Officials silent on conflict and upheaval in Freeburg’s elementary school district
A school principal quits abruptly, citing a “toxic environment.” A superintendent tries to resign but is persuaded to stay and honor her contract. A parent files a complaint, prompting police to launch an investigation into the superintendent.
Police are called to the elementary school about a disturbance involving a school board member. Another board member goes to court to get a stalking no contact order against him. Now others are pushing for the second board member to be removed from office.
The past two years at Freeburg Community Consolidated School District 70 have been full of conflict and upheaval, yet officials won’t talk about it publicly.
Superintendent Melanie Brink didn’t respond to BND requests for comment last week, nor did school board President Michelle Foppe, Freeburg Elementary School Principal Tiffany Zurliene, teachers’ union President Theresa Goscinski or Heidi Eckert, the district’s attorney.
Jayson Baker, the board member being considered for removal, declined to comment on the controversy. So did David Stein, the board member who Baker got the order of protection against.
“We have world-class teachers at Freeburg grade school,” Stein said. “That’s my comment.”
Perhaps the most dramatic turn of events occurred Aug. 26, when six of the seven school board members voted to ask St. Clair County Regional Office of Education Superintendent Lori Costello to remove Baker from his elective office after discussing it in closed session.
Holding such a discussion in private may have violated the Illinois Open Meetings Act if it didn’t involve employee or student discipline, litigation or other exceptions to the law that requires public bodies to discuss public business in open session, according to attorney Don Craven, president and CEO of the Illinois Press Association. Baker is not an employee; he’s an elected official.
One exception to the law involves removing someone from public office, but it only applies if the public body has the power to remove him. In this case, the school board lacks that power.
“If they want to get rid of this guy, why wouldn’t they want to talk about it in public anyway?” Craven asked.
In the past, Baker has described himself as the only board member “brave enough” to call out “Illegal practices and violations of policy” and advocate for “unprotected, victimized” staff members who aren’t administrators protected by the district’s attorneys or teachers represented by the union.
The investigation of Superintendent Brink hasn’t been reported until now. On Thursday, Freeburg Police Chief Mike Schutzenhofer verified that a parent made an allegation against her, prompting local police to spend months investigating, with help from Illinois State Police.
“(The allegation) was unfounded,” he said, referring to the conclusion of investigators and the St. Clair County state’s attorney’s office, whose prosecutors declined to file charges.
.jpeg "JaysonBakerPortrai_fitted (1).jpeg")
Two resignations in five months
District 70 includes Freeburg Elementary School and Freeburg Primary Center. Freeburg High School is part of a separate district.
An early sign of trouble at the elementary school came in March 2023, when then-Principal Ryan Wittenauer submitted his letter of resignation, effective at the end of the school year.
Wittenauer stated that he could no longer work in the district because of “unfounded attacks, bullying, and professional accusations” by people who “terrorize our school community.”
At a school board meeting that week, a former district employee and unsuccessful school-board candidate had criticized Brink, according to a story in The Freeburg Tribune.
“(Attacks against school staff) have been deliberate results of a few individuals with their own personal agendas and motives,” Wittenauer’s letter stated. “Yet, due to our professionalism and dedication to confidentiality, the school cannot fully defend itself or enlighten the community with the whole story.”
Wittenauer didn’t name the individuals, but in a Facebook post at the time, Stein blamed Baker for “relentlessly badgering our school” and called for his resignation. A month later, Stein ran for school board and won.
In August 2023, shortly before the start of a new school year, Brink submitted her own resignation letter, stating her desire to accept a “wonderful opportunity” that had come her way.
Several local residents stood up to praise Brink’s service during a school board meeting. After going into closed session to discuss the case, board members declined to accept her resignation by a 6-1 vote, with Baker in the minority. Brink later agreed to stay.
Baker formerly served as principal at Central Elementary School in O’Fallon, beginning in 2018.
In April 2021, Baker was elected to the District 70 school board. In a BND candidate questionnaire, he identified himself as an educator and volunteer coach who had participated in community gardening projects through his church. The year before, he and his wife and two children had moved back to Freeburg, where he had spent much of his childhood.
In August 2022, Baker became principal at Wilson 1-2 Education Center in Granite City Community Unit School District 9. He resigned from that job in June of this year without stating a reason publicly.
“I was hired to be a change agent, and I am proud of the positive changes that occurred at Wilson 1-2 Education Center under my leadership,” Baker wrote in his resignation letter.
Bad blood between board members
Last year, Baker filed two requests for stalking no contact orders (similar to orders of protection) against Stein in St. Clair County Circuit Court. Judge Dominic Kujawa denied one in March but granted another in August. He prohibited Stein from threatening Baker, going to his home or contacting his employer, but he allowed both men to attend school board meetings.
In his requests, Baker had alleged that Stein called and wrote letters to his supervisor and other officials in the Granite City and O’Fallon school districts, giving them “untrue defamatory information about me, in an attempt to intimidate me (and) destroy my career.”
Jayson Baker also alleged that Stein had harassed his wife, Lauren Baker, a nurse in District 70, and that police reports showed he had a “menacing past.”
“Knowing that (Stein) is violent, I am filled with worry that he will show up at my house and or find me in public and attempt to physically harm me and my family,” the request stated.
In February 2024, Superintendent Brink called police to Freeburg Elementary about an alleged disturbance involving Stein. Police Chief Schutzenhofer responded personally.
According to Schutzenhofer’s report, Stein asked questions about an ongoing investigation involving the school, specifically why he, as a “mandated reporter,” hadn’t been contacted for an interview.
The report stated that Schutzenhofer told Stein that his department had turned over the investigation to Illinois State Police and that being a school board member or mandated reporter didn’t require investigators to brief him on what was going on with it.
Schutzenhofer described Stein as upset at him and other police officers over his “family court issues” in the past.
“Stein’s demeanor was hostile and with his concealing his arms behind his back while continually scanning the room was a cause for concern,” the report stated. “Stein’s body language and tone was also concerning considering this was the middle of the school day and he was causing an interruption in the office area.”
Stein eventually left the school, and no charges were filed.
Schutzenhofer said Thursday that the investigation cited in the report was the one prompted by the complaint against Brink and that investigators later determined the parent’s allegation was “unfounded.”
Regional office asked to intervene
The District 70 school board meeting on Aug. 26 included a public-participation period in which five teachers read a statement on behalf of their union, Freeburg Elementary Teachers’ Association.
The teachers stated that Baker had “harmed the educational environment and the working conditions” of the district and that union members had “overwhelmingly” voted that he had lost their confidence. They didn’t specify what he had done to prompt the action.
The teachers asked the school board to enact a policy requiring an administrator to be present during any contact between them and Baker, whether in person or by phone.
“The Freeburg Elementary Teachers’ Association believes that our school functions best when teachers, parents, administrators, support staff, and school board members work collectively and cooperatively for the benefit of our children and students,” the statement read. “Unfortunately, that has not always been the case recently.”
The statement referred to a complaint made by a union member against Baker for “creating an unpleasant and confrontational work environment,” the district’s decision to hire an attorney as a “neutral third party” to investigate and the attorney’s conclusion that the complaint was “founded.”
The statement alleged that problems with Baker continued, even after the union sent him a letter in early 2023 asking him to change his “unprofessional and unproductive conduct” and after he met with teachers, acknowledged his mistakes and promised to make improvements.
“At this time, we do not feel he can perform the duties expected of him as a member of our school board,” the statement read.
The six board members present at the Aug. 26 meeting went into closed session to discuss, among other things, the possibility of censuring Baker and recommending his removal from office. Baker was absent. After that session, Foppe, Stein and board members Ed Scheibel, Jamie Smith, Amber Trout and Bill May voted to take both actions.
After the meeting, Baker responded to a BND inquiry with an emailed statement.
“All I ever expected was for the District to follow laws and their own policies,” it read. “Since I first expressed concerns about policy and law violations, my family and I have been the target of retaliation, harassment, and stalking to the point that a judge issued a one year order of protection on my behalf.
“It has been my experience that the School Board and a portion of FETA are more concerned with me calling out illegal practices and violations of policy than they are with the actual illegal activity and policy violations taking place in our schools. There is something seriously wrong with that, especially since these are the people we entrust with our children.”
Residents divided on school issues
The BND filed a Freedom of Information Act request with District 70 to obtain a copy of an Aug. 29 letter that Foppe sent to the regional superintendent, asking her to remove Baker. Foppe’s reasoning was limited to one sentence, although she invited Costello to reach out for more information.
“The reason for the recommendation for removal is due to interactions with staff members,” Foppe wrote.
Illinois law authorizes a regional superintendent to remove a school board member if that member willfully fails to perform his or her official duties, according to Costello. She verified receipt of Foppe’s letter but declined to speculate how long it would take to review the case.
Baker has his supporters and detractors in Freeburg, a village southeast of Belleville with a population of 4,582 people, according to the 2020 census.
One of Baker’s vocal supporters is Amber Lonsdale, mother of a fifth-grade daughter who attended Freeberg Elementary until this fall, when her parents enrolled her in a private school.
Lonsdale praised Baker for bringing up examples of District 70 allegedly not following Illinois law or best practices on issues related to COVID-19, standardized testing and playground privileges.
Lonsdale said her criticism at school board meetings and on Facebook have prompted hostility from board members, administrators and teachers and led some to bad-mouth her around town and scream at her during one particularly heated meeting.
“Everybody is really terrified to speak out,” Lonsdale said. “They don’t want their children to be targeted, especially after watching what has happened to me and to Jayson Baker and anybody else who has tried to speak out.”
Freeburg resident Frank Heiligenstein has a different take on the controversy. The community activist and former St. Clair County Board member for 40 years heads Citizens Federation of St. Clair County, a tax-oriented watchdog group he founded in the 1970s.
Heiligenstein has attended a couple of school board meetings to show his support for Superintendent Brink and other administrators.
“The people of Freeburg almost universally support the superintendent and the existing school board, with the exception of Jayson Baker,” he said. “They feel he is an intrusion into our town and school district and that he should not be here. He’s really made an enemy of himself.”
BND reporters Kelly Smits and Mike Koziatek contributed to this story.
This story was originally published September 9, 2024 at 6:00 AM.
