Did La Grange 102 Official Use Role To Benefit Business?

LA GRANGE, IL — La Grange School District 102 board members Ed Campbell and Bessie Boyd agree on one thing: He has received no money from the district for saliva surveillance testing for the coronavirus.

But they sharply disagree on whether he has used his status as a board member to build his business for surveillance testing with other suburban school districts.

Boyd argues Campbell, a virologist at Loyola University, has used his board role to obtain information from District 102 to promote his business, SafeGuard Surveillance LLC, with other districts.

Campbell, however, contends the District 102 information is publicly available.

In response to Boyd's allegation against Campbell in March, the district requested its law firm to investigate whether he has a conflict of interest. An update is expected later this month.

Campbell has presented his business' services to a number of school boards around the area. In early December, he spoke to the board for Wilmette District 39, based in a wealthy, North Shore suburb.

The superintendent introduced Campbell as being with SafeGuard Surveillance.

But Campbell said he wanted to introduce himself in a "slightly different contest," identifying himself as District 102's board vice president.

"The reason I'm talking to you today about this is that I picked a weird time for being a virologist on a school board and really everything I will talk about is really using the program we have set up in District 102 to do this same type of testing as a model," he said.

He advertised his company's $11 test as "relatively cheap."

"It's fast. It takes about half the time to run," he said.

In his presentation, he spoke about District 102, but did not specifically mention SafeGuard.

During a question-and-answer session, Wilmette board member Mark Steen said he assumed Campbell has a financial interest.

"How are you disclosing your financial interests as you talk about these tests?" Steen asked.

Campbell responded that there were two arms of the surveillance issue.

"First, it's what we started in District 102, and I have no financial interest there because I'm on the board of education," he said. "The company we have created, which I'm a 33 percent partner of, was really created because in 102, we were able to fit two neighboring districts into (the District 102) facility that wanted to participate in the surveillance. By squeezing them in, there was simply no way to run more tests out of that facility."

So he said he created a company to provide the same type of surveillance for other school districts. He said he didn't think that was a secret, saying he spoke about it during the District 102 board's open sessions. He said his work for District 102's surveillance was voluntary.

Wilmette entered into a contract with SafeGuard.

According to secretary of state records, Campbell formed SafeGuard on Sept. 14 with John Carroll of Elmhurst and Elyse Hoffenberg, who until recently was a member of the La Grange School District 105 board. The principal office is at 9300 W. Ogden Ave. in Brookfield.

At a District 102 board meeting in March, member Boyd said she was concerned that Campbell was using the lab results from the district in his sales presentations to other boards. This has allowed him to market his company and win sizable contracts, she said.

"This may not be a concern to anyone but me," Boyd told the board. "But I ask the board, are we allowing this precedent of unethical practice to be set by our school board members? For example, if Dr. Campbell were not a board member directly connected to this project, would he have any access to the data and background information in order to make his presentations that open doors to his multi-million dollar contracts?"

In an email to Patch on Friday, Campbell said he donated hundreds of hours of his time and expertise to District 102 to establish the testing program, with no expectation of compensation. He said that because the test was so simple and effective, it led to interest from Wilmette and many other districts.

"I created a company to do that when it became obvious we could not plausibly assist all of the school districts that reached out with the lab that was set up in D102, which is what we did with the first two districts that approached me or D102 for assistance (D105 and D96)," he said. "I'm surprised that anyone would find this inappropriate."

Patch reported on the debate in a story on the March meeting.

School board members in Illinois are unpaid.