Lake Forest District 67 School Board President Mark Remus is expressing his unhappiness regarding a personnel situation where an individual who was the subject of a criminal investigation was briefly hired to work at one of the city’s schools.
On Aug. 20, Superintendent Matthew Montgomery revealed in a community letter that a job applicant initially hired to be a District 67 teaching assistant had been the subject of a criminal investigation after he allegedly engaged in “inappropriate behavior” with a Kenosha, Wisconsin student.
The individual was never charged with a crime, but the school district quickly rescinded the offer after the administration was informed of his background after a staff member performed a search engine check, Montgomery wrote. The person in question was never in contact with children, he said.
Remus addressed the situation during the president’s report at the start of the Aug. 27 school board meeting.
“We received some news the district hired somebody the district shouldn’t have hired,” he said. “The board individually (and) collectively was not happy.”
Remus spoke of feeling anger, frustration and disappointment.
“The board is united and the administration is united to ensuring that something like this does not happen again,” he added. “Steps are being taken so that it doesn’t happen again, and I look forward to this being the last time we ever have to talk about something like this at District 67.”
Remus was the only board member to comment on the situation, but he said members have discussed the issue at length.
Parent Brian Lang expressed his disappointment during the public comment portion of the meeting.
“To say I am concerned is an understatement,” he said. “The safety of our children is paramount. This is something that we can’t be reactionary about. This has to be proactive, and should have been much prior to this incident.”
Lang later noted, “I hope the community sees some huge progress on how we hire people to come in and teach our children.”
As a result of this and previous hiring issues, Montgomery said in the community letter there would be an examination of current school district hiring practices with an independent audit performed by an outside firm.
Montgomery said he is interviewing two organizations for the audit and will provide an update to the community at the September board meeting, according to District 67 spokeswoman Melissa Oakley.
