Woodland Hills school board member censured for sharing district emails defends herself
BRADDOCK, Pa. (KDKA) -- Woodland Hills School District Board of Directors voted to censure member Darnika Reed on Tuesday night for posting internal district emails online.
The school board voted to remove Reed from her school board committees and kick her off the district's technology network. The board said Reed broke board policies by posting internal emails to her Facebook page earlier this month.
"The board made a statement tonight that they will not condone any breach of confidential information by any sole board member," Superintendent Dr. Daniel Castagna said on Tuesday.
Reed told KDKA-TV on Wednesday that she doesn't think some board members are being honest about why they want her gone
"I'm not resigning," she said. "I'm not going to apologize for what I've done. The public needed to know."
Reed is not backing down after posting an email exchange between her and other school board directors to Facebook that showed they were voting on construction projects totaling $3 million.
"Board members, as soon as they received that email, they just started agreeing to it," Reed said. "They start saying yes. I said that I don't think it's appropriate for us to vote on something like this via email."
The school district's solicitor said on Wednesday that it was all above board. He said the vote was only to allow the contractor to start on the work, and that no money would be paid out before it was voted on at the next public meeting.
"The public should be aware of any sort of approval for work, especially if it's going to cost the district that much money," Reed said.
The solicitor added that school board policy prohibits publishing district emails without the consent of all parties.
"I question the validity of the policy in the first place," Reed said.
Reed doesn't think she did anything wrong.
"It's absurd that board members and the superintendent, they keep saying that this information is confidential. At no point are bids, contracts, school board votes confidential information," Reed said.
She thinks the board has a different reason for voting to censure her.
"It's just a distraction to keep me off of the host committee or interview committee for the superintendent search," Reed said.
She believes the school board wants to discredit her, saying it's partly because she has been critical of the board and the superintendent.
Last week, Woodland Hills Superintendent Daniel Castagna was appointed the new superintendent of the Chartiers Valley School District. Castagna will start in his new role at Chartiers Valley next year with a five-year contract and a salary of $250,000 per year.
