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WW has reviewed screenshots from multiple sources showing that leaders at Portland Public Schools, including Superintendent Dr. Kimberlee Armstrong, engaged in conversations about public business on the Signal app over a 10-month span.
Signal, an encrypted text-messaging platform, is a private communication app that’s appealing because it stores little user data. Some of the screenshots WW reviewed also show that at least some of the chats between Armstrong and leaders utilized Signal’s “disappearing messages” feature, which allows users to set a time frame after which messages are deleted. (WW is not sharing the specific contents of messages to protect the confidentiality of sources.)
Such a practice may be illegal. PPS, a public institution, is obligated under district policy and state law to maintain communications related to the official duties of public officials.
In response to questions from WW, a PPS spokesperson said that “Signal is not a district-approved platform for conducting official PPS communications.” The spokesperson added: “PPS is taking action to determine whether any messages would constitute public records and, if so, whether they can be recovered.”
That exchanges on Signal were related to district business, and that at least some of the messages have been auto-deleted, means PPS is in breach of public records law, says public interest lawyer Alan Kessler.
“Signal is designed to make it hard to save messages,” Kessler says. “Oregon has laws that make it a crime to destroy public records for public officials. Every single time one of those officials is turning on auto-delete and then conducting the public’s business, that’s criminal activity.”
Other public records experts say the legality would depend on the contents of the records, and that public records laws around digital communications are still developing in the state.
The finding deepens a brewing controversy at PPS that originated during an Oct. 20 Portland School Board meeting at Benson Polytechnic High School. As the meeting dragged on, someone sitting behind PPS and Procedeo employee Sarah Norman caught an unflattering Signal exchange on camera. The photos were then shared with multiple media outlets. (Political commentator Max Steele was first to report on the exchange.)
In a series of three images, Norman, who leads PPS’s Department of Real Estate, Infrastructure and School Enhancement, is captured texting PPS chief of staff Deborah Kafoury. “Stephanie is an asshole,” Kafoury wrote, in apparent reference to board member Stephanie Engelsman. “We are ready to walk out,” Norman replied. Neither Kafoury nor Norman immediately responded to WW’s requests for comment on the matter.
Engelsman tells WW that Kafoury called her to apologize following the leaked image—an implicit confirmation that the photos were authentic. “Deborah was very professional, was very apologetic,” she says. “I don’t begrudge her for her response at all.”
Still, public response to that image was harsh as it circulated on social media. Some observers noted the use of Signal. “Signal only helps you evade public records law if people can’t see your screen!” read an Instagram post from Rank-and-File Educators for Democracy, a caucus of the Oregon Education Association, the statewide teachers union.
Both in Oregon and nationwide, encrypted apps like Signal, meant to keep conversations private and secure, can be a double-edged sword when public officials use them. Just a few years ago, members of the Eugene School Board were embroiled in controversy over use of the app. According to reporting by the Eugene Register-Guard, a lawyer told School Board members then that it wasn’t immediately clear what liability public officials who used Signal might face over any erased messages.
Just a week after Kafoury was caught sending her messages, the chief of staff resigned, effective Jan. 4. In a letter to Armstrong, Kafoury wrote that she had intended to step aside later this year, but she pushed back her departure date to ensure completion of some key projects.
