Sweeping Sexual Harassment Claims Under the Rug

Huntley School District 158 seems to have had some sexual harassment claims it has settled.

But the school board doesn’t want to discuss them.

I wonder if they have even legally approved them.

When Larry Snow attempted to get this item,

Acknowledgment of
Sexual Harassment Claims Settlement,

on the agenda, the board, including Mike Skala, his opponent in next month’s election, voted the attempt down.

Legally, all payments of taxpayer money are to be voted on in open session. Of course, District 158 has a history of making cash payments to administrators that were kept secret and not placed in their administrator contracts.

Perhaps it is common practice for school districts to make secret hush money payments. I’m not aware that a payment of public funds can be made without their being approved by the school board at a public meeting.

“There’s a proper procedure to follow to publicly authorize payments. We saw all kind of refuse-to-tell-the-truth abuses when Skala as Board President ran the District’s campaign to increase everyone’s property taxes.

“Once you have administrators making secret payment(s) outside of possible public review and scrutiny, then Skala knows he is eliminating potential accountability to the public.”

I asked Snow if he thought this bears at all on the upcoming election.

“It is difficult for Skala to get away with having secret payoffs made and distort the facts to justify another one of his tax increases if I am on the board.

“Skala never would have gotten away with telling residents there was a financial crisis that never existed if I was able to speak up and ask questions during board meetings.

“It is rather apparent Skala doesn’t want the existence of sexual harassment claims to reflect on him personally.

“Employees in our District have workplace rights to not be sexually harassed.

“They have the right to know that management is on notice how the proper training and procedures should already be in place.

“If more needs to be done, then that’s what needs to happen rather than covering up something that already happened by making secret payments.

“It’s sad,” Snow continued, “to see how Skala wants to perpetuate a cover-up culture in our District that is incredibly corrosive.

“As a practical matter. it prevents the underlying issues from being tackled and improved.

“It encourages people to not tell the truth about what really happens about a whole variety of matters.

“You can see how easy it was for Skala to influence administrators to create a financial crisis that never existed. When people have experience together, covering up for each other, it was pretty easy for Skala to not tell residents about five million dollars that he knew the district would receive.

“One referendum leader told me before the tax hike vote. ‘No one is going to remember afterwards who said what and what the truth was. All anyone will remember is who won the vote.’”


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