STEVEN KOVAC

The Freedom of Information Act isn’t just for reporters. It is a powerful tool for the public’s use, too, as demonstrated last year by a citizens’ group searching for the truth about the abrupt resignations of several popular school principals.

In the aftermath of the ensuing controversy, and largely as a result of information that came to light through FOIA requests by the Sanilac County News and citizens in the Croswell-Lexington School District, the district’s superintendent and assistant superintendent, plus the president, vice president and secretary of the school board all resigned. A fourth board member was defeated for re-election in November.

“The ONLY avenue we had to the truth was FOIA,” Bev Jarosz, a leader of the citizens’ group, said in an e-mail to this reporter. “It forced people to provide information and revealed ‘hidden facts’ that eventually led to the light of the truth.”

The huge shake-up in the 2,000-student Thumb Area school district is worth noting as Michigan and the nation mark Sunshine Week March 12-18, a period designated by the American Society of News Editors and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press to call attention to the tools available to keep government officials accountable to the public they serve.

In Croswell-Lexington, three of the school district’s five principals were forced to resign by the superintendent because they had not renewed their state certifications to be school administrators. The renewal process involved filling out an online form and paying a filing fee to the Michigan Department of Education.

Two of the principals corrected the problem within hours of being notified by the superintendent and the third — who initially asserted that his status as an administrator was “grandfathered” under state law — went online and complied anyway within three days.

As word leaked out to an incredulous community that the school board intended to accept the resignations of all three principals for this seemingly inconsequential reason, 150 people packed a meeting to protest that the action was harsh and unnecessary.

Nevertheless, acting under a parliamentary device called a “consent agenda,” the school board accepted the resignations with no discussion.

All that the superintendent would say in response to inquiries from community members and the press was that, on advice of its lawyer, the district would not comment or provide any further details. A “gag clause” in the resignation letters kept the principals silent.

However, in response to this reporter’s questioning, the board president did say that the district was recently “audited” by the state and fined over the uncertified principals. I used FOIA to ask the state and the school district for any and all documents and correspondence about the “audit” and the principals.

While the superintendent offered her own terse narrative of events, the state’s response to the FOIA request revealed that the so-called “audit” was simply a consulting visit by a state school official that had nothing to do with the principals’ certifications.

FOIA requests also revealed that the Cros-Lex superintendent herself had reported the principals’ lapsed certifications to the state, resulting in a fine against the district of $107,000. Another FOIA request revealed that Michigan superintendents had been alerted in a letter from the state the previous October to check on all educators’ certifications in their districts, something the Cros-Lex superintendent failed to do until the following March 4.

Instead of handling the matter in-house and holding all of the district’s principals to the same standard, the superintendent then selectively “self-reported” the lack of three certifications to the Michigan Department of Educations — an action, it was later revealed, that the state did not require.

Also, the case of a fourth principal who lacked current certification was somehow overlooked by the administration.

With more complete information dragged into the light, it was not hard to conclude, as many people did, that the superintendent wanted the three principals gone and had attempted to manipulate a situation to make that happen.

Here was a classic case — which only got worse as the weeks went by and further administrative missteps occurred and were uncovered — of public officials concealing and obfuscating facts, dissembling, presenting self-serving half-truths and/or spinning a narrative that minimized the administration’s own failures and questionable actions.

As the full story came out, thanks to FOIA, the superintendent and the district’s Director of Curriculum and Operations resigned the following month.

And as the fallout rippled further through the school board’s ranks, the state Department of Education ultimately determined that the principal claiming he was “grandfathered,” was never actually out of compliance, and it refunded $36,000 in penalties.

That principal has since sought employment elsewhere. Another of the principals was reinstated, and the third found a principal’s job in another district.

This house cleaning was made possible because people demanded accountability for the actions of public officials and used FOIA to let the sunshine in.

Editor’s note: Steven Kovac is a reporter for the Sanilac County News who wrote this on behalf of the Michigan Coalition for Open Government, (http://miopengov.org), a tax exempt, Michigan nonprofit corporation founded to promote and protect transparency and accountability in government at the local, state and federal levels. Contact him by e-mail at skovac@mihomepaper.com.