CCS releases report investigating leaked memo. Read the full report:

Threats to one’s career. Refusal to cooperate with an investigation. Attempts to destroy evidence.

These are all things board member Brandon Simmons did in drafting a controversial leaked document and dealing with the fallout after the document was released, according to the outside legal report released Tuesday by Columbus City Schools.

After hours of closed session, the board voted Tuesday to approve a motion to lift attorney-client privilege and make the 12-page report from the Scott Scriven law firm public. Board President Christina Vera said the board was taking the unusual step to restore trust in the district after the document was released late last month by the district’s teachers union.

Vera said the report “concludes that board member Simmons was the sole author of the document,” which was a draft of a proposed strategy for dealing with opposition to the district’s plan to close school buildings. Simmons said in a statement Tuesday that the legal report was “based on false information,” but has continued to provide no evidence to support his claims.

Here’s what you should know about the investigation report:

Read the investigation report

Simmons wrote controversial document “on his own initiative”

The report concludes that “Simmons alone authored all versions” of the document and that the ideas contained in the document are “the ideas expressed by board member Simmons.”

The document in question is a draft strategy for dealing with opposition to the district’s plans to close school buildings. It was first released on May 21 by the Columbus Education Association, the union that represents the district’s more than 4,500 teachers and other education professionals, after a school board member passed it along. It calls for driving a wedge between the district’s two unions, setting up loud machinery when the unions hold a press conference on school property, not ignoring “racial dynamics” in an attempt to divide the unions and even making last-minute changes to the location of public hearings on the closures to confuse opponents.

“Simmons’ comments to the media about collaborating in the creation of the Simmons document are not supported by the evidence and testimony, at least as they relate to board members or district employees,” the report said.

Simmons apparently tried to destroy evidence

The report also concludes that after it became clear that others did not support his plan, Simmons attempted to destroy evidence, including the Google Drive where the original copy of the document was stored.

According to the report, Simmons saved the document on his personal Google Drive and no other board member or district administrator accessed it, except for a staff member who accessed the document once on May 10 to make copies of it after being asked to do so by Simmons.

More:Who is Brandon Simmons? What you should know about the CCS board member at the center of the leak scandal

“It appears that board member Simmons destroyed (or attempted to destroy) relevant evidence and may have transferred other evidence to one or more other individuals for safekeeping,” the report said.

The report claims he also appears to have withheld public records.

When the document was distributed to board members and district staff, it was met with widespread rejection

The report also states that in the days leading up to the May 10 meeting at which the document was distributed, Simmons sent text messages to board members, including Vera and Vice President Tina Pierce, that reproduced language contained in the document.

Simmons organized an impromptu meeting on May 9, where he presented a handwritten and typed draft of the document to Vera and Superintendent Angela Chapman for the first time. Simmons admitted to investigators that neither of them was interested in fighting the unions during the meeting.

When a new version of the document was presented to other board members and the district administration on May 10, board member Jennifer Adair objected when Simmons mentioned that the district’s two unions were exploiting racial disparities.

“‘Whoa, we can’t do that, that’s not going to happen,'” the document says Adair said to Simmons during the meeting.

Jacqueline Bryant, acting communications director, also spoke out against the document during the meeting, according to the report, saying, “We will not do any of that, we will never target the media in that way,” referring to a punitive strategy against the media outlined in Simmons’ document.

During the meeting, Simmons also reportedly threatened that Chapman and Vera would become “the next” Talisa Dixon and Carol Beckerle, comparing them to the former superintendent and board member who was not endorsed by the union or the Franklin County Democratic Party last year.

Simmons was uncooperative in the investigation

According to the report, Simmons refused to participate meaningfully in the external investigation and was said to have been uncooperative.

“He refused to give a full interview and answered almost no substantive questions,” the report said.

When investigators asked him to identify employees or other participants in the document, his response was repeatedly, “I don’t want to answer that question,” the report said.

“We must destroy (the union leader) politically”

In the days before and after the strategy document was presented, Simmons repeatedly emphasized to board members and district staff that he believed the district needed to aggressively attack the CEA.

In a seemingly outrageous statement, during a May 11 teacher retirement dinner hosted by CEA Chairman John Coneglio, Simmons took a district employee aside and told him, “We need to destroy John Coneglio politically.”

Related Posts

3 people arrested in connection with shooting of man in Oceanside, police say – NBC 7 San Diego

Police in Chilhowie, Virginia, seek suspect who attacked gas station clerk with knife during robbery | WJHL

Man sentenced to 22 years in prison for brutal Queens subway attack that left woman losing an eye