Nicole Miller resigns from GC school board with questions still not answered
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By LeAnn R. Ralph
GLENWOOD CITY — For the past two years, Nicole Miller has felt threatened, bullied and shunned.
She says she has been laughed at and has been the object of scorn.
She has been yelled at.
She said she has even been compared to “being as bad a cop killer.”
St. Croix County Deputy Kaitie Leising was murdered on state Highway 128 near the St. Croix County Fairgrounds in Glenwood City last May.
Deputy Leising was killed after the school board meeting in which Miller, along with Amy Dopkins, were compared to cop killers, but in retrospect, the comparison seems particularly chilling.
And what, you ask, was Nicole Miller’s transgression?
As a member of the Glenwood City Board of Education, she asked questions about reimbursements of over $40,000 to former school superintendent Tim Johnson for classes he said he had taken at Viterbo University in La Crosse.
Johnson resigned as superintendent in Glenwood City in May of 2023. He was then hired as director of human resources and public relations in the Chippewa Falls school district.
On January 17, FOX 9 KSMP published a news story about Johnson’s alleged improprieties concerning reimbursements from the Glenwood City School District for the Viterbo classes.
The Chippewa Falls school district placed Johnson on paid administrative leave after the news story was published.
A week later, Johnson tendered his resignation, and the Chippewa Falls Board of Education accepted his resignation at a special meeting.
The Glenwood City School District and the Chippewa Falls school district have not supplied any documents for open records requests made by the Tribune Press Reporter because the matter of Johnson’s reimbursements is now under investigation.
Miller and Dopkins have supplied to the Tribune Press Reporter items they received through open records requests.
Best interests
Miller said she was concerned about the reimbursements to Johnson because she wanted to look out for the best interests of the students in the school district, the parents in the district and the taxpayers who pay property taxes to the school district.
The Glenwood City special education department needs some help, the school district must replace roofs and other infrastructure, and there are any of a number of other needs that would benefit students, Miller said.
“The kids are our first priority,” she said.
“But no matter what I say, they are going to tear me apart, like they’ve done for the last two years,” Miller said.
The $40,650 reimbursement was on top of a $25,000 per year stipend Johnson received for continuing education.
Johnson served as the superintendent for six years — so that would amount to $190,000 all together for continuing education classes.
The money for continuing education was in addition to $180,000 deposited into Johnson’s tax sheltered annuity at $30,000 per year.
The stipend and the money deposited to the tax sheltered annuity were both part of the administrator’s contract with the school district.
Additional compensation, on top of the $150,000 for continuing education, does not appear to have been part of Johnson’s contract.
Previous contracts did not require permission from the Board of Education to take continuing education classes and did not require transcripts for the classes that were taken, as is the policy of some other school districts in the area that reimburse for continuing education.
Some school districts will only pay a set amount per year for continuing education, such as $1,600.
One of those school districts that pays a small amount for continuing education has twice the number of students that are enrolled at Glenwood City.
Closed session
During her very first closed session after being elected to the Glenwood City Board of Education, Miller presented materials to other board members resulting from open records requests related to the reimbursements for the classes Johnson said he had taken at Viterbo.
Some of the board members laughed at her. Some of them threw away their packets of information. None of them “gave it a second look,” Miller said.
In addition to the Board of Education members, the closed session was attended by Johnson, the school principals and the district’s executive secretary.
According to the Wisconsin Attorney General’s Guide to the Open Meetings Law, “In general, the open meetings law gives wide discretion to a governmental body to admit into a closed session anyone whose presence the body determines is necessary for the consideration of the matter that is the subject of the meeting.”
The people attending the closed session meeting took turns telling Miller exactly what they thought of her for even bringing up the issue of the reimbursement for the classes at Viterbo, Miller said.
“They all took shots at me and told me what a horrible person I am,” she said.
Miller said she was taken aback by the response, and the nature of the comments left her feeling shaken.
Amy Dopkins, another resident in the Glenwood City School District, had asked to present information on the reimbursements to Johnson in a closed session of the school board but was denied the opportunity.
Lawsuits
Miller says she has been threatened with lawsuits, both in person and in an e-mail message, for asking questions about the reimbursements and that the threats included going after her business.
So far, Miller said, she has not received any notification that she is actually being sued.
In an e-mail dated May 6, 2022, sent to the Board of Education, including Miller, Johnson wrote:
“As I believe most of you know, I have also been personally attacked and accused of illegal behavior. Apparently there is now information being communicated publicly that my classes at Viterbo were falsified and that I have conducted fraudulent behavior.
“As a result, Dr. Kaiser has conducted some review of records with Christa, Ron and myself separately to cross reference our legally required public records. I must commend Dr. Kaiser in her many efforts this week to find balance of protection for the District, but also for me …
“The good news for me on a personal level is that I have a legal opinion now that based upon community member(s) actions and levels of accusation, I likely have a strong defamation of character case.
“Based upon my level of employment, my retirement contributions, and the projected earnings, my lawsuit would be able to expand beyond the personal level and into individual’s businesses as I am aware of at least two community members who have tried to file criminal claims against me with consultation of either local police or the district attorney or both. Luckily, our law enforcement agencies have told individuals that they don’t have a complaint.”
Dopkins also supplied a copy of the same e-mail to the Tribune Press Reporter, and on her copy, she had written, by the section ending “that they don’t have a complaint” — “Not true! Only school board can request an investigation per Chief Darwin and SCC (St. Croix County) DA.”
As Dopkins noted in one of her e-mail messages in May of 2022 to the school board president, she wanted to present the information she had in closed session.
“I prefer not to talk about this in open session out of respect to Tim,” Dopkins wrote.
Dopkins never was given the opportunity to talk about her concerns during a closed session.
No transcripts
In an e-mail message dated May 3, 2022, that Dopkins sent to the Glenwood City Board of Education, she included the specific dates and payments for reimbursement of Viterbo classes, with payments starting on December 8, 2017, and going through December 10, 2020, for a total reimbursement of $40,650.
Dopkins wrote: “There are no transcripts on file at Glenwood City School District for this coursework taken.
“Tim was asked to supply transcripts through an open record request. He said there were none on file. Every other school district requires the transcripts showing a passing grade to get reimbursement. Apparently ours does not. Tim was asked to give me permission to contact Viterbo directly to obtain his transcripts showing coursework taken. He refused. Viterbo was called. They said his last date of taking courses at their school was May 31, 2016. It is not in their records that he took any courses after that.”
The first payment on December 8, 2017, was a little more than a year and a half after Viterbo had told Dopkins that the last date of Johnson taking courses at Viterbo was May 31, 2016.
Dopkins sent the receipts for payments to Viterbo that had been submitted to the school district for reimbursement.
In an e-mail message from the Viterbo business office dated April 7, 2022, Dopkins was told the documents that had been submitted for reimbursement did not originate from Viterbo.
One e-mail message to Dopkins from the Viterbo registrar’s office, dated June 22, 2022, states “Yes, Timothy took classes here but our course titles are totally different. I can’t really go by what you have listed below. And as for the cost, you will need to contact the Business Office for the cost. I think it would be best to have him request transcripts. Then you would be able to see the exact titles of all these courses.”
Dopkins presented the packet of information to the Glenwood City Board of Education during public comments in open session at the April 24, 2023, meeting.
The packet contained the same information Dopkins had wanted to present in closed session, and the same information Nicole Miller had given to the school board in a closed session earlier.
All together, according to Dopkins and Miller, the information was presented to the Glenwood City Board of Education on three different occasions.
“Prove me wrong”
Miller says she wishes she could have obtained verifiable proof that Johnson had taken the classes at Viterbo for which he was reimbursed.
“Please prove me wrong,” she said.
Then the school district could move forward with the school district’s business of educating students and making sure that taxpayer money is being spent wisely, Miller said.
But with Johnson’s refusal to provide an official transcript, there was no other way of verifying the classes.
Kaiser wrote in an e-mail to Dopkins dated May 4, 2022, “I just finished a meeting with Mr. Johnson. Tim shared his own personal folder from Viterbo. I was able to see his ID number, the college logo was present, the course description and ID number for the course and his grade. I then cross referenced the courses and ID numbers to the District’s invoices. Everything matches and is there. I believe this addresses your concern in this matter, and if you have questions, please contact me.”
Readers will recall that Viterbo had confirmed the documents Johnson submitted as receipts from Viterbo had not originated at Viterbo, and that later on, the registrar’s office at Viterbo had written in an e-mail to Dopkins, “our course titles are totally different” than those listed on what Johnson had submitted to the Glenwood City school district as receipts for courses at Viterbo.
Dopkins replied, asking if Kaiser had received transcripts directly from Viterbo or whether the information was from Johnson’s own paperwork.
Kaiser replied, “His login account.”
Since there was no additional explanation provided, it is not clear what account Johnson had logged into and whether Johnson had logged into an account at Viterbo containing the information.
FERPA
According to The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) Viterbo University Policy on Viterbo’s website:
“The FERPA law provides students with the right to inspect and review information contained in their education records, to challenge the contents of their education records, to have a hearing if the outcome of the challenge is unsatisfactory, and to submit explanatory statements for inclusion in their files if the decisions of the hearing panels are unacceptable.
“The registrar at Viterbo University has been designated by the institution to coordinate the inspection and review procedures for student education records, including admissions, personal, academic and financial files, and academic, cooperative education, and placement records.
“Students wishing to review their education records must make written requests to the registrar listing the item or items of interest. Only records covered by the Act will be made available within 45 days of the request. Students may have copies made of their records.”
The Viterbo FERPA policy does not specify whether written requests from students must be included every time students wish to view their Viterbo records.
The policy also does not say whether the records are supplied electronically, whether there are paper copies of the records made when copies are requested, or whether one written request is sufficient to allow students to log into the Viterbo University computer system any time they wish to see all of their records.
The policy does state that written requests from students to the registrar must list “the item or items of interest.”
Since the policy differentiates “personal” files and “academic” files, it is not clear what is included in a personal file.
In another section of the policy, it states that under federal law, Viterbo can release student information “to personnel within the institution, to officials of other institutions in which students seek to enroll, to persons or organizations providing students financial aid …”
Resignation
Two years of trying to find answers and two years of feeling threatened and bullied and shunned have taken their toll on Miller.
Miller says the level of threat that she has been feeling has left her filled with dread and wondering if she is going to survive.
“I just hope I don’t get executed or shot in the next few months,” she said.
Some days, after especially harrowing encounters, Miller says that on her way home, she has had to pull over on the side of the road to sit and cry.
“They have made me question whether I am a decent human being,” she said.
“I would get home, and I couldn’t even come in the house, because our kids were home, and we don’t talk about this in front of them,” Miller said.
On January 25, Patrick Olson, Glenwood City school superintendent, sent out a notification that Nicole Miller had submitted her resignation to the Glenwood City Board of Education.
While there is no requirement for the Glenwood City school board to formally accept the resignation before it goes into effect, the school board does plan to have an item on the agenda to formally accept Miller’s resignation and declare a vacancy at the February 12 meeting, Olson said.
