District 65 puts out New Statement on Indictment + I Share Some Receipts

... and an exploration of the Principal-Agent problem in education

Quick administrative note. I am not back for good, but I am going to temporarily cover this story because it connects with all my prior reporting and I think moves towards closing a chapter.

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The District 65 Board put out a more complete statement this morning. You can read it on their website. I appreciate their candor and transparency. I take issue with a couple things, but this is the big one:

Did the Board have concerns with Dr. Horton’s p-card usage?

Yes. Upon Dr. Horton’s departure from his role as Superintendent at the end of the 2023 school year, the District questioned several charges on Dr. Horton’s final p-card statements. The District addressed its concerns with Dr. Horton and he immediately repaid the District for the identified charges.

This is true, most of the news around the p-card was from April and May 2023, but “the Board have concerns” is doing a lot of work here. There were concerns by administrators with the purchasing card before 2023. For instance, the May 2022 p-card statement (FOIA’ed in November 2022) shows:

• A $212 Steak Dinner at Nick & Stefs in Los Angeles on March 28, 2022.

• A Hotel Stay at the Marriott Los Angeles without a receipt labeled as “Please Challenge this Charge we don’t know what it is for” on March 28, 2022.

• At least two Lyft Luxe Rides in Los Angeles on March 28, 2022.

• A $100 Illegal Contribution to a political action committee (PAC).

This evidence shows that someone was questioning p-card statements as early as 2022. Whether this was reported to the Board or not is not known to me.

But to the District’s point, May 2023 was pretty lit with gift card purchases. The summary is below and you can view the receipts obtained via FOIA here.

• 5/13/2023 Walgreens $700 gift cards (1x$500, 2x$100)

• 5/26/2023 Target $500 gift cards (2x$200, 1x$100)

• 5/27/2023 Walgreens $500 gift cards (1x$500)

• 5/30/2023 CVS $400 gift cards (1x$400)

The 5/13/2023 transaction also includes the purchase of 2 Mothers’ Day cards, paid for by the school district.

Dr. Horton’s last month of p-card usage (June 2023) was also attention grabbing, you can view it here. This included a $500 Walgreens gift card purchase, Georgia moving expenses, automotive expenses, and charges even after his final day with District 65 - indicating the card wasn’t even shut off upon termination.

The District cited that these initial funds were paid back, but today admitted that the subsequent investigations found more, presumably the stuff back to 2022.

Did the Board have concerns with Dr. Horton’s p-card usage?

…

After the investigation commenced, the District made the US Department of Education aware of these prior concerns. Working with the US Department of Education, the District and the US Department of Education identified additional alleged unauthorized p-card charges during Dr. Horton’s employment totaling $30,845.77.

Of course, Dr. Horton deserves a chance to clear his name and I hope he is given a fair treatment by the legal system.

As the guy who (a mere five days ago) posted a story about how things are better and we should have a referendum, the District needs demonstrate again to taxpayers there are sufficient financial controls in place.

I’m not sure they’ve done that, but I think we’re part of the way there:

• In September 2024, I wrote a story Systems, Processes and Structures about the new P-Card policy presented to the Board. It looks good on paper but so did the old policy that was ignored.

• The District needs some kind of whistleblower protection. If an employee saw charges like that today (“please challenge this we don’t know what this charge is”), is there a way to bring this to the attention of the Board, while not losing your job? I’m not sure there is.

This is a National Problem

This reveals a national problem in public education - there is a major principal-agent issue between school boards and superintendents. This made news a few weeks ago, when ICE arrested the Superintendent of the Des Moines School District. You can debate the ethics of this Trumpian arrest, but even the New York Times covered the fact he misled the District and the State Licensing Board.

Red flags would pop up: The district learned about a past brush with law enforcement and a misstatement on his résumé about where he had earned a doctorate. But Des Moines officials moved ahead to hire him. Two outside companies were involved in vetting Dr. Roberts, who told district officials and a state licensing board that he was a United States citizen.

Or this current story from Mineola, New York where the Superintendent allegedly had his 19-year old son develop an e-learning app that he made mandatory for eighth grade, without board approval.

Parents say they’re frustrated about “Build Your Own Grade,” a new computer-based educational system developed by Mineola Schools Superintendent Michael Nagler and his 19-year-old son. The program, which rolled out this year for eighth graders, was criticized for relying heavily on iPad-based video instruction …

I could go on and on all day with stories I’ve heard of superintendents abusing the trust of their elected school boards by running consulting businesses on the side, moonlighting with recruiting firms, or lucrative hiring of friends and family. The era of the high-trust between Boards and superintendent (if it ever existed) is over.

Shout out to Superintendent Chalmers, the OG

School Board Complicity

The challenge is: in most of the US, school boards are 1) volunteers and 2) fiduciaries who depend deeply on the integrity of superintendents. In fact, fiduciary responsibility is second thing mentioned in the oath of office, after abiding by the Constitution.

I shall respect taxpayer interests by serving as a faithful protector of the school district’s assets

Yet, the Illinois Association of School Boards (IASB), who offers mandatory training for board members, gives guidance that acts like financial accountability is secondary to treating your superintendent like a perfect baby angel;

“Delegates authority to” means empowering the superintendent and staff to pursue board ends singlemindedly and without hesitation. A board that does (or re-does) staff work disempowers the staff. High levels of superintendent and staff accountability require high levels of delegation.

Their Six Foundational Principles of Effective Governance don’t even mention financial responsibility at all. From a taxpayer perspective, I don’t think they’re very good principles!

It shouldn’t take an act of bravery to comply with the oath of office and push back on bad behavior. In an ideal world, the District 65 Board should’ve warned and then fired Dr. Horton for abusing the P-Card back in 2021 or 2022, whenever he first started allegedly abusing it .. long before the alleged kickback schemes of 2023. But they didn’t have the information (although someone knew in 2022!), the guts, or the perceived authority (or all the above) to actually do anything.

All of us, including Dr. Horton and his family, are now worse off because of this inability or unwillingness of the Board to act. This is a tragedy.

So, what is it? Are board members “faithful protectors of school district assets” or a glorified PR team for the administrators? What should a balance look like and how does a Board erect tangible policies (like whistleblower protections or audits) to prevent the types of issues that Dr. Horton was allegedly able to exploit? How do we build a model that empowers elected school boards without falling into populism (see: book bans) or micromanagement?

Honestly, these are open questions, not just for Evanston but for the entire US educational system.