Ex-Hinsdale D86 Official Denounces Leader, Law Firm

HINSDALE, IL – A Hinsdale High School District 86 board member who resigned last fall told colleagues in a private email that she lost confidence in the district's law firm and that the board president exceeded her powers.

Member Kay Gallo sent the email on Oct. 8, about 2½ weeks before she abruptly left the board. She sent another one to two board members in September.

Check Kay Gallo's email to board members in October. (Screenshots below)

Check Kay Gallo's emails to members Terri Walker and Asma Akhras.

In response to Patch's public records requests, the district released the emails with the entire text redacted. In recent days, however, Patch obtained the emails with only small parts redacted. The district warned Patch not to publish them.

In the October email, Gallo copied the entire board. But she pointedly refused to include Robbins Schwartz, the law firm that was serving as a special counsel for the board. She said she would not comply with the firm's suggestion that board members include the firm in all emails.

Gallo said Robbins Schwartz should have informed the entire board that one of its lawyers met with two board members and two incoming board members before the new majority took control last May.

In the September email that the district entirely redacted, Gallo told members Terri Walker and Asma Akhras that she and the three others held the private meeting with Robbins. This was before the board's May 3 reorganization meeting.

"While I can only speak for myself, I continue to regret that I did not share this with the full board when Robbins was first suggested as special counsel, or before the board voted to hire them," Gallo said in the October message. "Robbins' lack of candor has continued, as they seem to be taking marching orders from President (Catherine) Greenspon, who has acted out of turn and without full board authorization time and again since the reorganization meeting."

She accused Greenspon of failing to share the information she had received from either Robbins or the main law firm, Itasca-based Hodges Loizzi, which Robbins replaced in January.

"President Greenspon has made a mess of this situation, has been enabled by counsel, and manipulated the rest of the board into engaging in harassment, intimidation, and continued violations of parental rights and student privacy," Gallo said.

Among the allegations in Gallo's October letter:

• Greenspon revealed to the board in a closed session that an employee, with the name redacted, gave her private information about a student and gossiped about board members. "(Greenspon) was outraged, banged on the table, said it bothered her as a mom and that the board needed to take immediate action to prevent this act of retaliation from happening to other children. Ms. Greenspon's version of what she was told changed over time..." Gallo further said the family was never formally informed of the violation of student privacy.
• The board hired a special counsel to interview and investigate the extent of the violation of privacy and the unprofessional conduct. But Gallo said Greenspon, along with Robbins, began downplaying the issue, doing "a complete bait and switch." Instead, the board and Robbins placed a greater priority on another issue, which was redacted, at the expense of a child's and a family's right to privacy.
• On Sept. 18, the board approved hiring Robbins as special counsel "related to a message with parent concerns" from six days before. Greenspon claimed she came up with the wording for the motion about the "parent concerns," Gallo said. Gallo said she had not seen such specificity in a motion to hire a counsel in her two terms at District 86 and her one term at Maercker District 60. "Ms. Greenspon's motion was unprecedented, clearly intended to intimidate (the family) and may itself have constituted a student privacy breach," Gallo said. Gallo said she believed Greenspon wrote the motion as a "road map" for a reporter who is known to file records requests. Less than a day later, Gallo said, a Patch reporter submitted a request for the parent's message. The district did not provide it.
• Later the same night of the Sept. 18 meeting, board member Debbie Levinthal resigned in frustration. Four days later, Robbins sent Levinthal a letter warning her to keep secret what the district labels as confidential. Gallo said it was unclear who requested the law firm do this. At that point, the firm had been hired for two tasks – oust Superintendent Tammy Prentiss, which occurred in June, and handle the "message of parent concerns." Gallo said the main law firm, Hodges Loizzi, should have handled such a letter. In any case, Gallo said she was unaware of the practice of sending such letters in her two previous terms on the board. The full board did not know about the law firm's warning letter to Levinthal until a week later, she said. (Gallo got a similar letter after she resigned.)
• On Sept. 26, Robbins sent a letter to the board that suggested a course of action driven by anticipated litigation, Gallo said. In her email, Gallo said. "If it was sent to building personnel, I would argue this is a distribution of misinformation about a family because there is no litigation. In fact, NONE has been threatened and Robbins has not provided any accurate summary of events... Robbins' letter is misleading and disparaging."
• Gallo asked for the district to provide the full board with Robbins' detailed invoices and call records to see how often and for how much time Greenspon engaged with Robbins since Sept. 12.

Gallo said in the conclusion of her October email, "It’s time to make it right because as I see it, the board through its recent actions is harming children and violating policy, is engaging in a full-blown cover-up, and deliberately deflecting behavior with potential impacts to children and family."

In an email Thursday, district spokesman Alex Mayster called Gallo's allegations "false, misleading and inflammatory." He gave no specifics.

In an interview Thursday, Gallo, a former board president, said, "I walked away from the district Oct. 26, and I'm done with the district. As a three-term former board member, I always stood by my written communications."

Greenspon and board members did not respond to Patch's inquiries. Nor did Robbins attorney Joseph Perkoski, who handles much of the firm's work for District 86.