The final – or more accurately, latest – blast to the Fox C-6 School District was delivered in a flurry of haymakers last week from State Auditor Nicole Galloway. The long-awaited state audit of the district, approximately 20 months in the making, was delivered in a snappy, short-notice press conference held in downtown St. Louis.
Perhaps Galloway couldn’t find Jefferson County.
The report was 56 pages of jabs, hooks and crosses that would have taken down the sturdiest heavyweight. It covered three fiscal years of credit card purchases, two years of administrative salary history and various periods for other topics, such as scholarship awards, bond financing and accounting control.
The audit was requested by the Fox Board of Education after the early retirement of former superintendent Dianne Critchlow in 2014. Her husband, Jamie Critchlow, had been fired earlier in the year from an administrative job.
The pair had been embroiled in an email and online spat with some critics of the district. Nasty, anonymous comments about the critics were traced to computers at the Critchlow home. The critics sued and Fox’s insurance company paid out an undisclosed settlement earlier this year.
The criticisms in the audit centered around inappropriate credit card spending by Dianne Critchlow, much of which has been documented in news stories over the past two years. The complete audit is available at auditor.mo.gov. With exhibits, the audit runs to 105 pages.
When the state auditor’s office examines a public entity, it gives its target a chance to respond, then includes those responses in the audit. I’ve read more than a few audits over the years and never have I seen one where the responding entity was in such complete agreement with the criticisms offered by the auditor.
Of course, there has been a nearly complete regime change at Fox – a new superintendent, many new assistant supers, principals and a largely new board.
It’s much easier to agree with criticism of your predecessors than yourselves.
It was the latest blow to Fox, rather than the final one, because the possibility – probability? – exists that there could be criminal charges. Jefferson County Prosecuting Attorney Forrest Wegge put out a brief statement that it will take “a few weeks” to digest the report and decide whether to seek charges, and which ones.
If that happens, there will be another series of stories and more embarrassment for the district.
What Critchlow did is detailed elsewhere in today’s paper and in the audit itself. I’m more interested in why she did it.
Why would a woman who made more than a quarter of a million dollars per year charge fast food meals inappropriately to the district?
Why would the highest-paid superintendent in the St. Louis region award nearly $7,000 in scholarships to her sons, depriving more needy kids in the process?
Why would she seek reimbursement for expenses, such as a golf tournament fee, that she hadn’t paid in the first place?
Arrogance?
Character flaws?
A sense of entitlement?
A feeling the rules were for other people?
All of the above?
Why didn’t the school board notice any of this stuff?
A large school district is a hierarchy. The king – or in this case, queen – is the superintendent.
To have risen to that job means a person is highly educated, highly qualified, politically savvy. The person is probably skilled in reading people, motivating them and, yes, manipulating them, perhaps to achieve some noble goals, or some not-so-noble ones.
In other words, the queen likely had some skills.
The board members, by contrast, are there because they’ve won a local election. Sure, there is board training later, but aside from being a registered voter in the district and being current on your taxes, there are no requirements.
It’s not hard to imagine that many school board members would defer to a highly educated, highly skilled school administrator who is presumed to be an education expert.
It would be easy to be intimidated, and to not question, a self-assured, smooth operator with a lot of letters and degrees behind her name.
The trouble is, that’s exactly what a school board member is charged with doing – hiring and firing the superintendent, voting on and deciding policy, and financial oversight.
The board is there to ask questions. As the sainted Ronald Reagan once said, “Trust, but verify.”
The Fox board only trusted.
It’s an old cliche that a person’s character is only truly revealed by her actions when no one is looking. Or, in this case, by actions taken when it is thought no one will look.
What we have here is a double failure – Critchlow and the board members who didn’t verify.
The kids at Fox, and the taxpayers, deserved better.
