act out of character. In response to the public’s outcry over the security issue, Park City School Board Member Julie Eihausen wrote on Facebook:

FERPA is a Federal Law. While many see flaws, it is a law and the District must abide by it, even at the dismay and anger of our community. There is/was no cover up-our District deals with this crap every day. Kids are STUPID. They say things they don’t mean. We engage law enforcement and other professionals and negate threats EVERY day.

-Julie Eihausen on Facebook 5/3/2016

Kids are Stupid? Our schools are threatened every day? I don’t know Ms. Eihausen personally. However, I have emailed her about school district issues. I have spoken with her on the phone a few times. One thing I know for certain is that Ms. Eihausen cares for our kids. If your kid was standing out in the rain after a football game, Ms Eihausen would pick her up and take her home. That’s just who she is.

Yet she unfortunately uses the STUPID word. I correct my 4 year old when he calls his fellow 4-year-olds stupid… She then says that the district deals with this crap every day. That may be true, but in reality, our district is the Goldman Sachs of school districts. Our District is paid better to BE BETTER. Our Superintendent’s total compensation is $245,000 a year. So, if everything isn’t perfect, our district has a problem. Yet, our school board members appear to feel they have to come to the district’s defense… and in turn may say unfortunate things.

Had the district disclosed the issue last October, it wouldn’t be an issue now.

Had the district disclosed the issue last October, our high school parking lot, on an AP test day, wouldn’t be filled with Police Cruisers and Fire Department personnel.

Had the district disclosed the issue last October, I wouldn’t have to write an article like this.

Transparency.

You may be saying, “It seems like transparency is a no-brainer.” Yeah!

But the school district still fights us. I’ve been pushing to find out whether the student that committed the crime of threatening the school, threatening teacher, and threatening an administrator was suspended for 10 days and then was referred to the Superintendent for a year-long supsnesion per our school policies.

The district won’t comment, so they say, due to FERPA laws (Family Educational Privacy Laws Act). Yet FERPA laws are about personally identifiable student records … and my request is about general punishment for “whoever” committed the crime. They likely could tell us what punishment they levied, but they won’t, which leaves me to surmise that the student wasn’t punished per policy. Why?

Two o

Citizen: Where can I find out more about people running?

Molly Miller: Information is on Website.

Tania Knauer: A voter guide is in the Park Record a couple of weeks before election. Primary is June 28th via mail in ballot.

Ember Conley: Community conversation about mental health may 23rd 6:30-7:30PM at Ecker Hill. Will go through emergency response plan. Law enforcement will be there. Questions will be answered.

Citizen: How can I find out which school district area I live in.

Andrew Caplan: The county has a map.

Citizen: What is the district policy when two students get in a fight?

Ember Conley: After 13 years of being an administrator, there are never agreeable policies. The policy is that if they are both, say hitting, they are both suspended.

Citizen: What if one student is passive?

Ember Conley: We do an investigation. There are reasons why a student may not be suspended if they were walking away. Sometimes, this happens in front of a camera. ometimes we do have flexibility with the time period of the suspension.

Tania Knauer: Sometimes our counselor dig in after the fact. Sometimes kids will start a fight because they were being bullied. Our counselors are good at digging in.

Ember Conley: If something happens off campus and comes back on campus and causes a disruption. We can suspend them based on their actions that caused disruption. An example may be a fight that happens offsite but it causes a commotion when they come back.

This has to be the creepiest thing I have seen in a long time. As I bike along the Rasmussen trail

Before Five Guys. Before Del Taco. Before Pure Barre… there was a discussion on the need for walkability at the Kimball Village. That never happened. Very few of our citizens are walking from Whole Foods to Michaels to do their shopping. There is a government plan to have a circulator bus that will go from Wal-mart and circulate through Kimball Junction. But, you know, riding a circulator bus (if anyone rides it) isn’t really walking.

Recently we posted about a separation agreement between the Associate Superintendent and the Park City School District. This brought out a number of comments from interested citizens. Most of those comments were anonymous. One of our school board members made a comment asking the “only one putting their name on your comment” to contact the school board. While

The Park Record is reporting that