TCAPS trustees vote to release complaint letter against former superintendent after 20-month legal battle | News

TRAVERSE CITY – Exactly 20 months ago, Ann Cardon signed a separation agreement that would effectively end her brief tenure as superintendent of Northern Michigan’s largest school district and pay her $ 180,000 to resign.

The Traverse City Area Public Schools Board of Education did not ratify the agreement and the sizeable payout until two days later, on October 17, 2019. Despite the end of the relationship, the controversy surrounding Cardon’s unexpected departure was still in its infancy.

The ordeal sort of came to an end in the first few minutes of Tuesday, when the trustees of the TCAPS board of directors voted 6-0 over a letter of complaint against Cardon, which was the focus of public unrest, and a lawsuit by Record-Eagle Against the district to publish then board chairman Sue Kelly. Kelly – who wrote the letter of complaint and distributed it for the closed session on October 7, 2019 – was absent from the meeting on Monday. Nonetheless, Scott Newman-Bale, chairman of the board of directors of TCAPS, said she supported the board’s decision.

The trustees met in a closed session late Monday evening for 51 minutes before returning to conference room C of the TCAPS administration building. The unanimous vote took place one minute after midnight and towards the end of the six-hour marathon meeting.

Newman-Bale said the timing was appropriate and symbolic as the board decision signaled a “new day” at TCAPS.

“It was a challenge, but not for lack of will,” said Newman-Bale. “We are happy to have finally reached this point. It was a long way.”

Newman-Bale expects the letter to be released to Record-Eagle on Tuesday. The board approved directing TCAPS attorney Greg Mair to mail the letter to Record-Eagle’s attorney. Newman-Bale said he would call Mair Tuesday morning with the instruction.

The first court order ordering the district’s release of the letter came from 13th District Court Judge Kevin Elsenheimer almost 11 months ago in July 2020, but an appeal filed by TCAPS slowed the process.

It was only after May 13, when a Michigan Appellate Body unanimously decided that the letter must be published, did the county and its lawyer begin publishing the document that sparked so much zeal in the TCAPS community.

Although TCAPS could have challenged the appeal court’s judgment, the board of directors also unanimously decided during the meeting not to take this legal route and instead to discontinue at least part of the action.

Board Vice-President Erica Moon Mohr, who has campaigned for the letter to be published since it was presented to the board for a closed session on October 7, 2019, said the focus is now on moving forward.

“Unfortunately that took a long time, but it is the right decision,” said Moon Mohr.

On October 10, 2019, the Record-Eagle submitted an application under the Freedom of Information Act for the letter of complaint. TCAPS denied both the motion and subsequent appeals for the document.

The Record-Eagle filed a lawsuit in January 2020 in response to the denials and alleged violations of the Open Meetings Act and FOIA. Both Elsenheimer and the Michigan Court of Appeals won the Record-Eagle, saying TCAPS had inappropriately alleged an OMA exemption allowed district officials to protect the letter from FOIA requests without a court order.

The Court of Appeal’s decision set a binding precedent for the state and closed a potential loophole that would have given public governing bodies nationwide cover to hide records that would otherwise be subject to the FOIA.

“This is an important milestone in our community’s understanding of how our elected officers conduct themselves,” said Nate Payne, Editor-in-Chief of Record-Eagle. “Unfortunately, parents, teachers, and local taxpayers had to wait 20 months and perform legal backflips to get a glimpse of what we knew from the start as a public record.”

Much of the content of the letter is unlikely to come as a surprise to many who followed the inflammatory discussion surrounding Cardon’s fall 2019 departure.

Emails Record-Eagle received through other FOIA inquiries indicate that some district officials were upset. Cardon, who was less than three months into her term, had not yet met with the teachers’ union leaders. There were problems between Cardon and former trustees Jane Klegman, Jeff Leonhardt, and Pam Forton, which stemmed from complaints about the superintendent’s communication skills. Cardon also endorsed the School Finance Research Collaborative’s findings on school finance equity, which the TCAPS board publicly rejected.

Former TCAPS trustee Bill Smith reached out to the board ahead of the “imminent publication” of the letter of complaint. Smith thanked the staff, volunteers, and board members who “handled this whole matter with compassion and integrity, regardless of where they came from.”

“I expect there will be a series of revelations about how we took over a unanimously accepted superintendent and collapsed so quickly and degenerated at a very destructive time,” said Smith. “The most important thing is to study this, to learn how to prevent the enormous destruction that has happened. It is not time to name heroes or villains. “

The Record-Eagle will publish the letter of complaint after publication.

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