La Grange D102 Officials Argued Behind Closed Doors

LA GRANGE, IL – La Grange School District 102 board members debated in a closed meeting two years ago whether a member committed ethical violations.

Last week, the board released the recording of the 48-minute April 29, 2021, closed meeting. That was after the attorney general's office determined the board broke state law by closing the doors. This was in response to a complaint filed by area watchdog Edgar Pal.

At the time, the board was dealing with whether its vice president, Ed Campbell, used his position as a board member to promote his business, SafeGuard Surveillance LLC, in sales presentations to other school boards. The company offered coronavirus testing for students.

Two members, Bessie Boyd and Brian Anderson, said Campbell had a conflict of interest because he used data from the District 102 testing program to sell his services to other districts. He volunteered his time to set up a testing program in District 102.

During the closed meeting, the district's attorney, Darcy Kriha, told the board that she found Campbell had no conflict of interest, but indicated she was still working on her report. She said federal investigators had interviewed Boyd because they read in Patch of her concerns about a conflict of interest.

Anderson suggested the board hire an independent counsel, rather than its regular attorney, to look into the matter. But he doubted the board majority would go along.

Kriha said her ethical duty was to figure out whether a conflict existed. At the same time, she said the board would not hurt her feelings if it went with another lawyer for the inquiry.

Anderson said Campbell violated the rule that the information from the testing program not be used on the outside. He noted the video of Campbell's presentations to other boards.

"At least in my mind, he clearly connects his board member position to that company, and that connects it to the D102 lab," Anderson said. "When he said he was going to start a company, he should have said that he was going to use all of this (District 102) data for the company to do this."

He also said Campbell, an immunologist and virologist, should have stepped down from the board before he started using the data.

Campbell told the board that Anderson, then an executive at Duracel, introduced him to colleagues at the battery company, where Campbell got a contract. Campbell asked whether Anderson mentioned his District 102 connection to his company. (A month later, Campbell publicly called Anderson a "hypocrite" on social media because of the Duracel situation.)

Anderson said he did not mention District 102. He said he told his company that Campbell was a virologist.

"You feel free to defend yourself," Anderson told Campbell, saying he was seeing new videos every week of Campbell using his district connection to get business. "Suddenly now, I guess it's my fault because of a concern of a conflict of interest. If you need someone to hold onto to blame, I'm right here."

Boyd said Campbell promised not to use the district's data to help him get business with other districts. She said she would be fine with a resident using such information, but a board member should not.

Campbell said he recalled that Boyd's concern was whether he would publish a paper with the district's data.

"I think you're conflating a paper with all the other things I've done because that's the last bastion of logic that you can stand on. But it's not the same thing," he told Boyd.

A month after the closed meeting, federal authorities cleared Campbell of any wrongdoing. And Kriha, the attorney, announced at a public meeting that she saw no conflict of interest.

Kriha also said District 102 should have told parents in consent forms that the coronavirus testing data would be used by a school board member and his company.

Some parents took issue with the consent form that allowed their children to be tested for the coronavirus. The form said the information would be kept confidential and used for the sole purpose of surveillance testing.

"With the benefit of hindsight, I agree that parents and staff members should have been notified that the data involving their child's COVID-19 surveillance testing would be used by Dr. Campbell and Safeguard," Kriha said in a report.

But she said Campbell had no "insider" knowledge about the district's testing program. He only used publicly available data and not confidential health information about students and employees, she said.

Kriha said in the report she took responsibility for the consent form because she drafted it.

Boyd lost her bid for re-election in April. Anderson resigned from the board a few months after the controversy.

The board recently voted in Campbell as its president.