Myrtle Beach athletic director on leave for ‘failure to complete' job duties
John Cahill, Myrtle Beach High School's athletic director since 2011, was placed on leave May 7 'due to failure to complete job responsibilities,' according to a letter in his personnel file received via Freedom of Information Act request.
HCS spokeswoman Lisa Bourcier told The Sun News she had no additional information to provide on the matter, but did confirm Cahill remains on leave as of Monday.
Cahill did not respond to a request for comment.
He will receive full pay and benefits, according to the letter, and the leave will continue 'until an investigation into this matter is complete.' Cahill was earning about $97,500 per year as of 2023, according to GovSalaries.com.
The letter, from HCS Chief Human Resources Officer Mary Anderson, further instructs Cahill not to enter Myrtle Beach High School or any other district property while on leave, and not contact any staff, students or their parents without prior permission from a supervisor.
Cahill has earned numerous accolades while serving more than a decade in his role, including being named South Carolina's athletic director of the year in 2016 and 2019 from various organizations, according to previous news reports from My Horry News.
Most recently, in March, Cahill received the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association SC state merit award, given to one person annually from each state based off what they do for the good of their state and profession, according to a post from the MBHS athletics website.
Aside from the recent letter placing Cahill on leave, the only other disciplinary action documented in his personnel file is a letter of reprimand from Oct. 2023, written by MBHS Principal Kristin Altman.
That reprimand was related to a situation that The Sun News reported on last year involving the boys volleyball team. In that instance, a 16-year-old Filipino student on the team was questioned by police and briefly suspended for allegedly making a gang symbol with his hands, while white teammates making similar gestures were not questioned or disciplined.
The hand gesture was ultimately determined to be a half-heart symbol and the student's suspension was quickly revoked, but he ended up quitting the team due to feeling targeted, and the district admitted in a letter to his parents that proper protocols weren't followed.
Cahill and MBHS Assistant Principal Natalie Hunnell both received written reprimands related to the incident, according to records received by The Sun News via FOIA.
Cahill sent a response letter, also included in his personnel file, to Altman disputing the reprimand and claiming 'significant errors' in the district's investigation related to his role in the matter, though most of his response and Altman's initial letter describing the issues are redacted in the versions provided to The Sun News.
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Miami Herald
20 hours ago
- Miami Herald
Trump boasts of deporting the ‘worst of the worst.' LA raids tell a far different story
LOS ANGELES - They called them the 'worst of the worst.' For more than a month and a half, the Trump administration has posted a barrage of mugshots of L.A. undocumented immigrants with long rap sheets. Officials have spotlighted Cuong Chanh Phan, a 49-year-old Vietnamese man convicted in 1997 of second-degree murder for his role in slaying two teens at a high school graduation party. They have shared blurry photos on Instagram of a slew of convicted criminals such as Rolando Veneracion-Enriquez, a 55-year-old Filipino man convicted in 1996 of sexual penetration with a foreign object with force and assault with intent to commit a felony. And Eswin Uriel Castro, a Mexican convicted in 2002 of child molestation and in 2021 of assault with a deadly weapon. But the immigrants that the Department of Homeland Security showcase in X posts and news releases do not represent the majority of immigrants swept up across Los Angeles. As the number of immigration arrests in the L.A. region quadrupled from 540 in April to 2,185 in June, seven out of 10 immigrants arrested in June had no criminal conviction - a trend that immigrant advocates say belies administration claims that they are targeting 'heinous illegal alien criminals' who represent a threat to public safety. According to a Los Angeles Times analysis of ICE data from the Deportation Data Project, the proportion of immigrants without criminal convictions arrested in seven counties in and around L.A. has skyrocketed from 35% in April, to 46% in May, and to 69% from June 1 to June 26. Austin Kocher, a geographer and research assistant professor at Syracuse University who specializes in immigration enforcement, said the Trump administration was not being entirely honest about the criminal status of those they were arresting. Officials, he said, followed a strategy of focusing on the minority of violent convicted criminals so they could justify enforcement policies that are proving to be less popular. 'I think they know that if they were honest with the American public that they're arresting people who cook our food, wash dishes in the kitchen, take care of people in nursing homes, people who are just living in part of the community … there's a large segment of the public, including a large segment of Trump's own supporters, who would be uncomfortable and might even oppose those kinds of immigration practices.' In Los Angeles, the raids swept up garment worker Jose Ortiz, who worked 18 years at the Ambiance Apparel clothing warehouse in downtown L.A., before being nabbed in a June 6 raid; car wash worker Jesus Cruz, a 52-year-old father who was snatched on June 8 - just before his daughter's graduation - from Westchester Hand Wash; and Emma De Paz, a recent widow and tamale vendor from Guatemala who was arrested June 19 outside a Hollywood Home Depot. Such arrests may be influencing the public's perception of the raids. Multiple polls show support for Trump's immigration agenda slipping as masked federal agents increasingly swoop up undocumented immigrants from workplaces and streets. ICE data shows that about 31% of the immigrants arrested across the L.A. region from June 1 to June 26 had criminal convictions, 11% had pending criminal charges and 58% were classified as 'other immigration violator,' which ICE defines as 'individuals without any known criminal convictions or pending charges in ICE's system of record at the time of the enforcement action.' The L.A. region's surge in arrests of noncriminals has been more dramatic than the U.S. as a whole: Arrests of immigrants with no criminal convictions climbed nationally from 57% in April to 69% in June. Federal raids here have also been more fiercely contested in Southern California - particularly in L.A. County, where more than 2 million residents are undocumented or living with undocumented family members. 'A core component of their messaging is that this is about public safety, that the people that they are arresting are threats to their communities,' said David Bier, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, a Libertarian think tank. 'But it's hard to maintain that this is all about public safety when you're going out and arresting people who are just going about their lives and working.' Trump never said he would arrest only criminals. Almost as soon as he retook office on Jan. 20, Trump signed a stack of executive orders aimed at drastically curbing immigration. The administration then moved to expand arrests from immigrants who posed a security threat to anyone who entered the country illegally. Yet while officials kept insisting they were focused on violent criminals, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt issued a warning: 'That doesn't mean that the other illegal criminals who entered our nation's borders are off the table.' As White House chief adviser on border policy Tom Homan put it: 'If you're in the country illegally, you got a problem.' Still, things did not really pick up until May, when White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller ordered ICE's top field officials to shift to more aggressive tactics: arresting undocumented immigrants, whether or not they had a criminal record. Miller set a new goal: arresting 3,000 undocumented people a day, a quota that immigration experts say is impossible to reach by focusing only on criminals. 'There aren't enough criminal immigrants in the United States to fill their arrest quotas and to get millions and millions of deportations, which is what the president has explicitly promised,' Bier said. 'Immigration and Customs Enforcement says there's half a million removable noncitizens who have criminal convictions in the United States. Most of those are nonviolent: traffic, immigration offenses. It's not millions and millions.' By the time Trump celebrated six months in office, DHS boasted that the Trump administration had already arrested more than 300,000 undocumented immigrants. '70% of ICE arrests,' the agency said in a news release, 'are individuals with criminal convictions or charges.' But that claim no longer appeared to be true. While 78% of undocumented immigrants arrested across the U.S. in April had a criminal conviction or faced a pending charge, that number had plummeted to 57% in June. In L.A., the difference between what Trump officials said and the reality on the ground was more stark: Only 43% of those arrested across the L.A. region had criminal convictions or faced a pending charge. Still, ICE kept insisting it was 'putting the worst first.' As stories circulate across communities about the arrests of law-abiding immigrants, there are signs that support for Trump's deportation agenda is falling. A CBS/YouGov poll published July 20 shows about 56% of those surveyed approved of Trump's handling of immigration in March, but that dropped to 50% in June and 46% in July. About 52% of poll respondents said the Trump administration is trying to deport more people than expected. When asked who the Trump administration is prioritizing for deporting, only 44% said 'dangerous criminals.' California Gov. Gavin Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass have repeatedly accused Trump of conducting a national experiment in Los Angeles. 'The federal government is using California as a playground to test their indiscriminate actions that fulfill unsafe arrest quotas and mass detention goals,' Diana Crofts-Pelayo, a spokesperson for Newsom told The Times. 'They are going after every single immigrant, regardless of whether they have a criminal background and without care that they are American citizens, legal status holders and foreign-born, and even targeting native-born U.S. citizens.' When pressed on why ICE is arresting immigrants who have not been convicted or are not facing pending criminal charges, Trump administration officials tend to argue that many of those people have violated immigration law. 'ICE agents are going to arrest people for being in the country illegally,' Homan told CBS News earlier this month. 'We still focus on public safety threats and national security threats, but if we find an illegal alien in the process of doing that, they're going to be arrested too.' Immigration experts say that undermines their message that they are ridding communities of people who threaten public safety. 'It's a big backtracking from 'These people are out killing people, raping people, harming them in demonstrable ways,' to 'This person broke immigration law in this way or that way,'' Bier said. The Trump administration is also trying to find new ways to target criminals in California. It has threatened to withhold federal funds to California due to its 'sanctuary state' law, which limits county jails from coordinating with ICE except in cases involving immigrants convicted of a serious crime or felonies such as murder, rape, robbery or arson. Last week, the U.S. Justice Department requested California counties, including L.A., provide data on all jail inmates who are not U.S. citizens in an effort to help federal immigration agents prioritize those who have committed crimes. 'Although every illegal alien by definition violates federal law,' the U.S. Justice Department said in a news release, 'those who go on to commit crimes after doing so show that they pose a heightened risk to our Nation's safety and security.' As Americans are bombarded with dueling narratives of good vs. bad immigrants, Kocher believes the question we have to grapple with is not 'What does the data say?' Instead, we should ask: 'How do we meaningfully distinguish between immigrants with serious criminal convictions and immigrants who are peacefully living their lives?' 'I don't think it's reasonable, or helpful, to represent everyone as criminals - or everyone as saints,' Kocher said. 'Probably the fundamental question, which is also a question that plagues our criminal justice system, is whether our legal system is capable of distinguishing between people who are genuine public safety threats and people who are simply caught up in the bureaucracy.' The data, Kocher said, show that ICE is currently unable or unwilling to make that distinction. 'If we don't like the way that the system is working, we might want to rethink whether we want a system where people who are simply living in the country following laws, working in their economy, should actually have a pathway to stay,' Kocher said. 'And the only way to do that is actually to change the laws.' In the rush to blast out mugshots of some of the most criminal L.A. immigrants, the Trump administration left out a key part of the story. According to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, its staff notified ICE on May 5 of Veneracion's pending release after he had served nearly 30 years in prison for the crimes of assault with intent to commit rape and sexual penetration with a foreign object with force. But ICE failed to pick up Veneracion and canceled its hold on him May 19, a day before he was released on parole. A few weeks later, as ICE amped up its raids, federal agents arrested Veneracion on June 7 at the ICE office in L.A. The very next day, DHS shared his mugshot in a news release titled 'President Trump is Stepping Up Where Democrats Won't.' The same document celebrated the capture of Phan, who served nearly 25 years in prison after he was convicted of second-degree murder. CDCR said the Board of Parole Hearings coordinated with ICE after Phan was granted parole in 2022. Phan was released that year to ICE custody. But those details did not stop Trump officials from taking credit for his arrest and blaming California leaders for letting Phan loose. 'It is sickening that Governor Newsom and Mayor Bass continue to protect violent criminal illegal aliens at the expense of the safety of American citizens and communities,' DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. Copyright (C) 2025, Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Portions copyrighted by the respective providers.
Los Angeles Times
2 days ago
- Los Angeles Times
Trump says he's deporting the ‘worst of the worst.' What is really happening?
They called them the 'worst of the worst.' For more than a month and a half, the Trump administration has posted a barrage of mugshots of L.A. undocumented immigrants with long rap sheets. Officials have spotlighted Cuong Chanh Phan, a 49-year-old Vietnamese man convicted in 1997 of second-degree murder for his role in slaying two teens at a high school graduation party. They have shared blurry photos on Instagram of a slew of convicted criminals such as Rolando Veneracion-Enriquez, a 55-year-old Filipino man convicted in 1996 of sexual penetration with a foreign object with force and assault with intent to commit a felony. And Eswin Uriel Castro, a Mexican convicted in 2002 of child molestation and in 2021 of assault with a deadly weapon. But the immigrants that the Department of Homeland Security showcase in X posts and news releases do not represent the majority of immigrants swept up across Los Angeles. As the number of immigration arrests in the L.A. region quadrupled from 540 in April to 2,185 in June, seven out of 10 immigrants arrested in June had no criminal conviction — a trend that immigrant advocates say belies administration claims that they are targeting 'heinous illegal alien criminals' who represent a threat to public safety. According to a Los Angeles Times analysis of ICE data from the Deportation Data Project, the proportion of immigrants without criminal convictions arrested in seven counties in and around L.A. has skyrocketed from 35% in April, to 46% in May, and to 69% from June 1 to June 26. Austin Kocher, a geographer and research assistant professor at Syracuse University who specializes in immigration enforcement, said the Trump administration was not being entirely honest about the criminal status of those they were arresting. Officials, he said, followed a strategy of focusing on the minority of violent convicted criminals so they could justify enforcement policies that are proving to be less popular. 'I think they know that if they were honest with the American public that they're arresting people who cook our food, wash dishes in the kitchen, take care of people in nursing homes, people who are just living in part of the community … there's a large segment of the public, including a large segment of Trump's own supporters, who would be uncomfortable and might even oppose those kinds of immigration practices.' In Los Angeles, the raids swept up garment worker Jose Ortiz, who worked 18 years at the Ambiance Apparel clothing warehouse in downtown L.A., before being nabbed in a June 6 raid; car wash worker Jesus Cruz, a 52-year-old father who was snatched on June 8 — just before his daughter's graduation — from Westchester Hand Wash; and Emma De Paz, a recent widow and tamale vendor from Guatemala who was arrested June 19 outside a Hollywood Home Depot. Such arrests may be influencing the public's perception of the raids. Multiple polls show support for Trump's immigration agenda slipping as masked federal agents increasingly swoop up undocumented immigrants from workplaces and streets. ICE data shows that about 31% of the immigrants arrested across the L.A. region from June 1 to June 26 had criminal convictions, 11% had pending criminal charges and 58% were classified as 'other immigration violator,' which ICE defines as 'individuals without any known criminal convictions or pending charges in ICE's system of record at the time of the enforcement action.' The L.A. region's surge in arrests of noncriminals has been more dramatic than the U.S. as a whole: Arrests of immigrants with no criminal convictions climbed nationally from 57% in April to 69% in June. Federal raids here have also been more fiercely contested in Southern California — particularly in L.A. County, where more than 2 million residents are undocumented or living with undocumented family members. 'A core component of their messaging is that this is about public safety, that the people that they are arresting are threats to their communities,' said David Bier, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, a Libertarian think tank. 'But it's hard to maintain that this is all about public safety when you're going out and arresting people who are just going about their lives and working.' Trump never said he would arrest only criminals. Almost as soon as he retook office on Jan. 20, Trump signed a stack of executive orders aimed at drastically curbing immigration. The administration then moved to expand arrests from immigrants who posed a security threat to anyone who entered the country illegally. Yet while officials kept insisting they were focused on violent criminals, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt issued a warning: 'That doesn't mean that the other illegal criminals who entered our nation's borders are off the table.' As White House chief advisor on border policy Tom Homan put it: 'If you're in the country illegally, you got a problem.' Still, things did not really pick up until May, when White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller ordered ICE's top field officials to shift to more aggressive tactics: arresting undocumented immigrants, whether or not they had a criminal record. Miller set a new goal: arresting 3,000 undocumented people a day, a quota that immigration experts say is impossible to reach by focusing only on criminals. 'There aren't enough criminal immigrants in the United States to fill their arrest quotas and to get millions and millions of deportations, which is what the president has explicitly promised,' Bier said. 'Immigration and Customs Enforcement says there's half a million removable noncitizens who have criminal convictions in the United States. Most of those are nonviolent: traffic, immigration offenses. It's not millions and millions.' By the time Trump celebrated six months in office, DHS boasted that the Trump administration had already arrested more than 300,000 undocumented immigrants. '70% of ICE arrests,' the agency said in a news release, 'are individuals with criminal convictions or charges.' But that claim no longer appeared to be true. While 78% of undocumented immigrants arrested across the U.S. in April had a criminal conviction or faced a pending charge, that number had plummeted to 57% in June. In L.A., the difference between what Trump officials said and the reality on the ground was more stark: Only 43% of those arrested across the L.A. region had criminal convictions or faced a pending charge. Still, ICE kept insisting it was 'putting the worst first.' As stories circulate across communities about the arrests of law-abiding immigrants, there are signs that support for Trump's deportation agenda is falling. A CBS/YouGov poll published July 20 shows about 56% of those surveyed approved of Trump's handling of immigration in March, but that dropped to 50% in June and 46% in July. About 52% of poll respondents said the Trump administration is trying to deport more people than expected. When asked who the Trump administration is prioritizing for deporting, only 44% said 'dangerous criminals.' California Gov. Gavin Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass have repeatedly accused Trump of conducting a national experiment in Los Angeles. 'The federal government is using California as a playground to test their indiscriminate actions that fulfill unsafe arrest quotas and mass detention goals,' Diana Crofts-Pelayo, a spokesperson for Newsom told The Times. 'They are going after every single immigrant, regardless of whether they have a criminal background and without care that they are American citizens, legal status holders and foreign-born, and even targeting native-born U.S. citizens.' When pressed on why ICE is arresting immigrants who have not been convicted or are not facing pending criminal charges, Trump administration officials tend to argue that many of those people have violated immigration law. 'ICE agents are going to arrest people for being in the country illegally,' Homan told CBS News earlier this month. 'We still focus on public safety threats and national security threats, but if we find an illegal alien in the process of doing that, they're going to be arrested too.' Immigration experts say that undermines their message that they are ridding communities of people who threaten public safety. 'It's a big backtracking from 'These people are out killing people, raping people, harming them in demonstrable ways,' to 'This person broke immigration law in this way or that way,'' Bier said. The Trump administration is also trying to find new ways to target criminals in California. It has threatened to withhold federal funds to California due to its 'sanctuary state' law, which limits county jails from coordinating with ICE except in cases involving immigrants convicted of a serious crime or felonies such as murder, rape, robbery or arson. Last week, the U.S. Justice Department requested California counties, including L.A., provide data on all jail inmates who are not U.S. citizens in an effort to help federal immigration agents prioritize those who have committed crimes. 'Although every illegal alien by definition violates federal law,' the U.S. Justice Department said in a news release, 'those who go on to commit crimes after doing so show that they pose a heightened risk to our Nation's safety and security.' As Americans are bombarded with dueling narratives of good vs. bad immigrants, Kocher believes the question we have to grapple with is not 'What does the data say?' Instead, we should ask: 'How do we meaningfully distinguish between immigrants with serious criminal convictions and immigrants who are peacefully living their lives?' 'I don't think it's reasonable, or helpful, to represent everyone as criminals — or everyone as saints,' Kocher said. 'Probably the fundamental question, which is also a question that plagues our criminal justice system, is whether our legal system is capable of distinguishing between people who are genuine public safety threats and people who are simply caught up in the bureaucracy.' The data, Kocher said, show that ICE is currently unable or unwilling to make that distinction. 'If we don't like the way that the system is working, we might want to rethink whether we want a system where people who are simply living in the country following laws, working in their economy, should actually have a pathway to stay,' Kocher said. 'And the only way to do that is actually to change the laws.' In the rush to blast out mugshots of some of the most criminal L.A. immigrants, the Trump administration left out a key part of the story. According to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, its staff notified ICE on May 5 of Veneracion's pending release after he had served nearly 30 years in prison for the crimes of assault with intent to commit rape and sexual penetration with a foreign object with force. But ICE failed to pick up Veneracion and canceled its hold on him May 19, a day before he was released on parole. A few weeks later, as ICE amped up its raids, federal agents arrested Veneracion on June 7 at the ICE office in L.A. The very next day, DHS shared his mugshot in a news release titled 'President Trump is Stepping Up Where Democrats Won't.' The same document celebrated the capture of Phan, who served nearly 25 years in prison after he was convicted of second-degree murder. CDCR said the Board of Parole Hearings coordinated with ICE after Phan was granted parole in 2022. Phan was released that year to ICE custody. But those details did not stop Trump officials from taking credit for his arrest and blaming California leaders for letting Phan loose. 'It is sickening that Governor Newsom and Mayor Bass continue to protect violent criminal illegal aliens at the expense of the safety of American citizens and communities,' DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.
Chicago Tribune
3 days ago
- Chicago Tribune
Eavesdropping complaint filed against Naperville D203 school board member
A Naperville District 203 School Board member censured in January for her conduct is now the subject of an eavesdropping complaint submitted to the Naperville Police Department and the DuPage County state's attorney office, according to documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. In a letter sent to the state's attorney office from the district's legal counsel, district officials allege board member Melissa Kelley Black made a recording of a budget advisory committee meeting without getting the consent of those in attendance, as required by state law. No response to the complaint has been issued or charges filed as of this past week, according to the state's attorney's office. The recording came to light at a June 2 school board meeting at which budgetary issues were being discussed, documents show. During the discussion, Kelley Black said she had attended a May 14 meeting of the Citizens Finance Committee, a group made up of five Naperville community members, two district administrators and two board members, at which concerns were raised about district finances, including whether there would be a need to cut positions or to seek a tax referendum. As part of her comments, she mentioned that she had recorded the committee meeting. Because the committee is not a public body, its meetings are not covered by the Illinois Open Meetings Act, according to the letter from the district's attorneys. Participants would have to give permission to be recorded under state law. Kelley Black said during the June 2 meeting that her recording device was 'right in front of us,' which was also noted in the district lawyer's letter to State's Attorney Robert Berlin. In an interview with the Naperville Sun, she said she did not want to get into the details of the recording because it is the subject of a legal complaint, but stressed that she believes it is her duty as a school board member to ask difficult questions, especially on the budget, and to ensure district money is spent wisely. She said she welcomes a third-party investigation, and is certain she will be cleared of any wrongdoing. 'I am disappointed they so carelessly throw around accusations,' she said. At the June 2 school board meeting, Superintendent Dan Bridges made note of the fact that she had recorded what committee members had said, documents show. 'Did you get permission from everybody who attended or did you just violate the Eavesdropping Act in Illinois?' he asked. Later he said, 'I will be following up on the statement about recordings.' A list of members of the Citizens Finance Committee was provided to the Naperville Police Department by the district's attorneys. Police Chief Jason Arres responded via email that an 'investigation will begin promptly.' Bridges also contacted the committee members to let them know about the recording, and stressed that Kelley Black's action was not condoned by the school district or by board policies, according to documents received through the FOIA request. One member, whose name was redacted from the FOIA request, responded that they were 'somewhat shocked' that Kelley Black would record the meeting without their consent. Kelley Black, in an email sent to the Naperville Sun, said she believes Bridges deliberately ignored the budget questions she raised at the June 2 meeting by seizing on her comment about the recording. 'After requesting clarification from Superintendent Bridges regarding his comments about potential staff reductions, student service cuts and a possible referendum, I raised concerns about inconsistent financial messaging and the board's limited access to key financial documentation. This information is essential particularly as we continue voting on major capital projects and other long-term commitments. 'Rather than addressing these concerns collaboratively, the superintendent responded with public accusations and initiated a complaint without authorization from the board. I believe this response has generated unnecessary conflict and distraction at a time when unity and professional dialogue are especially important.' According to the district's communications department, the Citizens Finance Committee serves as an advisory group for the review of key financial matters, such as the budget, levy and audit. It meets two to three times a year in closed forums designed to encourage open dialogue. The committee does not have any decision-making authority, the district said. 'Due to the ongoing investigation into this matter, we are unable to comment further on the specifics of the incident at this time,' Lisa Xagas, assistant superintendent for strategy and engagement, said in an email. During a recent board meeting, Kelley Black said she believed the district was trying to indimidate her by having police officers come to her house to question her on the issue, especially right before the school board's self-evaluation session. 'There's something wrong that an elected official giving back to their community has to endure that,' Kelley Black said at the July 14 school board meeting. 'This just isn't good governance in my opinion. I think an outside evaluation would correct it and then we can all stop arguing and work together.' Kelley Black also questioned whether the district's lawyers, who represent the school board, should be involved in the matter. Legal counsel should advise the board as a collective body, not the private interests of an administrator or individual board members, she said. 'Our community entrusts us with the responsibility of using district funds, and we must ensure that every expenditure, especially for legal counsel, is aligned with the board-approved purposes and complies with our ethical obligations,' she said. At the meeting where she raised questions about the complaint, board President Charles Cush stressed that Bridges had openly stated that he planned to follow up on the fact that Kelley Black had said she recorded the meeting. 'There is a third party already investigating this, and they will handle it,' Cush said. Board Vice President Kristine Gericke added that she believes it is her responsibility to alert authorities when she believes a law has been broken. 'I heard an admission of what I reasonably thought was breaking a law,' she said. '…I also believe it's important for the community to understand that we do take our responsibilities very seriously, and that to me was common sense to report that we felt a law was broken.' In an email back to Kelley Black, Cush accused her of trying to distract from the issue at hand. 'Your attempt to attack and threaten the superintendent for performing his duties as the administrative head of the District is clearly an attempt to divert attention from your misconduct,' he wrote. 'The District will continue to cooperate in having a review of your admissions on recording private discussions without consent. In the meantime, the Board meeting will proceed as scheduled and the Board will continue to conduct the business of the District.' The board has had previous conflicts with Kelley Black, and in January voted to censure her for unprofessional and damaging actions, citing her disclosure of private student information, spread of false information and release of collective bargaining information. Kelley Black, who was elected to the board in April 2023, denied the allegations. She has said she is a proponent of transparency, wants to ensure fiscal responsibility and ran for school board because of her love of education. Board members said at the time that they had tried to resolve issues with her over her conduct for about a year and a half before acting to censure her. According to recent documents, the school board is still trying to resolve those issues. The board wrote to Kelley Black in April notifying her that she was in violation of a censure resolution. 'Member Kelley Black continues to disrupt Board meetings, both open and closed sessions, with frequent unwarranted criticism and attacks on the Superintendent and his administrative team,' according to a June letter from Cush to the DuPage County Regional Office of Education. The letter states that the criticism and attacks are generally performative and Kelley Black willfully refuses to read the information provided to her by the administrative team. 'Tragically, the Board has had to divert significant resources including public funds purposed for its educational mission to address Member Kelley Black's willful refusal to perform her duties,' according to Cush's letter, which was prepared with the help of the district's attorney. Kelley Black said she was unaware of the letter and worries that decisions are being made by individual board members and not as a collective body. 'I have never once received a complaint from a parent or a staff member,' Kelley Black said.
