Naperville school board member censured
Dave Weeks was censured by six of his fellow Naperville Unit District 203 school board members for leaking sensitive personnel information to a district employee.
The board voted 6-0 Monday in favor of the censure, or formal reprimand. Weeks abstained.
“The censure deals specifically with leaks of information that was shared in closed session, and in this case it specifically had to do with the employment of district members,” board President Mike Jaensch said Tuesday. “Basically we spelled it out that the board cannot tolerate it. It puts the board under potential liability and that's why we felt the need to do a public censure.”
Weeks admitted Tuesday he had a conversation with a district employee during which he discussed a situation he believed “had already been announced.”
“I, not maliciously, discussed an employee's personnel situation with another employee and I shouldn't have done it,” Weeks said. “I admitted it because I should never discuss that stuff even if I thought it had already been announced. I was wrong and I deserved to be censured.”
Jaensch said the censure came after “some buildup” involving Weeks “talking out of school” about closed session agenda items. But he stressed the public wrist-slapping was not related to Weeks' frequent disagreements with other board members on issues ranging from construction to finance.
“It's actually not related at all to any discussions we have had based on open session items. This is solely predicated on what a majority of the board felt was a violation of executive session confidentiality,” Jaensch said. “Going forward I don't think this will affect our functioning as a board at all. As a matter of fact, I believe it reinforces the expectations we all have for each other.”
Weeks agreed and said he will take more care when speaking in public.
“I'll absolutely be more careful in conversations I get myself drawn into,” he said.
Weeks did, however, take issue with the “broad reach” of a statement Jaensch read during Monday night's meeting.
“What I believe we have here is a pattern of abuse of what is an implied, and sometimes legally mandated, requirement for discretion, specifically when it deals with an individual employee's right to privacy,” Jaensch said.
“That statement sure seems to me to be much more broad than the one incident I'm being censured for and I have a problem with that,” Weeks said. “But I decided to take the high road and not be that guy who goes on the defensive.”