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The Portland School Board on Friday unanimously approved a resolution authorizing an independent inquiry into Signal usage at Portland Public Schools.
The vote, conducted at a special meeting, comes in response to WW exclusively reporting last week that it had reviewed screenshots from multiple sources showing district leaders, including PPS Superintendent Dr. Kimberlee Armstrong, had engaged in conversations about public business on the third-party encrypted messaging platform.
The use of that messaging platform for official district communications is not authorized, a district spokesperson confirmed. Some of the screenshots WW viewed also showed that some of the chats between leaders and the superintendent had utilized Signal’s “disappearing messages” feature, which allows users to set a period of time after which messages may disappear.
The inquiry board members approved will extend into all “non-PPS-approved” messaging platforms. The approved resolution asks that independent counsel produce a report directly to the board with findings by Dec. 11, shortly ahead of when board members are expected to weigh big decisions on school closures. (It also notes that, if that deadline cannot be met, counsel will produce an interim report by that date.) Following the completion of the board’s inquiry, a final report will be made public.
On Friday, School Board chair Eddie Wang said the district had retained outside counsel in Bob Steringer, a litigation lawyer, to lead an external fact-finding process. Steringer has indicated that two separate outside agents will assist him in this work, one specializing in information technology, and the other specializing in legal matters with educational institutions, Wang said.
In the days leading up to Friday’s vote, board members weighed an original resolution Wang submitted, and an amendment to that resolution submitted by board members Stephanie Engelsman and Virginia La Forte.
The original resolution authorized PPS general counsel to work with outside legal counsel to seek facts on three points before reporting back to the School Board. (Broadly, those three points concern whether district employees used Signal, if information can be retained, and authorization to collect other relevant information.) Some board members expressed concern that Wang’s original resolution would not guarantee a fully independent inquiry.
The amendment widened the inquiry to include former district employees and vendors or contractors associated with the district, and established processes for confidential reporting. It also notably asks that any inquiry examine whether district leaders directed employees to use messaging platforms not approved by PPS to conduct district business.
After some debate, the board voted 4-3 to adopt Engelsman and La Forte’s amendment as a baseline. After its approval, a number of small amendments were made to that version, before the unanimous vote.
Steringer confirmed to board members that he had established measures to ensure that “the outside fact finder would be providing its report directly to the board and would not be going through the administration as any sort of filter before it does that.”
“That is very specifically to address the independence interests that I’m sure the entire board is concerned about,” Steringer said.
This story will be updated.
