So many people attended Wednesday’s special meeting of the Abingdon-Avon District 276 School Board it had to be moved from the superintendent’s conference room to Hedding Grade School’s cafeteria.
While roughly 150 visitors were on hand for the start of the 6 p.m. meeting, just 25 stayed through the five-hour executive session and learned the board’s investigation into a data breach will continue. The board declined to comment on the investigation or indicate when it might conclude.
According to a number of sources, Mark Rogers, the district’s technology director, is the target of the investigation.
Rogers, employed by the district for 19 years and a former Abingdon District 217 School Board member, did not attend the meeting. His daughter, Brittany Terwilliger, did confirm Rogers had been placed on paid administrative leave earlier Wednesday. She addressed the board before the closed session.
Terwilliger, District 276’s nurse, said Superintendent Chad Willis had bullied her father and her.
“I’m scared to continue working for the district,” Terwilliger said. “This was the place I wanted to retire from — but the way the morale is here, I’m not sure this is a place I want to stay.
“My father was bullied and so are other district employees.”
All told, seven people stood up and accused Willis of “harassing,” “bullying” and “intimidating” teachers and district employees. Two of the speakers, Peter and Jennifer Rosen, questioned Willis’ use of a private investigator without the approval of the board.
Just why Rogers was targeted was not stated after the board’s closed session. But the district’s cloud-based information system — called Skyward and installed after Willis came to the district at its inception in 2013 — is at the center of the allegations against Rogers.
The meeting was preceded by a news release posted on the district’s website. It notified the public that the district had placed an “employee on leave for alleged involvement” in what the release called a “data breach.”
The release said, in part:
“Around the first of the year, the school district discovered several changes to its student information management system which resulted in unauthorized changes to student grade point averages. While the changes were tracked down and resolved, the unauthorized nature of the changes caused the school administration and board concern, and the school hired a consulting firm to investigate the changes.”
The consulting firm hired was Garrett Discovery, a Decatur-based firm that specializes in “digital investigations and computer forensics.”
The release said “other unauthorized activity was discovered,” including “access and copying of employees’ emails.
A number of individuals and both of the teachers’ unions took issue with the district’s version of events.
Suzanne Batson, president of the Abingdon-Avon Educational Association, and Melissa Roberts, the president of the Abingdon-Avon Teachers Association, said Rogers was the person who alerted the district and Willis to the breach of Skyward and grade irregularities.
“Rogers told Willis about the problems,” Roberts said. “And Willis never contacted anyone in either union about an investigation.
Rogers is considered an administrator in District 276 and is not a member of either union.
Board members Amy Goehl and Dedra Mannon, who along with board member Anthony Brooks voted against going into executive session, said they never informed about any investigation until after it started.
“We were told Skyward was being investigated,” Mannon said. “But we were never asked to vote to approve any investigation.”
Goehl said she resented residents of the district being “kept in the dark” about an investigation.
“We need to hear people’s concerns,” Goehl said. “We get one night to hear about this, hear people’s concerns, and then we’re asked to vote on this.”
