Undisclosed Settlement In New Trier FOIA Lawsuit Yields 4,400 Pages Of Emails
WINNETKA, IL — A conservative nonprofit dropped its lawsuit against New Trier Township High School District 203 after administrators agreed to hand over more than 4,400 pages of emails.
Earlier this month, attorneys for the group Parents Defending Education withdrew a complaint filed in April.
They had alleged that administrators had violated the Illinois Freedom of Information Act when they determined that a request to produce 45 days of emails that mention the words "Gaza," "Palestine" or "Holocaust" in the mailboxes of 13 named administrators.
Records show District 203 Superintendent Paul Sally signed a previously undisclosed settlement agreement with the group in August.
That agreement was never brought to the board for a public vote. But — because the nonprofit group had to pay its own legal fees instead of prevailing under the FOIA — no bill ever had to come before the board in an open meeting.
Parents Defending Education is a Virginia-based organization that defines its mission as "working to reclaim our schools from activists promoting harmful agendas," according to its most recent tax filing.
"Through network and coalition building, investigative reporting, litigation, and engagement on local, state, and national policies, we are fighting indoctrination in the classroom—and for the restoration of a healthy, non-political education for our kids," it said.
Nicole Neily, the group's president, filed a public records request with the district on Feb. 15 amid a controversy over the district's handling of International Holocaust Remembrance Day events organized by New Trier High School's German Club.
That controversy apparently began with cell phone photographs of a three-page unsigned letter, which asserted that plans to distribute stickers at homerooms had been canceled after receiving earlier approval.
"We are fairly certain that our three faculty equity leaders, in consultation with NT administration, were responsible for halting the planned commemoration," it said. "Further, that said action was taken against commemorating International Holocaust Remembrance Day was in direct response to the war in the Middle East."
The letter went on to criticize diversity, equity and inclusion efforts at the school, including the existence of separate Arab American and Muslim American heritage months.
Superintendent Paul Sally said the letter was riddled with misinformation and inaccuracies — and public records provided to settle the lawsuit seem to support his account of events — but it nonetheless ignited a firestorm of outrage among parents and the larger community.
Records show New Trier's German teachers sent an email on Jan. 24 — the Wednesday prior to the planned Jan. 26 remembrance event — to administrators asking to send out an email to homeroom advisors and distributing hand-written "#WeRemember" stickers.
"We would like to send out the following email to Advisers on both campuses today. We realize this is short notice and that Advisers are busy with course registrations. The email is short and sweet, so we hope many will be able to participate," they said.
An associate principal responded with a pair of emails that afternoon, explaining that "as we continue to discuss all sides of this issue and how to best support all groups, a few of us were talking about the best way to recognize this day."
Paul Waechtler, the principal of the Northfield campus, told Sally, the superintendent, that concerns had been brought to his attention regarding whether it was the best time to ask advisors to distribute the stickers and discuss the #WeRemember campaign.
"Might we get criticized for doing this and not doing something similar for Gaza?" Waechtler asked. "One proposal was to do the PA announcement (I don't think anybody would criticize holocaust remembrance, and include ways people could get involved in the announcement, as opposed to sending the email below to advisers.[)]"
The German club and German classes did their activities as planned and a PA announcement notified students that club members would be handing out the #WeRemember stickers.
"This year's Remembrance Day comes amid a rise in hate crimes across the world and an ongoing war," the announcement said. "In the constant fight we wage against antisemitism and the many forms of hatred that still plague our world today, education is the best tool at our disposal."
Afterwards, one homeroom teacher wrote to senior administrators to express concern about the announcement having been unexpected.
The teacher noted one student had expressed personal concerns about the announcement, especially in light of a ruling earlier that morning from the International Court of Justice, which had ordered Israel to take immediate action to prevent genocide in Gaza, ensure humanitarian aid and stop incitement to violence.
"Toward that end it is my hope that in the future we have the same advance notice for announcements such as Friday's as in the past," she said. "Additionally, I am hopeful for some opportunities for students to discuss what is happening in Gaza. It is clear, at least from my adviser room perspective, that the kids have a lot on their minds, and need support to process."
On Feb. 7, Sally notified the school board of the "misinformation that is circulating among some members of the community" about the district's handling Holocaust Remembrance Day.
The next day, he drafted a public letter with which to respond to complaints from community members concerned about the matter.
"I can understand your concern after reading the letter, which as we have looked into it contains many inaccuracies in representing how New Trier honored International Holocaust Remembrance Day. It also falsely states that our equity liaisons were involved in decision-making about honoring the day. They were not," he said.
The superintendent said administrators had not been approached with the idea until the week of the event, and that sponsors were told it was too late to plan for events in all adviser rooms, since there was inadequate time to prepare teachers for how to respond.
"There was no time for this to happen. We acknowledge that this decision could have been communicated more effectively to the students who proposed this activity," he continued. "I want to be clear that the equity liaisons had no role in decisions about the day. The implication that they somehow were is concerning, especially when you have the context of all the ways in which we honored the day. It appears the narrative was crafted to malign them."
Several people among the more than a dozen copied on the initial email sharing the screenshots of the letter with the subject line "New Trier Parents Alliance Against Antisemitism" responded to Sally in appreciation of his response.
Thank you for your clear and swift response to an odious and manipulative rumor that has capitalized on fears and anxieties within our communities. Your kind and thorough response is appreciated," one said. "I have personally reached out to many people and have been working to correct the misinformation that was presented as fact."
Sally would later address the issue publicly at a February school board meeting.
In March, Associate Superintendent Chris Johnson notified Neily that the fulfilling the request would take too much work and asking her to narrow the parameters of Parents Defending Education's public records records to manageable proportions.
"In this case, the request is unduly burdensome and the burden on the School District outweighs the public interest in the information," Johnson said.
Instead of doing so, the group filed a lawsuit in April, including as exhibits reports from Patch and other local news outlets as one of its exhibits in support of the public interest in the records.
The complaint asks for the requested records, a judge's determination that the district violated the FOIA and the award of attorney's fees, as the law provides.
"The good news is that this is only happening because parents are winning. Radical progressives are pushing policies opposed by the vast majority of parents, and parents are pushing back—hard," Neily said in an editorial responding to the SPLC hate group designation.
She noted that actual antigovernment extremists would not work within the system by submitting public comments to executive agencies and testifying before lawmakers.
"Yet that's exactly what PDE and other parent groups have been doing. Even so, progressive activists would have everyone—especially in the media—believe that parental engagement constitutes extremism," she said. "Such deception is a slap in the face to the millions of parents who have to sign permission slips for Advil and field trips but are now deprived of deeply personal information about their children, impeding their right to raise their kids as they see fit."
