What’s the deal with the Bloomfield Hills School Board?
Update 10/9/21: Please read the follow-up post as well.
As some Bloomfield Hills School District residents may know, I’ve barely posted anything on Facebook for the past several years. I reluctantly re-entered the Facebook world around two months ago because I was concerned that BHS wasn’t planning on reinstating a mask mandate for the 2021–2022 school year in spite of the ugly spike in the COVID Delta variant across the country, the state and Oakland County.
In mid-August, I joined a Facebook page/group of pro-mask mandate parents since that’s where most of the discussion has taken place.
Around the same time, I was also invited to join a smaller group of pro-mandate parents in a private WhatsApp chat group to discuss ideas for contacting the school board, county government & MI HHS Dept. to advocate for a masking mandate & other COVID mitigation strategies to help keep our children healthy & safe.
(For the record, while our high schooler is fully vaccinated, there’s still breakthrough cases to worry about, and most of the other parents in the WhatsApp group have children under 12 yrs old who are sitting ducks.)
In the midst of the panic & confusion over whether there’d be a mandate, whether it would be properly enforced even if it was reinstated and so forth, several parents in the chat group were discussing their concerns about whether unmasked, potentially infected children would be sitting next to their elementary-age kids. They were understandably worried about anti-mandate parents potentially not having their kids mask up whether there was a mandate or not.
One of the other parents then did something which was clearly unwise, but was done without malice: they posted a list of names of district parents who they believed were opposed to the mask mandate with explicit instructions a) not to share it outside of this chat group; and b) that it was not to be used for any sort of intimidation, doxxing, harassment, etc. of those opposed to a masking mandate. Several others in the group emphatically agreed.
(You can already guess where this is going. As a website developer for over 20 years, I’ve repeatedly reminded clients, family & friends alike that once you post anything online, no matter how private you intend it to be, there’s always the possibility of someone else sharing it, and once that happens you have no control over it.)
Sure enough, someone shared this list outside the private group anyway. I don’t know who that was, nor do I know if it was done out of malice (a “mole” in the room if you will) or out of simple stupidity, but once that happened it didn’t matter anymore.
For the record: No, I’m not the one who posted the list, nor did I share it anywhere else. To be honest, I didn’t even remember anyone posting it until the story hit the news — I assumed it had been posted in the chatroom prior to my joining. When I scrolled all the way back to the date in question, however, I saw it.
Anyway, the original list was shared externally…and at some point, someone MODIFIED the list in several ways and shared it further on social media. I don’t know the extent of the changes, but I presume the header was changed to make it look like a “burn book” or something of that nature.
IMPORTANT: SEE UPDATE AT END OF THIS ENTRY.
From that point, it took on a life of its own; there could be dozens of different versions of “the list” floating around now for all I know, since it was literally just a list of names — other names could be easily added or removed by whomever received it before passing it out to others.
NOTE: My description below is my understanding of the facts based on the discussion/debate at the most-recent BHS board meeting. I’ll post a direct link to the YouTube archive of the meeting at the end of this post. I *strongly* urge you to watch the first FULL 30 minutes of the meeting, up through the actual vote to remove Paul Kolin from his position as BHS board President. (FYI, he’s still on the board, he’s just not in a leadership position anymore.)
At some point, someone contacted BHS School Board President Paul Kolin with the situation and apparently demanded that he take “the list” to the police for an investigation. And here’s where things start to get REALLY ugly and confusing.
I’m not on the school board, nor am I familiar with their rules/regulations, but apparently he was supposed to inform the other 6 members of the board (presumably along with Superintendent Watson) of the situation so they could discuss as a group how to handle it.
Instead, Kolin apparently took the version of the list he had been sent to Mr. Watson without informing anyone else on the school board about the list. Kolin & Watson then apparently contacted the Bloomfield Township Police School Liason Officer and asked for an investigation…again, without informing the other 6 members of the school board of any of this.
Mr. Kolin also provided the officer with his own list of five names of people he suspected of having authored the original version of the list. I’ve confirmed with the police that I was one of those five names.
Kolin admits in the police report that the SOLE reason he included those names, including myself, on his own “list” of suspects is that they have been, and I quote:
“…very vocal on Facebook…all are ‘pro-mask’ stance and moderate pages such as ‘Bloomfield Hills Parents for a Safe Return to School’ and ‘Oakland County Parents for Safe in Person School.”
While I am very ‘pro-mask’ and I am a member of the second Facebook page listed, I’m not a moderator of it, and I wasn’t a member of the first one.* I also haven’t been “vocal on Facebook” for years, as I noted at the beginning of this post.
*Note: I did recently join the Bloomfield Hills Parents FB page after the dust settled on this mess.
He then stated that “these people” have “denounced his actions and been critical of him as the school board president in general.”
For the record: The first time I ever criticized Kolin’s performance on the school board was less than two months ago, in relation to the mask mandate issue itself…primarily the way he had treated two healthcare professionals from Henry Ford Hospital of West Bloomfield who had been asked to answer medical questions at an earlier board meeting in mid-August.
At that meeting, Kolin gave me the strong impression that he was strongly opposed to a mask mandate and he seemed extremely hostile towards and suspicious of the doctors who were there voluntarily, on their own time, to help explain the importance of masking during a pandemic.
I’ve known Paul Kolin (not well, but to some extent) for several years now, and I even voted for him in 2018. He seemed like a good guy. I haven’t really kept abreast of his performance on the school board over the past few years, however, and I was honestly stunned at his behavior. I felt he was completely out of line and said so in a post in the Oakland County Parents for Safe In Person School Facebook page.
Back to the investigation: The police officer called and spoke with several of the parents on “the list”, all of whom told her that they hadn’t received any threats (which they wouldn’t have, as there was no “threat”). She also contacted the first few names on Kolin’s own “list”, and it turned out that one of them was the one who posted the original version in in the WhatsApp chat group. The officer saw the original private chat exchange in context, realized that there was never any threat, malice, crime or slander committed, and closed out the case.
Getting back to the board and the meeting on September 23rd: The other board members were never informed by Kolin of “the list” or the fact that there was a police investigation. The way they found out about the situation was apparently when they started getting frantic calls from parents being investigated by the police.
The other board members demanded Kolin provide them with his communications with the police; he refused, apparently even with the identity of the parent who had contacted him redacted. At the time, he claimed it was because the investigation (which he hadn’t informed them of either) was ongoing.
However, he STILL refused to provide them with his communications even AFTER the officer closed the case and concluded that there had been no crime of any sort. As far as I know, as of this writing he still hasn’t done so for reasons unknown.
Kolin at various points during the meeting claimed that he (or perhaps the parent who contacted him) was acting under the “whistleblower act” because there was an “imminent threat.” He also claimed that posting the original list of names might have constituted a “hate crime.” He kept throwing these phrases around even though there was never any threat made and the definitions of these terms don’t seem to have any connection to this incident.
It was never explained why the parent didn’t contact the police themselves if they honestly thought they were in “imminent” danger (or, alternately, why either they or Kolin didn’t call 911 immediately).
(I can’t speak for anyone else, but if I truly believed my life, family or property was in “imminent danger,” the school board president isn’t anywhere on the list of those I would contact.)
In any event, after more discussion, the other 6 members of the board then UNANIMOUSLY voted to remove Kolin from his leadership position. I got the sense that this is hardly the first time that Kolin has acted alone without consulting the rest of the board, which is supposed to work together as a team. It left me with the impression that this was just the latest in a long pattern of behavior.
Again, he’s still on the board, he’s just not in charge of it anymore — this would be like if the Senate Democrats decided to remove Chuck Schumer as their Majority Leader, nothing more.
Upping the drama factor, there was also a full-page ad which ran in last Wednesday’s Eagle — the day BEFORE Kolin was removed — attacking 3 of the other board members and insinuating that they were somehow involved with creation of or dissemination of “the list”.
This is not only simply false, it’s also ironic because one of the primary reasons they voted Kolin out of his position as Board President is that they hadn’t been made aware of the list until AFTER the police investigation began. The smear ad also implicates the Oakland County Parents Facebook page, which also had NOTHING to do with, or knowledge of, the “list” prior to it turning into a major issue within the BHS community.
This ad was paid for by a mysterious new PAC calling itself the “Coalition for Common Sense of Oakland County” which is less than a month old — it wasn’t officially formed until September 17th…less than a week earlier. Given the nationwide assault on local school boards this fall, you can guess which players are likely behind it.
There’s a LOT of other stuff going on here as well, from FOIA requests to rumors of potential lawsuits, but this is getting pretty long so I’ll wrap it up. I do want to stress the following points, however:
1. NONE OF THE OTHER BOARD MEMBERS had ANYTHING to do with the posting or distribution of “the list”.
2. The original list was not posted with ANY malicious or nefarious intent. It was literally a list of names only of people that someone thought were opposed to a mask mandate at BHS schools, posted to a private chat group of a small number of people. There was no contact information included. Was it inappropriate? Yes. Was it criminal? No.
3. To the best of my knowledge, the only ones involved in the original sharing of “the list” are A. the parent who posted it within the private chat group and B. whoever then shared it outside of that group the first time. NONE of the other parents in that chat group — myself or anyone else — had ANYTHING to do with “the list” being posted or shared elsewhere.
4. The Facebook group referenced in the Eagle ad was not involved either, and to my knowledge has never done anything to try and intimidate, harass, etc. anyone opposed to a mask mandate.
5. The version which was shared outside of the group was ALTERED by parties unknown. To the best of my knowledge, the only ones who have been sharing/disseminating it via social media since then are those opposed to a mask mandate themselves. It’s conceivable that some names have been added or removed by others as different versions have been shared by others.
5. Trustee Siva Kumar explained quite clearly why the other 6 members of the board UNANIMOUSLY voted to remove him from his position as President of the board:
“To be clear, we’re not talking about the list of community members. We’re talking about our president’s actions. The board was neither informed nor was its concurrence sought before our president sought to contact law enforcement,” Kumar explained.
“After nearly two weeks of going to the police and not informing us, our president has yet to share the details of his communications with all of his fellow board members despite repeated requests…when you join a school board it is a board of seven and none of us has the ability to act alone. Before taking any action, the board must be provided with all relevant information and the opportunity to deliberate in a meeting open to the public.
“Violations can result in serious consequences for the district, our students, staff, and fellow board trustees. By your unilateral action you have violated multiple board policies, our board operating procedures, our code of ethics and our trust in you. Your actions have taken the focus off substantial matters, put more division into the community and have exposed the district to potential legal liability, in addition to unwarranted press scrutiny.”
In closing, I highly recommend reading this article from Downtown Publications about the board meeting and the vote to remove Kolin from his position, and I urge you to watch the first 30 minutes of the board meeting, not just Kolin’s angry, 6 1/2 minute-long statement at the beginning:
IMPORTANT UPDATE: The person who posted the original list has sent me the source of the original list of names…all of which apparently came from BHS parents asking that their names be added to a letter to be sent to Superintendent Watson opposing a masking mandate in a Facebook group.
In other words, those on the original list were PUBLICLY stating their opposition to a masking mandate in the first place:
If you enter the URL in the screenshot above, it takes you to another (again, very much public) Change.org anti-mask mandate petition.
Below is apparently the original letter which all of the people in the above screenshots were asking to sign onto. Again, this was a letter to be sent to BHS Superintendent Pat Watson:
