Milford School Board Member Resigns Amid Misconduct Investigation

MILFORD, NH — A Milford School Board member tendered her resignation after two years on the board amid a misconduct investigation into confidential employee information in the school district being shared with the public. Jenni Siegrist resigned Sunday, according to Ron Carvell, the chairman of the Milford School Board. Carvell sent an email to the public notifying them of the vacancy.

"Mrs. Siegrist served on the Milford School Board tirelessly for the past two years, and her contributions to the continuous improvement of our school system are greatly appreciated," he noted.

The board was scheduled to meet Monday but postponed that meeting until Aug. 28, "to provide the board time to determine next steps in accordance with our policy," he added. That policy is that the remaining members of the board will fill the vacancy with a successor.

The specifics of why Siegrist resigned are unknown at press time and Carvell did not return an email seeking comment but it could be due to an ongoing misconduct investigation since June which was prompted by a former Milford High School employee.

Jaime Morgan, a technology support employee at the school for three years, requested an investigation with the district and the state concerning a possible violation of RSA 42:1a, a breach of confidentiality of town officials and their oaths.

The violations, she claimed, were communications between herself and Siegrist during the course of nine months, beginning around October 2018, which included numerous phone and personal conversations, hundreds of text messages, and Facebook messages discussing employees Morgan was working with, contract negotiations, employee resignations, lawsuits, and other information that should not have been shared with the general public. The conversations, which were casual, at first, became more detailed later, and led to Morgan resigning from her position in April.

During the course of these interactions, Morgan claimed, she reached out to "multiple people" in the district, "at least 10 documented instances," after she became concerned with the some of the topics Siegrist was discussing with her, but never received a response.

In May, Morgan met with the Diana Fenton, an attorney with the New Hampshire Department of Education, who works in the department's the bureau of governance, to discuss the confidentiality issues. At that meeting, she shared her investigatory materials with Fenton, but the attorney informed her that the department did not have any direct oversight of school board members. The State Board of Education could be requested to perform an investigation, Fenton said.

A few weeks later, Morgan said she emailed School Superintendent Dr. Jessica Huizenga asking for information on how to file a formal grievance. She claimed that Huizenga told her to send a letter to her.

After receiving no response from the district, Morgan took Fenton's recommendation and circled back to the NH DOE, emailing Commissioner Frank Edelblut, as well as Drew Cline, the chairman of the State Board of Education, in mid-June, making them aware of her accusation against Siegrist, sending them a PDF of text messages compiled by her cellphone company, and asking for help.

"I have attempted to talk to (school board members) and Jessica Huizenga the Milford School Superintendent," she wrote. "No one is acknowledging my concerns about this."

Edelblut replied via email that he had forwarded her materials to Fenton, the attorney Morgan met with the previous month to discuss her initial allegations. Cline, she said, never responded to her email, she said.

Cline did not return an email to Patch about the matter.

Some of the interaction between Morgan and Siegrist was posted online by an anonymous person and became an issue a couple of days later, when the Milford School Board met for its regular meeting. Siegrist was confronted during a discussion about board conduct and she read from a prepared statement, calling the statements "libelous poison" that were "purely malicious and intended to be spiteful and harmful." She called Morgan "a disgruntled past employee" and said they didn't provide "any accurate representation of any private or confidential communication that I may have had with (her)."

"There seems to be no bar low enough for the slanderers to stoop," Siegrist said.

Morgan, while watching the meeting at home, heard the disgruntled employee comment by Siegrist, and went to the meeting.

After she arrived, Holleigh Ciardelli-Tlapa, another board member, asked her to testify about the situation. Morgan said she and others was frustrated by the lack of transparency both by the board and the district to address the concerns of employees in what she called a toxic work environment. She also gave her phone to Ciardelli-Tlapa so she could eye some of the text messages between Siegrist and herself.

After some back and forth about Siegrist's statement and other issues, including whether Carvell, as chairman of the board, was responsive enough to the request for an investigation about confidentiality issues, Ciardelli-Tlapa said she would like to make a motion to have Siegrist's removed from the board, but knowing that it would fail, chose to move forward with proceedings for removal. That motion failed by a 2-2 vote.

After more discussion, the board voted 4-0 to hire a third-party to investigate the matter.

Patrick Queenan of Sheehan Phinney, a trial lawyer who has worked on white collar criminal matters as well as civil litigation, was hired to investigate the issue. Morgan said she met with him on July 16, and emailed him investigatory materials from the case but didn't know the status of the investigation.

Huizenga did not respond to a request for comment about the resignation or investigation.

The board held a nonpublic school board meeting on Aug. 15, "RSA 91-A:3II (a) Personnel," which allows for officials to discuss "the dismissal, promotion, or compensation of any public employee or the disciplining of such employee, or the investigation of any charges against him or her, unless the employee affected (1) has a right to a meeting and (2) requests that the meeting be open, in which case the request shall be granted."

While Siegrist was not a school employee, in the state of New Hampshire, boards and councils often use the personnel waiver to discuss matters related to the conduct of public officials in non-public session.

Siegrist did not return a phone call for comment about the matter.

Morgan said while Siegrist had resigned, it was disappointing that no one from the school district or board had reached out to her about the entire episode before the announcement was made to the general public about the resignation.

"This is not about attacking Jenni," she said. "I wish her well. But we need to be demonstrating to our kids that their integrity is more important than winning. This is about doing the right thing even when it is uncomfortable."

Siegrist's resignation comes at a tumultuous time for the district and board as it faces questions about the hiring of Huizenga, resignations in the district, and contentious meetings during the past few months.

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