Email Controversy: Hinsdale D-86 Explains Practices

HINSDALE, IL – The minority on the Hinsdale High School District 86 board has raised questions about who is getting copied in on emails to the school board's general email account.

Last month, it was revealed that Chris Jasculca, the district's communications director, was one of those who received blind copies.

At a board meeting last week, officials said the superintendent and one of her staff members have been receiving emails to the board account since 2013. That brings the total to nine recipients, including the seven board members.

The superintendent has long been copied in on emails to the school board account. Senders were advised of that fact.

After it became known last month that Jasculca also was copied in, the district added his name to its advisory to senders.

At a board meeting last month, board member Jeff Waters said the district had kept the public in the dark that Jasculca was the ninth person to receive the emails.

As it turns out, the district posted a document on its website in February 2020 that said emails to the board's email account should include Jasculca. That policy got the board's support in late 2019, according to the document.

This was well before four new members, including Waters, took office in May 2021.

In August, Patch asked Jasculca about the practice of blindly copying him in on the emails.

In an email, Jasculca said he could not explain why the messages went to him because the policy predated him. He said records show the practice dated back to 2014.

Patch filed a public records request for documents showing the practice went back to 2014, but the district was unable to produce any.

At last week's board meeting, Superintendent Tammy Prentiss, who took the helm in 2019, presented information about the email policy. She said the district had no communications director in 2014. The board's recording secretary at the time assumed some communications duties, including receiving board emails.

When people send emails to individual board members, no one else is copied in. The issue at hand only involves emails to the board account.

Discussion over the email issue got so tense in late August that Prentiss accused Waters of spreading disinformation about it.