In Bucks County, Pennsylvania, a hard-right school board filled with Moms for Liberty members was swept out of office in November. But at the last minute they decided in their final board meeting to show their appreciation for the school superintendent who had backed their agenda:
A Pennsylvania school board that banned books, Pride flags and transgender athletes slipped a last-minute item into their final meeting before leaving office, hastily awarding a $700,000 exit package to the superintendent who supported their agenda.
But wait! That's not all:
The package also includes a puzzling ban on any district investigations of his tenure and an agreement that he can keep his district-issued laptop as long as he wipes it of school records. U.S. District Judge Timothy Savage nixed that last provision on Friday when he ordered Lucabaugh, a defendant in middle school teacher Andrew Burgess’s retaliation suit against the district, to preserve documents that may become evidence in the case.
This sure seems like a huge red siren that says "Investigate me!" It's literally an order to destroy evidence. If I were a nearby US Attorney I'd be on the next train to Doylestown.
re wiping school records... they're probably not smart enough to realize merely deleting a file most likely leaves the data intact
(and emails still live on the servers)
This is how conservatism has always operated, MAGA are simply too conceited to think they should have to keep quiet about it. They want to be applauded.
Rightwingnuts have always been about looting public coffers for private gain.
I agree that the situation as a whole is seriously questionable. However, the bit about the laptop seems reasonable. A used laptop has little value and the new superintendent will probably be getting a new one. It is unlikely that there are any records that exist only on the superintendent's laptop, so wiping school records from it should not result in actual loss of records, but it doesn't seem like a good idea for an ex-employee to be retaining an unknown volume of probably confidential records. "Keep the laptop but wipe the school records from it" seems like a fair compromise between letting the ex-superintendent keep the laptop with school records and having him turn it in so the school board can have it wiped and sent to recycling.
i've never had an employer (private or gov agency) give me a free computer when leaving their employ
revoking your network access and retrieving company assets are usually the very first things they do on your last day
and if they think you were engaged in illegal activity i can guarantee they'll hand it off to cyber for analysis, not give you legal cover and an opportunity to delete any incriminating evidence
If I understand correctly, this was as far from a hostile separation as it's possible to get.
it sounds like the incoming board may view the situation differently than the outgoing board
and regardless of whether it's hostile or amicable, the process is the same: you lose network access and return their equipment
Me too. Nobody gets to keep their laptop, the idea is absurd. The only reason to keep the laptop is to make sure the hard drive stays in the right hands so anything erased can't be brought to light.
I've known people to be given their old employer provided cell phones when leaving their jobs. I don't in principle see that a laptop or tablet is any different.
My kids school district allows them to keep their Chromebooks.
That might make sense in theory, but ... for one thing, this superintendent was already a defendant in a big civil suit against the district, which is why the judge was able to bar him from erasing anything. The board knew about that (they're surely among the other defendants). If their memories were long enough, they might have been expecting he'd rip out the drive and fling the laptop into a river the way a DA in PA mysteriously did about 30-some years ago (before he disappeared completely).
Also, as people say, it's completely unusual these days for separating employees to get to keep work computers. It wasn't a possibility for me when I retired on good terms 6 years ago-- in fact I had to check it all back in with IT, anything that had a property tag. The only possible way to keep it would have been to let them send it to salvage and then try to claim it at the next public announcement. But the drive would have been completely wiped, even the OS.
Procedure with computers was to nuke them and start over if they weren't obsolete, and IT had software to make that very easy. The OS was imaged onto a bare disk with a bunch of licensed apps, so they could have a returned machine wiped and reloaded easily inside a couple of hours even including any special software for a new user. It's routine for any size operation, and this is a big and rich district we're talking about.
Bottom line, I have zero doubt that this is fishy in the extreme.
Yep, spouse has her severance gated 'on receipt of company property'.
Of course, there has been past hardware that's been gifted to us when it fell into obsolescence. But just like 'two weeks notice' that's gone the way of the dodo for layoffs.
No. When you're party to a lawsuit, you cannot just wipe data.
I don't know how school boards are supposed to recruit top quality people if they're not allowed to give them surprise bonuses when they resign for no reason. And of course the fact they can't get away with criminal or improper behavior without the risk of investigation is the reason so many talented individuals decline to consider a career in any public office.
+1
I've never seen a situation where they just handwaved away a loaded laptop. And in education, there are probably a lot of laws and regulations on that data.
As for the $700K, I'd get a lawyer and see what could be done.
Layers and layers of laws and regulations on the data, on payments to administrators, on entering agenda items for public meetings (this was apparently snuck into the agenda the night before), on handling public property. The district lawyer says he wasn't involved in any of this and didn't write the severance deal. Plus, I don't see how a board can bind its successor and prevent it from investigating-- that's just magical thinking.
If the 700,000 turns out to be enforceable, I'd be tempted to propose a special assessment called the Moms for Liberty tax.
This is a full-employment program for lawyers and investigators. It's going to go on for years and years.
They're not even trying anymore.
The superintendent will be unemployable after this little adventure, so the MfL are just taking care of his/her retirement fund. It's a token of their gratitude for their service. After all, if other superintendents are going to be enticed into doing their bidding, they have to be encouraged, no? $700K is nothing to their backers, but is a distinct taste of sugar to school officials. The board members themselves are probably encouraged too, but in less public ways.
The former board members and superintendent had fiduciary duties to the district at the time of their actions. They take on personal responsibility to make the beneficiary (the district) whole.
Well that'll be fun to see . . .
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