3 school board members say investigation clears PSD superintendent
There were no findings of improprieties or wrongdoing by Poudre School District Superintendent Brian Kingsley in an independent investigation into his relationship with a district employee, three members of the Board of Education who have reviewed the report and were willing to share their opinions with the Coloradoan said.
“A thorough investigation into this matter was completed by an impartial third-party investigator,” school board president Kristen Draper said in a text message Friday. “The investigation report concluded that there were no merits to the allegations of wrongdoing that were brought against the superintendent.”
Draper and board members Conor Duffy, Scott Schoenbauer, Carolyn Reed and Kevin Havelda all said they have reviewed the investigation.
Draper, Duffy and Reed all concurred with the investigation’s findings, clearing Kingsley of any violations of district policies or procedures. They said they were sharing their thoughts as individuals who had reviewed the report and not on behalf of the full school board.
“The evidence in the report supported that there were no findings of wrongdoing,” Reed said Friday.
Schoenbauer and Havelda declined to comment Friday, choosing to wait until the two board members who have not yet seen the report had the opportunity to do so.
A statement from the entire Board of Education is expected once all members have had the opportunity to review and be briefed on the investigation and its findings, Draper said. Board members Jim Brokish and Jessica Zamora are out of town and the investigative report has only been made available for in-person viewing.
Kingsley informed the Coloradoan in a text message that he has not seen the report. He said he would wait until the school board, as a whole, made a public statement on its findings before commenting on it.
Mystery surrounds the Poudre School District investigation
Very little remains known about the scope of the investigation and what was determined beyond the statements by Draper, Duffy and Reed.
The school board voted in May to hire an outside investigator to look into the nature of Kingsley’s relationship with a district employee. It’s unclear what prompted the investigation.
The Coloradoan is not naming the second PSD employee or their position at this time. Multiple phone calls to the employee have gone unreturned since the start of the investigation.
It is unknown if there were suspicions of wrongdoing by the second employee. If there were, it’s unknown if the report report absolved the second PSD employee in the same way it did Kingsley.
Will the findings ever be made public?
The findings have so far not been made available to the Coloradoan for independent verification despite repeated requests made through the school district’s general legal counsel, chief of staff and communications team; members of the school board; and in a formal records request filed late Tuesday afternoon.
The investigation report has only been made available for school board members to view in person, at the school district’s central office in Fort Collins.
“The investigation report and any related documents are attorney-client privileged attorney work product and further protected from disclosure” under the Colorado Open Records Act “and therefore not available for review,” Autumn Aspen, the school district’s general legal counsel, wrote in an email Thursday.
It’s unclear which portion of the Colorado Open Records Act Aspen is referring to. The act is a large passage of Colorado law that provides numerous provisions for when records are to be made public, and when they are protected from public disclosure.
On Thursday, the Coloradoan asked Aspen for the specific exemption that leads her to believe the records are protected, but no response had been provided by late Friday.
How much money was spent on the investigation?
School board members acknowledged at the outset that taxpayer money would be spent to conduct the investigation. The financial cost was of concern to many in the community after its uncertain financial future nearly led to the closure of multiple schools.
But the total dollar amount spent on the investigation has yet to be disclosed.
The school board has not responded to the Coloradoan’s open-records request for a copy of the contract for the outside investigation to determine who performed it and what it cost, but must do so by the end of the day Monday, under Colorado law.
“Every dollar our district spends on addressing rumors and unfounded allegations is a dollar diverted from our students’ education,” Duffy said. “As a board member, an active community member, and a parent, I urge us to refocus on our primary mission: educating our children.”
Reporter Kelly Lyell covers education, breaking news, some sports and other topics of interest for the Coloradoan. Contact him at kellylyell@coloradoan.com,x.com/KellyLyell and facebook.com/KellyLyell.news.
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2024-07-20 11:11:36