Update: Smear of Mom Nicole Solas Was Prepared By Public Relations Firm Hired By South Kingstown (RI) School Committee
Emily Cummiskey steps down as Chair of School Committee, blames others for smear of Nicole: “The PR firm delivered me three statements, one for social media, one for Fox news, and one to read at last Wednesday’s meeting.”
The aggressiveness with which the South Kingstown (Rhode Island) School Committee went after local mom Nicole Solas, for filing a series of public records requests regarding Critical Race and Gender activities in the school system, has never made sense. We now have a partial answer – the smear of Nicole in public statements by the School Committee Chair was drafted by a Public Relations firm.
The story broke nationally when Nicole wrote about a school board threat to sue her in a post at Legal Insurrection, I’m A Mom Seeking Records Of Critical Race and Gender Curriculum, Now The School Committee May Sue To Stop Me.
Our additional posts covered the developing story, which has received widespread national attention:
- South Kingstown (RI) School Committee Votes NOT To Sue Mom Nicole Solas Who Sought CRT Records
- South Kingstown Mom Nicole Solas: “They smear people who ask them questions, who disagree with them”
As the School Committee members openly discussed at the meeting on June 2, 2021, there never was an attempt to resolve the issue or work with Nicole prior to item being placed on the School Committee public agenda to discuss suing Nicole. The excuse that the district faced potentially millions of dollars of fines if they missed a deadline to respond to the public records requests was nonsense. As someone who has filed many public records requests over my career, there almost always is a negotiation and accommodation where the agency cannot comply because of personnel or other limitations.
From the get-go I felt something else was going on here. That Nicole was being singled out and made an example of for some other reason.
My suspicions were further heightened when, in response to Nicole going public with the lawsuit threat, School Committee Chair Emily Cummiskey issued very vicious attacks on Nicole on Facebook, to the local media, and then at the June 2, 2021, public forum, accusing Nicole of being associated with a national racist group, which Cummiskey identified at the public meeting as Parents Defending Education (PDE). The accusation that PDE is “racist” is outrageously false, as I’ve previously explained, and there is no evidence that PDE was behind Nicole’s requests.
The accusation that Nicole was working with a national “racist” organization has circulated even in mainstream local media without pushback from reporters.
The “racist” accusation was the focus of Nicole’s appearance on Tucker Carlson:
Why was PDE dragged into it not only by Cummiskey, but also by the lobbyist for the Rhode Island School Superintendents Association (RISSA) in a statement to the Providence Journal? That narrative is being pushed in local media, where there is fearmongering about other districts being subjected to extensive public records requests.
I don’t believe in coincidence, or that this narrative is organic. Something else is going on here. Last Friday, June 4, 2021, I filed a public records request with the South Kingstown school district seeking, among other things, records of communications with the Superintendents Association and public sector unions regarding Nicole and/or PDE, and records as to how Cummiskey’s statements were approved.
My suspicions were confirmed, in part, last night during a School Committee public meeting when Cummiskey gave a statement announcing she was stepping down as Chair, though not from the School Committee entirely. Cummiskey stated that she did not write the statement attacking Nicole and accusing PDE of being racist. She said the statement in its various forms for media, social media, and public hearing, was prepared by a Public Relations firm hired by the School Committee at the recommendation of the Committtee’s legal counsel.
[Note, in the statement Cummiskey gave, there’s a reference to a mailer. That’s a separate issue of a controversy over the leak of student names and addresses to a local AFL-CIO affiliate for use in a campaign to approve a school bond, that ultimately was rejected.]
Here is the key excerpt from the statement (full video below):
And at this time I would like to let my fellow committee members know that I am going to be resigning as the chair. I would also like to just offer that, just a few points of clarity because it feels something the last person could have spoken for a couple more minutes. It feels like this agenda item was put in very quickly after last Wednesday’s meeting, and, I wanted to clarify what happened in the events that led up to last Wednesday’s meeting. I was approached by Fox News, as I believe we all were, requesting a statement and several od, two of my fellow school committee members reached out, encouraging me to make a statement, as the chair, I would be responsible for, the person that made a statement for the, made a statement in reaction to the Fox News story.
I said that I was not comfortable doing so unless I reached out and consulted with our legal team. It was a time-sensitive manner as there was a deadline and Aubrey [legal counsel] worked tirelessly along with a PR firm that she obtained to create a statement to this unprecedented situation. The PR firm delivered me three statements, one for social media, one for Fox News, and one to read at last Wednesday’s meeting. I’m not a media specialist, I’m not a PR specialist and I’m not an attorney. So what I did is I followed the advice of the PR firm that our legal team obtained.
I am a masters prepared educator. I believe to my core that every single person has potential. I believe in equity, I believe in anti-racism. So I made those statements that the PR firm gave to me to make. They encouraged me not to follow up, not to respond. And I followed that advice. I take responsibility for okaying an agenda last Wednesday that was inflammatory. I don’t believe that any individual was trying to create more chaos.
It’s worth noting that there was no apology to Nicole or retraction, just blaming others for the smear.
Who was the Public Relations firm? What connection does that firm have to the emerging narrative being pushed of PDE being a “racist” threat to local school districts.
Something is going on here that has nothing to do with Nicole. We will be investigating whether there is a coordinated effort to intimidate the public into not filing public record requests regarding Critical Race activities in schools by smearing them as racist.
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Comments
They spent taxpayer money to specifically slander someone. Or can they really say they were just hired people to express an opinion here?
Where are the investigative reporters ? Are there any real journalists left.
It takes a Professor and some folks running a blog to get real news these days.
>>>> Shame on the media and the so-called journalists.
Where there is smoke – often there is fire. Prof Jacobson’s suspicions of a coordinated effort to push back against parents seems warranted. Across America we are seeing school boards try to hide their true agenda in a sneaky and under-handed way. They attack anyone who asks questions or objects to their agenda. There are many cases that this blog and others have uncovered. What is going on in America ? How dare them hijack our schools and try to hide their agenda. As a parent – it infuriates me.
One think for sure – the school board lawyer and the PR Firm the lawyer engaged must be identified and questioned about why they felt an attack on this mom was necessary. If they will not answer – bring them to court for defamation and they’ll be compelled to answer under oath.
Of course they try to hide their agenda. Since the government school is “The One Best System” they are required to accommodate everyone’s incompatible needs. Since this is impossible, they have to hide what they’re doing.
Would you take a job like that?
Nah, they’ll just claim they hired the firm to get their “message” out.
It’s all so fascinating…and sleazy.
It’s not called “Little Groady” for nuthin’. (Pawtucket born and raised, here.)
Sociopaths will control you or they will destroy you. These people just told us who they are.
Is this normal for a school committee to seek legal counsel over a parent’s request for information?
Legal counsel on how to respond? Sometimes (when there is a question about how to comply with conflicting privacy and transparency laws).
Legal counsel on grounds for suing the parent? No.
And engaging a PR firm to slime the parent? No, never.
She should add the PR firm to the list of defendants in her legal actions.
She should go after their business license too, since they knowingly took work that they should have known to be illegal or intended to be used in an unconstitutional manner.
The short answer is “yes” – especially if they believe the documents will put the school district in a bad light, reveal employee misdeeds or unprofessional behavior. And it’s also very common for them to malign parents who ask questions in the media as troublemakers.
I don’t do it much anymore, but my personal PR real is pretty extensive when a few of us started asking to many questions about construction contracts, and then hiring teachers from the Phillipines (severely underpaying them and treating them threatening them), later we nailed 2 different superintendents for graft and busted the school district for teachers on the payroll teaching 1 or fewer classes.
Then there’s the stuff about unqualified teachers….
That’s not “normal,” that’s wildly out of control. Thanks for fighting the good fight and trying to put things right in your district.
Normal enough for someone like Aubrey Lombardo, Partner at Henneous, Carroll, Lombardo, LLC in Providence RI–to advertise herself as follows: She represents school committees on matters related to the Access to Public Records Act (APRA) and the Open Meetings Act (OMA).
Hence: “(when there is a question about how to comply with conflicting privacy and transparency laws).”
Or “What we did and what we should have done.”?
Good luck with attempted deflection. ‘No it’s not my statement. It was prepared by public relations firm in coordination with board Counsel’….
So she is stipulating that the statement that she made was the professional product that the Board paid for and, importantly, that she had the discretion to use or modify or ignore.
The excuse that she is attempting here doesn’t wash.
But mom! Billy told me to do it!!
Yeah, that didn’t work for me either …
Not only doesn’t the excuse “not wash”, it is an admission of guilt. I think she realized that, so she stepped down as chairperson, but she should resign!
Can Nicole and PDE sue these clowns for defamation? Seems like they can, but I’m not lawyer.
The only potentially missing ingredient is actual damages. If these can be quantified, then yes.
consider emotional distress as a damage, especially as this appears to have been deliberately designed to inflict emotional distress. then there is the damage to any children involved.
Does having to go on Fox News to explain to the nation that you aren’t “racist” and a member of a “racist organization” when you merely followed the directions of those making those assertions NOT give her standing in court in your world? I beg to differ…
Who wrote the statement is not significant. The individual who spoke is responsible for the words voiced, regardless of their source.
I think that a FOIA request for all contract information regarding PR firms, including costs, requests made to the firms, and “output” received from them is in order. It sounds like there could well be other instances where taxpayer money is being squandered on presentating some kind of “professional” image to the public, and/or squirming around legal issues.
It looks to me this approach will not work. It looks to me the board contacted their attorney (perhaps outside counsel – not an employee of the board) and the attorney contacted and coordinated with the PR firm.
Therefore, legal counsel can refuse to give information based on attorney client privilege, and thus shield the identity and communications with that PR firm.
However, the school board chair implicated the law firm in potential nefarious wrong doing, and so the law firm may be a target for slander and defamation. It is likely the law firm or its partners and attorneys would need to be made party to any movement by Nicole.
There is a potential criminal mater of the school board’s misappropriation of funds. The school board is not authorized to spend money to hire a PR firm or other entity to slander a private individual. However, probable cause of intent on the part of the board is likely required.
I looks to me that the board chair is trying to distance herself from criminal misappropriation as I do not think she retains any high degree of personal culpability for slander unless that is also connected to illegal activity in which case she may be stripped of sovereign immunity.
Attorney Client privilege has limits in particular “The law will not enforce attorney-client privilege if the client cannot reasonably expect a communication to be private. For example, sending a letter to a lawyer and disclosing incriminating information is not a type of communication that has guaranteed privacy. Speaking to a lawyer in a public place with other people is another example where the information may get out without consequences to the attorney.”
Hiring a lawyer to hire a PR firm to work for a government entity because you don’t want people to know who is making decisions definitely falls under “The law will not enforce attorney-client privilege if the client cannot reasonably expect a communication to be private.” because this is not a legal matter it is a public relations matter and FIOA exists specifically to allow citizens to unearth exactly the kind of things this stunt is trying to keep secret.
https://www.lrwlawfirm.com/what-are-the-limits-of-the-attorney-client-privilege/
NY isn’t keen on hiring a lawyer for a non-legal matter by a government to hide from the FIOA either what it says is
” Consequently, all private communications wherein someone seeks advice from a lawyer for their particular legal issue are permanently protected from disclosure. As stated above, there are both limits and exceptions to this rule. Here are some of the most common limits of the rule:”
Not the part about “advice from a lawyer for their particular legal issue” while “I don’t want to provide the disclosure the law requires so am hiring a lawyer to conduct public relations” is definitely not a legal issue.
https://www.jonathancooperlaw.com/library/understanding-the-limits-of-the-attorney-client-privilege-under-ny-law.cfm
You could hide almost anything behind attorney client privilege, you can’t hide decisions about public relations by the government that the public is entitled to know (there is the matter of that not being a legal matter, and the fact that you can’t reasonably expect such a thing to remain confidential) so yes FIOA would be effective.
You could because a decision or action covered by FIOA is not something you could reasonably expect to remain confidential
“The law will not enforce attorney-client privilege if the client cannot reasonably expect a communication to be private.”
https://www.lrwlawfirm.com/what-are-the-limits-of-the-attorney-client-privilege/
and because this is far beyond the general rule for what is protected which is
” Consequently, all private communications wherein someone seeks advice from a lawyer for their particular legal issue are permanently protected from disclosure. As stated above, there are both limits and exceptions to this rule. Here are some of the most common limits of the rule:”
https://www.jonathancooperlaw.com/library/understanding-the-limits-of-the-attorney-client-privilege-under-ny-law.cfm
You can’t just hire a lawyer to do something and everything he does is covered in this case the lack of any legal issues, and fact that you can’t expect decisions covered by FIOA to be covered I think negates the Attorney-Client privilege.
Sovereign immunity, or ultra vires?
Sovereign immunity stripped due to ultra vires.
Joey – I disagree that who wrote the statement is not significant.
Here we have a self-declared “masters prepared educator.” This clearly shows two things – the first is that a “masters prepared educator” cannot recognize a pile of crap (which she apparently supports) before she steps in it, and second, she realizes when the ugliness of the situation is on her shoes she can only relay on legally driven public relations weasel words to try to extricate her.
Hopefully the board’s lack of candor and respect for the student’s parents will be raised to the roof tops. The operating minutes of the board will be fun to see.
As to that “masters prepared educator”:
Okay… She must have had legal and the PR folks work out at least one line from last night’s statement, too:
“I am a masters prepared educator.”
Any person reading or hearing that statement would take her to mean that she had an advanced degree in “EDUCATION,” you know, the science and philosophy of the act of educating/ teaching. That would be the reasonable conclusion.
Turns out, Mrs. Cummiskey is a nurse. And teaches “NURSING.”
From CCRI site:
“Processor Cummiskey has been a full time faculty member at the Community College of Rhode Island since 2008. Her area of specialty is maternal child health nursing. She has belonged to the following professional organizations: National League for Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau, and the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses.”
NOT A SINGLE professional or honor society dedicated to education.
Her statement is a prime example of how you can LIE without technically telling a falsehood.
Thank you for the additional information. I wondered about this as I have a personal standard of no person involved in teaching/education should be on a school board. School boards have ample sources of information about teaching and education, the board members should be community members overseeing the education establishment.
Please bring a defamation suit – and don’t settle for love or money.
These people need to start being held accountable.
Gibsons, part deux?
They needed a PR firm to slander someone who simply asked questions and requested information to which she was entitled. What did they want the PR firm to help them hide from the public, and why? Isn’t stuff like this how we ended up with Perkins Coie hiring Christopher Steele?
“They needed a PR firm to slander someone who simply asked questions…”
Welcome to fascism 101.
Say their name you liar
Did I see AFL-CIO above? It doesn’t take a few degrees to go from someone in RI – even in South County – to reach the mob. What a corrupt state. I left in 1982 and never turned back. The only clean person in South Kingston was Vincent Vespia.
Here’s public school for you.
I spend 5 minutes a day with my grade school kid doing math. Flash cards on multiplication and division.
This week they had the end of year competency test of 80 questions on basic multiplication. She said she finished with about a minute to spare.
The next best kid (who is really smart according to my daughter) could only complete 56 of the problems before the clock ran out. Much of the rest of the class only completed between 20-40. I do more in 5 minutes with her in the morning waiting on toast and jam than they accomplish all day. This pretty much affirms that the curriculum they have been using is total garbage and nothing is getting done on school time except industrialized busy-work and feel good crap.
I’ll also point out, they are a year behind where my ancient pre computerized school with 30 kids per class was decades ago.
Some years back, our family arranged a round-the-US RV voyage that was going to last most of a year. When I told my son’s school that he would not be in for most (if not all) of fifth grade, they were immediately up our a* about requiring a detailed curriculum from us, standardized tests, progress reports, etc. I told them, “I’m not taking him out of school to homeschool him, this is temporary travel. So according to state law, YOU are required to provide US with YOUR curriculum, including textbooks and performance standards.” Wow, all of a sudden it was CYA time.
They told me we had to teach Math, Science, Social Studies, Spelling, Art, Reading, and Writing. But they only had textbooks for Social Studies and Math. I knew I had an age appropriate general science text at home (from my own days), so no big deal there.
I asked them: “What about spelling? I need the book for that.”
“We don’t have a book. The teachers just make photocopies as they need them.”
“Then can I get a set of photocopies?”
“No, the teachers make it up as they go along.”
“Can’t you even give me a list of the words you expect him to be able to know how to spell by the end of the school year?”
“No.”
This was my introduction to the real state of things at public schools. And this was a “highly rated” suburban school in a lily-white enclave of Massachusetts.
I was personally embarrassed at how little time we devoted to formal schooling during the trip. We took about a literal half ton of youth books that he amused himself with on the road, leaving them at campground bookracks as he finished them. We did a few simple science experiments (e.g., a glass jar and balloon lid “altimeter” on a day we would be traveling down off the mountains). We rearranged his Social Studies chapters (“history and geography of the US,” what luck) to match the area of the country we were in, and went on a lot of field trips — an antebellum plantation, the Nina replica, Texas oil fields, the Mormon and Santa Fe Trails, Indian culture (both ruins and contemporary), the Alamo, Sutter Mill, etc. — and had him keep a daily online journal of his trip, with photos and drawings (Writing and Art). (This was back in the days of modems and film cameras.). We even had more or less formal PE (archery and pistol). But I couldn’t shake the feeling that his classmates back at school were getting a much more rigorous education, and that he might show up with some deficiency when he got back.
Far from it. He aced the next year, and always seemed to be able to recount a personal experience that had grounded him in each subject. It appeared there was nothing he needed to know in sixth grade from the fifth-grade classroom experience.
A year I am sure he will always remember and cherish!
Testing. The school and teacher have to spend a huge amount of time on stuff other than getting the right answer. Even a math test is essentially a reading/writing test. All of them are. The teacher’s job and the principal’s job depend on students getting good test scores, so that’s what they do. They can’t worry about kids being able to do useful things because those aren’t on the test.
Teach your kids math because lower grades aren’t gonna do it.
“I do more in 5 minutes with her in the morning waiting on toast and jam than they accomplish all day. ”
But you are not a educational expert.
Educational experts suck.
What do you think was the original rationale for the saying, “Those who can do. Those who can’t teach!”?
“A” students teach.
“B” Students do the work
“C” students mange
“D” students own the company
When her response said “I believe in equity, I believe in anti-racism.”, that was all one needed to hear.
When her response said “I believe in equity, I believe in anti-racism.”, that was all one needed to hear.
See the Providence Journal article for Solas’s take on equality/equity. She’s five times as articulate as that floundering Chairwoman.
Okay… She must have had legal and the PR folks work out at least one line from last night’s statement, too:
“I am a masters prepared educator.”
Any person reading or hearing that statement would take her to mean that she had an advanced degree in “EDUCATION,” you know, the science and philosophy of the act of educating/ teaching. That would be the reasonable conclusion.
Turns out, Mrs. Cummiskey is a nurse. And teaches “NURSING.”
From CCRI site:
“Processor Cummiskey has been a full time faculty member at the Community College of Rhode Island since 2008. Her area of specialty is maternal child health nursing. She has belonged to the following professional organizations: National League for Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau, and the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses.”
NOT A SINGLE professional or honor society dedicated to education.
Her statement is a prime example of how you can LIE without technically telling a falsehood.
Meh…if an educator is one who teaches then she is an educator. She may not hold a credential in pedagogy but if she teaches Nursing students she is educating them.
Of course, she is not teaching nursing to the South Kingstown kiddies.
Teaching to adults and teaching to kids are two entirely different skill sets. She isn’t qualified, “professionally” speaking.
Henry,
Do you mean unqualified as in not credentialed to teach HS classes? If so ok.
However, if you mean unqualified to sit on a school board or school board committee because of the lack of a credential in pedagogy then I strongly disagree.
Restricting service on public school boards and committees to credentialed ‘educators’ would result in those boards and committees being dominated by members of teachers unions. It would lock out members of the general public and vastly reduce the possibility of genuine oversight and render local control meaningless.
Yes, I mean the former. Of course, anybody can serve on a school board. But not anybody can pretend to childhood educational qualifications.
At least they couldn’t back before you could pretend to be female, or black, or a superhero, or something you obviously aren’t, and the rest of the world was required to defer to you.
The purpose of the School Board is to set policy for the schools.
So, their philosophy is more important than their degrees.
“No degree” is better than a B.A., M.S. or PhD with a Marxist philosophy!
Did you read the whole comment, or ummm that would be too hard.
The point, obviously, was she uses her status as basically a trade/skilled professional with no background in education to teach basically trade/skill classes but frames her background (and thus her “qualifications” for being the (former) chair of the School Committee. Again, the way she purposefully phrases, “I am a masters prepared educator,” to make it appear that she is something that she isn’t. Whereas she doesn’t tell a falsehood, she promotes, through her words, the image of something of which she is not. If she were a Trump, a conservative or a republican, Politifact would spend fourteen paragraphs calling her a damned liar– because it is all about narrative and perception. Which is why she uses such carefully crafted words.
I have a Ph.D., and am a former University professor in a non-skilled trade curriculum. I
now own spend my retirement training dogs and also “teaching” owners how to train their own dogs. By your logic, it would perfectly acceptable for me to run for the local school board and say that “I am doctorate-level educator.” I was once but now for me to claim to be would be purposefully deceptive though completely true. It’s called “lying by telling the truth” and do a simple web search– it’s something politicians are especially good at– well the Democrats are because the media runs cover for them.
I read your post. I suppose I was too tactful.
You seem to reserve ‘educator’ as a title exclusive to those credentialed in pedagogy v those with traditional academic degrees.
Most people understand that the average student admitted to a College of Education has far lower academic potential, lower standardized test scores; SAT/ACT and GRE than students admitted to traditional academic programs. This is especially true for STEM.
In a word these students are, on average, unimpressive. As a former Professor you must have encountered this phenomenon.
Only public schools and their ‘teachers’ unions (educators) seem to insist upon possession of a certificate or credential which ‘proves’ one is fit to teach classes. Most other schools allow those with a traditional academic background in the subject matter to teach. Especially those with graduate degrees.
The mere possession of piece of parchment which proclaims one is an educator while those without are not and can not be educators is overly simplistic to me.
I don’t see any need, based on the performance of these credentialed teachers over the past year and a half in which many abandoned their students, to hold them in any esteem. Nor do I believe that mere credentials are necessary to be qualified to teach or educate.
Was she deceptive? Yes but more so about the substance of her attempt to deflect blame.
I don’t understand why you chose to focus on this minor portion of her statement. It seems like a trivial distinction to me. Obviously you disagree.
Glad to have you commenting here. We need new blood and new perspectives.
The point is: nobody rolls around saying this about themselves: “I am a masters prepared educator” unless they’re fluffing something up.
It’s PR-speak, plain and unnecessarily complicated.
Ok. I don’t disagree that it wasn’t. I just don’t think that was the key take away from her statement.
It does serve to buttress what I consider the more important portion of her statement: the attempt to deflect blame. That is the true deceit, IMO.
Nice lawsuit you now have, baby!
“Unprecidented situation” = someone actually cornering them and demanding answers.
WE vote these school boards in! time to take these elections more seriously.
Reminds me of how the founder of Papa John’s was smeared as racist by the PR firm he hired (because they didn’t like his politics) in support of a corporate coup by an executive the founder was getting ready to fire.
“After Cummiskey and Fish stepped down, the committee voted to elect Paula Whitford as the new chairwoman and Michelle Brousseau as vice chairwoman.
“I feel that I can take this position and move us forward in the right direction,” Whitford told her colleagues.
Last year, Whitford was the first woman of color to be elected to committee, meaning she is now also the first to serve as its chairwoman.”
See where this is going.
When the PR firm needs a PR firm…
If the parents of that school district don’t move to recall the board, at least the members who are involved in the smear campaign, then the parents of that district own the situation and need to learn to live with it.
In response to Cummiskey’s statements Solas told the Journal: “’Equity’ is CRT codeword for discriminating based on race to achieve equal outcomes. The School Committee should focus on ‘equality,’ treating students without regard to race.
Thanks to the Providence Journal, we can see why the CRT-imposing school board can’t stand Solas. She’s very articulate, and doesn’t participate in the usual CRT gobbledygook camouflage, but rather uses the English language to shine a merciless light on this poisonous indoctrination imposed on kids by CRT purveyors.
Great reporting, Professor Jacobson.
Professor, this was great reporting. Indeed there is much more going on here. Please stay on the trail.
All power from the word “racist” has been removed by now. To paraphrase Ibram X. Kendi, being “racist” means that you are just not “anti-racist.” In current usage, when you are called :”racist” that just means that the speaker mildly disagrees with you.
Also, a black person who engages in racist thought and speech is by definition “not racist” because Kendi says so.