(WXYZ) — Drama continues to swirl in Ann Arbor as the school board weighs the future of their superintendent.
One board member says private details about her daughter have become political fodder in the fight between board trustees, and she wants it to stop.
The recent vote to enter into pre-termination talks with the superintendent was very close: just 4-to-3.
Now one of the board members who voted in favor of starting the process to remove the head of the district says an incident with her 13-year-old is being used against her, and she says some have gone so far as to email her boss to try to get her fired.
“It's just unconscionable to me that some adults on a school board would then bully a child even further after she's been bullied for 14 months,” said Jacinda Townsend Gides.
Gides says she has three distinct roles in life: she’s a single mom of two daughters, she’s the recent past president and a current trustee on the Ann Arbor Public Schools board, and she's an author and creative writing university professor.
But now, those roles have collided and Gides says her political foes are crossing some serious lines.
“You just do not drag people's children into political situations,” said Gides.
Gides is one of four trustees who voted recently to send Superintendent Dr. Jeanice Kerr Swift a pre-termination notice that’s required by her contract.
That vote took place after the 7 Investigators exposed the assault of a special needs Carpenter Elementary student on a school bus. A lawsuit alleges school officials hid the assault from the boy’s mother for 5 weeks.
“Our reaction to the Carpenter bus incident was kind of visceral,” Gides told 7 Investigator Heather Catallo. “I know at that point, I kind of lost a little bit of faith in the administration.”
But before that vote about the superintendent, Gides says something extremely personal to her youngest daughter was made public. Gides says over the winter, her 13-year-old was cyber bullied by another Ann Arbor student.
“I had to take her off her bus route. I had to switch her classes. Finally, in February there was a digital sexual offense, and I had to remove her from school,” said Gides.
Gides says the school and the parents did not help stop the bullying.
So, when the behavior allegedly resumed recently, she wrote a letter to the other student’s parents.
“It was a pretty forceful letter,” said Gides.
Gides admits, she should not have said many of the things in that letter, but says she considered it a last-ditch effort from one parent to another to protect her child. Gides also says she wrote to the family as a parent, not as a school board member, even though she did reference her position once in the letter.
But Gides says that letter got shared all the way up to Ann Arbor’s Superintendent and she says that’s when things got political.
“The superintendent then shared the letter with trustees. Which was a violation — if not a FERPA [Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act violation, just an ethical violation. The trustees have then shared that letter beyond the board,” said Gides.
Gides’s older daughter took to social media to express her outrage about the release of information about her younger sister.
“Why are you sharing this letter about these horrible things that happened to my sister when you're supposed to be protecting children in this district,” said Rhianna. As a recent Ann Arbor graduate, Rhianna says many students feel the district needs change.
Current trustees won’t comment on the sharing of the letter about Gides’s daughter. But former trustee Bryan Johnson told the 7 investigators that the content of the letter should be considered board business and he believes Dr. Swift had a duty to share the information.
And that’s not the only thing the former trustees are allegedly sharing.
Sources tell the 7 Investigators the text messages were shared between a group of former trustees who are actively working to keep Dr. Swift in place.
The text outlines their strategy to allege the current board is violating the Open Meetings Act and slow “down the process” to “increase the odds that Jacinda resigns before the final vote on termination” and “keep trustees in a high state of stress for a longer period of time.”
Sources provided the following text messages sent between the group of former trustees:
“Not one of them has mentioned wanting to help students,” said Gides. “We're elected to help children, we're elected to deliver education. We're elected to think of better ways to deliver that education. We're not elected to harass and intimidate each other.”
Gides also says she received these emails that were sent to her new employer at Brown University, where she will soon start teaching one day a week.
In the emails, an Ann Arbor mom says she’s heard from another board member about Gides. That mom then suggests the University “may want to look into [Gides’] background…” because “she has caused a stir during previous positions, and her hire may end up costing a prestigious university like Brown.”
So we went to find that mom from Ann Arbor who emailed Gides’ boss.
“I guess I felt like, well, she's going to sabotage Dr. Swift, and I should sabotage her future opportunities. Although I really don't know anything about her or anything,” said Suzanne Wu.
“Why did you say some of the things you said if you don't actually know her,” asked Catallo.
“I think it was just not thinking things through properly. I just felt like, what is going on with this board,” said Wu. “I apologize for what I said, that was wrong of me, and I deeply regret it.”
Gides says she will vote her conscience despite the pressure.
The 7 Investigators have been contacting Superintendent Swift since Monday. We’ve also contacted her communications team and executive assistant to see if Dr. Swift wants to comment on any of this.
So far none of those emails or text messages have been responded to. Dr. Swift’s personal attorney told us she has no comment at this time.
A school board meeting was held on Wednesday at 7 p.m.
The meeting was moved to Skyline High School to accommodate a larger crowd.
If you have a story for Heather Catallo please email her at hcatallo@wxyz.com