Clarkstown mom wants school trustee out over email leak

• Parent in email leak wants Clarkstown school board member to resign
• Allison Jaynes says a board member forwarding her email is an %22egregious violation of trust%22
• Board condemns Chris Conti%27s actions%2C but is not likely to take action against him

A Clarkstown school district parent is calling on a Board of Education member to resign after officials said he wrongly forwarded her private email about concerns in her child's school.

The Board of Education held a special meeting Tuesday to investigate how Allison Jaynes' email to board members, the superintendent and the Felix Festa Middle School principal ended up on a public Facebook page Sunday evening, less than two hours after she sent it.

Board President Mike Aglialoro said officials determined Trustee Chris Conti forwarded Jaynes' message to his personal email account minutes after he'd received it at his board email account.

Then, officials indicated, Conti sent it to another person or persons, but those details are unknown. Within an hour or so, the full message, including the names, grades and buildings of Jaynes' four children, appeared on the public Facebook group "You Know You're a Congers Congeroid..."

It was posted there by another parent, Allison Savoury-Leuser, who added the comment: "It gets better every day," apparently a reference to the rift between Congers residents and those from other areas of the district who've fought over the closure of the Congers Elementary School and a $6.5 million bond to repair it.

Jaynes was outraged. A mother of four who works as a user interface designer for Verizon Wireless, she had sent the email to suggest a different arrangement for the location of seventh-graders in the Felix Festa Middle School building next year than what the district is considering. The change could affect her son.

"I am really utterly shocked at the brazenness of this breach of confidentiality," she wrote board members after being alerted to the Facebook post that evening. Other parents, seeing the Facebook post that night, were riled enough to write similar emails.

In an interview, Jaynes said she was angry about the ethical implications of the breach and less concerned her children's names and grades were publicized.

"It's about as egregious a violation of trust in the Board of Education that you could possibly have," she said. "I think the man should step down. I think it was an embarrassment, I think it was a disgrace and I think he should hang his head and resign. We can all guess this wasn't the first time he's done this."

She said parents have suspected for years that information they discussed with board members and administrators was being leaked because details often trickled out into public discourse.

Conti, a Rockland BOCES teacher and a parent of four children, was elected in 2012 and ran in part on the promise that he would work to end politicking on the board and bring the focus back to students. At BOCES, he's also worked to develop educational courses on cyberbullying.

Conti did not respond to several email and phone messages Friday. His three-year term on the board ends in June. It's unclear whether he plans to seek re-election.

A Congers resident, Conti has been an outspoken supporter of reopening of the Congers school, which was closed when structural damage was found in August 2013.

It doesn't appear that his seat on the board is in jeopardy. At the Tuesday meeting, Aglialoro said Conti's actions constitute a "violation of public trust" but indicated the board would not take formal action — including forcing him to resign — because the board's counsel determined he didn't do anything illegal.

"When parents talk to board members ... it's implied that what they're requesting and asking is private and wouldn't be forwarded," Aglialoro said Friday. "You don't want people to question the public trust — I think that's the big issue here."

"I think that most of the board members feel that way and take that very seriously, and that's why everyone's so shocked and surprised," he said.

The incident has prompted debate on Clarkstown social media groups about parents' expectations of privacy when communicating with the district. Most written communications, including Jaynes' email, are publicly available under the Freedom of Information Law.

On Sunday, a few hours after she initially posted Jaynes' email, Savoury-Leuser posted a follow-up message to make that point: "It doesn't matter where I got the email. News flash: you can foil it all and I would've had it in a matter of weeks."

She declined to comment Friday when reached by phone.

It's the responsibility of the agency's FOIL officer to review the documents requested and redact sensitive information, such as the names of Jaynes' children in this case.

According to Robert Freeman, the executive director of the state Committee on Open Government, Conti's actions could constitute a violation of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, the federal law that protects students' personal information.

"What matters is that the information is identifiable, potentially, to a student," Freeman said. "If it identifies a kid, it simply cannot be disclosed."

A potential exception to this is the basic information about students available in the district's "directory information," according to Aglialoro. Parents have the right to opt out of the listing, shielding their children's information.

Jaynes said Friday she wasn't aware of ever opting out of the directory. In any case, she said, her concern is more that a school board member appeared to be using her message of concern to contribute to divisiveness in the community.

"Whether or not it's illegal, it's not ethical," she said. "This kind of political game-playing and posting on Facebook is exactly the kind of stuff that we as a community should not be wasting our time on. We should be discussing educational issues that are facing our district."

Twitter: @MareesaNicosia