A group of De Soto School District parents wants board member Scott Hancock to resign
The president of the De Soto School District Board of Education asked to have its regularly scheduled meeting on Monday moved to an auditorium that can hold a larger-than-expected crowd.
The meeting will take place at the De Soto High School auditorium, where a group of parents is expected to air grievances against board member Scott Hancock. Some may call for his resignation over allegations of bullying and uncivil behavior toward district administrators and staffers.
Board President Angela Handey declined comment when asked about Hancock, saying she has been encouraged to not speak publicly because the possibility of litigation exists.
District spokesman Alvie Cater said he couldn’t speculate as to why the meeting has been moved.
A group of district patrons — it’s not clear how many — say they plan to publicly confront Hancock for what they describe as a pattern of “bullying, denigration, demoralization, humiliation and defamation” from the first-term board member.
Those words come from an e-mail obtained by The Pitch that was sent by Karen and Dean Wall, an Olathe couple who live in the district.
“I’m aware of the allegations,” Hancock tells The Pitch. “All of them are without merit and untrue.”
Hancock, a 53-year-old electrical engineer, declined to discuss the matter further. He was elected in 2013, and his term runs until 2017.
Hancock is known to ask probing questions during board meetings. He was pointedly critical of one of the more embarrassing episodes for the De Soto School District when it was discovered that outgoing district Superintendent Doug Sumner had purchased nearly $1 million in wireless technology for the district in 2013. The purchase was made without any competitive bidding and without the board’s approval. Board policy says purchases more than $20,000 should go out to bid and have to be voted on by the board.
Cater characterized the matter as a “misstep” to The Kansas City Star in 2013.
In a conversation with The Pitch, Karen Wall says she believes Sumner and teaching and learning director Jessica Dain are leaving the district because of Hancock.
Sumner announced February 9 that he would resign from the district at the end of the current school year. He has accepted an assistant superintendent of human resources position with the Shawnee Mission School District. Sumner came to De Soto in August 2010, serving as full-time superintendent since July 2011.
His announcement did not explain why he is leaving the district.
“While it is hard to express in appropriate terms, it is important to me that my colleagues and our communities understand how much I loved serving beside them,” Sumner said in his resignation announcement.
Cater says Sumner will not comment further.
Dain was out of the office Friday and did not return a message from The Pitch. She is leaving at the end of the school year to take a position with the Olathe School District.
“If changes are not made, there will probably be numerous other resignations before the start of school next fall,” Wall says.
Wall acknowledges that she does not regularly attend district board meetings and says she first learned of issues with Hancock from a blog authored by Anh Nguyen, a Shawnee resident. In a posting two days after Sumner’s announcement, Nguyen called for Hancock’s resignation.
Nguyen was short on specifics when contacted by The Pitch. Nguyen, like Wall, appears to have little or no first-hand knowledge of Hancock’s alleged behavior, which they broadly describe as uncivil.
Both Nguyen and Wall say they have heard stories from multiple sources, but declined to share specifics about their sources or their stories, saying district insiders fear retaliation.
A separate document obtained by The Pitch accuses Hancock of speaking down to female administrators, public criticisms of other administrators, and intimidating teachers by showing up to their classrooms unannounced.
Monday night’s meeting starts at 6 p.m. at 35000 West 91st Street.
