STEVENS POINT, Wis. (WSAU) — Stevens Point’s school board did not take disciplinary action Wednesday against some of their members, but instead heard a legal expert tell them what they can and cannot do with confidential information.
Lisa Totten, Kim Shirek, and Alex Kochanowski are potential targets of censure, and the board originally planned to consider formal discipline for them this week. Now, it’s not clear what, if any, disciplinary action has begun.
Attorney and Oregon school board member Steven Zach from the Madison-based law firm of Boardman & Clark LLP spent about an hour explaining the importance of keeping confidential information private, and how not doing so can leave officials with no legal protections. “The thing I’m trying to convey to you is that there are sources of highly confidential, protected information that you get, that there are duties to keep it confidential, and that there are landmines out there for you if you don’t.”
Zach also went over some points of employment law, the open meetings law, privacy issues, and answered questions about information obtained by the news media.
President Angel Faxon says she wanted to bring Zach in, so fellow board members get the guidelines straight from an expert, and not from her. “I would like it to be something that we all hear directly from legal counsel. There’s no room for interpretation. There’s no room for misunderstanding. We all know exactly what the rules are.”
Faxon is hopeful that her colleagues now understand that there are legal guidelines for handling board business. “There are so many controversial things going on, and I feel like I get advice and I try to relay it, and it isn’t heard or understood clearly enough. This got us all on the same page, I hope, and now everybody understands kind of what the standards are, and that there is a fair and legal process to do things, and doing it without that process has consequences.”
Board members asked Zach several questions, but were often left without answers, as the attorney said many things depend on specific circumstances.
Faxon and other board members did not indicate if any formal actions against Totten, Shirek, and Kochanowski have begun or will soon.
Totten and Shirek are also the target of a recall election campaign.
