DULEY
PAXTON — Identical open-records requests made three months apart have resulted in two curiously different responses from the Paxton-Buckley Loda school district.
In response to a Freedom of Information Act request from Kirk Allen of the Edgar County Watchdogs, the district’s assistant superintendent, Tara Chandler, released more than 100 pages of files Friday detailing the numerous complaints of sexual misconduct made against suspended teacher and former coach Robert Pacey.
That included several dozen pages of documents kept secret and withheld from release to the Ford County Chronicle by former Superintendent Travis Duley when the newspaper made the same FOIA request just three months earlier.
Both Chandler and Duley did not immediately respond to messages requesting comment on the discrepancy.
After being told by a source that there were many more complaints made against Pacey than what the district had disclosed in response to the Chronicle’s FOIA request in April, the Chronicle recently asked Allen to make the same FOIA request — using identical language — to see if the district’s responses would match.
ALLEN
The district had released only 18 pages of heavily redacted documents — including eight completely redacted — to the Chronicle in April. The Chronicle had asked for copies of “Pacey’s resume on file, along with any disciplinary complaints made against him during his time as a staff member and any associated reports or documents that resulted from those complaints.” Of the 10 pages that were not blanked out, Pacey’s resume comprised three, with the other seven being complaints.
In his April 17 response to the Chronicle’s April 10 FOIA request, Duley made no mention of any other applicable records being withheld.
“In response to your FOIA request, please find attached the requested resume and all other documents that the district has related to your request,” Duley wrote.
Allen — who also requested Pacey’s application for employment in his July 11 FOIA request — received the same pages as the Chronicle, plus a lot more. Of the 119 pages of files Allen received, three were Pacey’s resume and nine were his employment application, leaving 107 pages of documents related to complaints and disciplinary issues. Only a handful of the files were related to complaints received after the Chronicle made its FOIA request.
PACEY
The Chronicle missed its opportunity to file a request for review with the Illinois Attorney General’s Office’s Public Access Bureau, which must be done within 60 days of a public body’s denial of a request for records.
Pacey, an elementary school STEM and technology teacher and former cross-country coach, is alleged to have inappropriately touched numerous students during his 17 years of employment in the district. Pacey has denied any wrongdoing and has not been arrested or criminally charged.
Lawsuits were filed recently in Ford County Circuit Court on behalf of four current or former students and against Pacey, the school district, former Superintendents Travis Duley and Cliff McClure, and PBL Junior High School Principal Josh Didier. The lawsuits note that complaints against Pacey started being made not long after Pacey was hired in 2008 as a junior high school social studies teacher and assistant junior high cross country coach. However, administrators repeatedly dismissed the complaints over the course of more than a decade, ignoring the school district’s own policies by never notifying the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services as required, the lawsuits said.
Not until this past January — when one of the alleged victims revealed her experiences with Pacey to a therapist, who subsequently contacted DCFS — was the agency ever notified, the suits alleged. And even after the district was informed of an ensuing law enforcement investigation, administrators failed to immediately discipline Pacey, who was not suspended until months later, the suits alleged.