SAVE NORTH KINGSTOWN
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56% of Registered NK Voters are Independent
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REPORTED NK COACH NAKED FAT TESTING TIMELINE
1994 – Earliest incident of Thomas doing Naked fat testing (although an alum has told me that testing was being discussed in 1993)
1999 - 2003 Student A subjected to Thomas Naked fat testing
2002 – 2006 Student C subjected to Thomas Naked fat testing
2005 - Athletic IQ schedule identifies Thomas fat testing
2006 - 2008 Student B subjected to Thomas Naked Fat Testing
2006 July 25 - Auditor General No Criminal activity in review of certain NKSD transactions
- Cites “lack of written policies and procedures, weak internal controls and lack of follow-up”
2009 August - Reported to Superintendent Former Athletic Dir issues -Vending, Activity accounts and Athletic IQ biometric testing, including Thomas’ fat testing, to build commercial data base
- August 25 - Athletic director resigns without explanation
- Athletic IQ dissolved no more biometric testing of students, including fat testing?
- 2010 December 21- State Police investigation of the former Athletic Director’s handling of student activity accounts – no criminal charges
2018 June - Student A reports to NKPD about 1999 - 2003 Thomas Naked fat testing - NKPD to assign Task force
2018 Mid-August - Auger superintendent of the year award announced & School Blue Ribbon Award
2018 August - Student B Informs Auger about 2006 - 2008 Naked Fat Testing at encounter outside of schools
- Early fall 2018 - Auger along with Fossa, Mancieri and Union Rep meet with Thomas “all fat testing to be done in the locker room, with 2 other adults present and students were not to be naked” (Note: Nov 16, 2021 SC mtg. Auger said he was not told students were naked)
- Fall 2018 - Fossa meets with coaches to inform them of the new protocol
2018-2019 - NKHS Boys Basketball team won the Open Championship for the first time in school history (over 118 years).
- Basketball team won the Division 1 State Title by defeating Hendricken.
2019 – Student X was subjected to Thomas naked fat testing
2021 February 12 - Student C emails Mancieri. Auger responds, “contact NKSD attorney Oliverio.”
- Student C asks for help finding his own counsel before contacting NKSD attorney Oliverio, but never heard back from Auger or Mancieri
- February 2021 - Student C askes Student A to corroborate that A had gone to NKPD in 2018 leading to student A conference call with Auger and Mancieri.
- 2021 February - Thomas removed from bus on the way to a game. Explanation “medical
leave”. Students brought food to his house.
- February 24, 2021- SC meets & votes to terminate Thomas at end of school year
- June 24 - Thomas resigns without explanation (rumored that SC made a deal with Thomas that when he left, he would never teach in RI again and was supposed to move to TX.)
- August - NKSD reports to RIDE
- September - Monsignor Clarke Elementary and Middle School calls NKHS for reference
- September 28 – NKHS Blue Ribbon Award Announcement at School Committee Meeting
- October 26 - Eli Sherman (WPRI) emails SC and NKSD officials with questions as he & Tim White had been investigating the allegations behind the scenes. Informed them that they could break the story or else a story was going public within a few days. SC held their planned meeting that evening and never informed the public about the allegations
- October 29 – WPRI breaks story “Former RI high school coach suspended after AG confirms investigation”
- November 5 - Monsignor Clarke Elementary and Middle School dismisses Thomas
JUNE 18th 2021 – MARCH 2022
- June 18 – Oliverio Report on Thomas Naked Fat Testing Delivered
- June 22, 2021 “Executive Session pursuant to RIGL 42-46-4 for discussion of … III. Employee Job Performance pursuant to RIGL 42-46-5(a)(1) – Individuals have been notified including their right to have any discussion held in open session”
X. SC Approval of OFL RIDOH Grant, Healthy Bodies, Health Minds 1. SC Approval of OFL Grant from RIDOH, Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds 6.22.21
- June 24 - Thomas resigns without explanation (rumored & 2 witnesses are on record saying that SC made a deal with Thomas that when he left, he would never teach in RI again and was supposed to move to TX.)
- June 30 - Via FB messenger using the name "Aaron Thomas", Whistleblower contacts Hildebrand and 97 other people in NK including one town council member and another school committee member. He still has all of the names of people to whom the message was sent and has shared them with the appropriate people
- July 22 - Whistleblower contacts Hildebrand again via FB messenger with same content but now using "Thomas Southwick". Hildebrand confirmed that the content of the messages was read and discussed with the SC attorney and full SC at that time
- July - RI Attorney General’s Office & NKPD contacted whistleblowers to say: “Will not Prosecute Thomas”; will not pursue an investigation into the allegations
- August - NKSD reports to RIDE
- September - Monsignor Clarke Elementary and Middle School principal calls NKHS Principal Morse for reference
- September 28 – NKHS Blue Ribbon Award Announcement at School Committee Meeting
- October 26 Eli Sherman emails SC “Going to run with the story”
- October 29 – TV News breaks story “Former RI high school coach suspended after AG confirms investigation”
- November 5 - Monsignor Clarke Elementary and Middle School dismisses Thomas
- November 6 – Saturday morning SC meeting – Pending OMA Violation, SC releases first statement to the public (read by Lima), open 2nd Oliverio investigation and expand the scope
- December 2 - Lima publicly recuses herself from anything to do with the case
-December 15 - After an APRA by WPRI for the first Oliverio report, the SC releases it and a public statement during their scheduled meeting
- December 22 -US Attorney Requests Documents re: Policies, opens a case on behalf of 5 victims against the NKSD for violation of Civil Rights
- January 25 - School Lawyer updates SC and community that they have begun working on the recommendations from Oliverio’s June, 18th report
- March 8 - SC meeting Auger present and IT Dir does presentation
- March 9th Auger resigns and IT Dir identified as Interim Superintendent
- March 14t Oliverio’s Phase 2 report released pointing to errors in auger’s response and praising the SC for working on his phase 1 recommendations
FAT TEST
In April, which was declared by Biden to be National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month, a resident asked you all during a TC meeting to create a resolution to support a bill before the GA which would protect children from sexual abuse at the hands of those in a supervisory role. Mr. Mancini, part of your response was “The TC needs to stay in its lane” with regards to writing resolutions on bills before the General Assembly. And yet, with your support, Katie Anderson has done just that with this gun violence awareness resolution. Ironically, one of the Judge’s recommendations was to encourage you all to work alongside our legislators to create legislation that will prevent this abuse from ever happening again.
You have 4 school employees who have now been placed on administrative leave due to student allegations against them, 4 other employees who have resigned or retired early, 2 pending lawsuits, 6 investigations into these allegations and inevitably much more fallout to come. But instead, just as the McGuirl report is released, you put forth this new resolution. The timing is suspect and it really seems like political theater and an effort to distract us from the many ways in which our administrators and elected officials have failed to keep our children safe. Even now, the fact that you wouldn’t release Judge McGuirl’s report until 2 hours before this meeting makes you no different from the SC members. When will the leaders in this town STOP trying to minimize and be willfully blind to all of these sexual abuse allegations and accept that major mistakes were made? According to the Judge: “when a school fails, they lost the trust of the community they serve.” Not one of you will help rebuild that trust and fix this system if your focus continues to be on your own reputation, your re-election campaign, the reputation of the school or town and acting in your own interest to save your seat.
FAT TEST 2018
Behind the scenes, the parents of a then-middle school girl are in a back & forth with the administration and ultimately SC Chairman Blasbalg over their assertions that a then-DMS teacher/coach was bullying and inappropriate with their daughter. They were met with much resistance from those in charge. The details of the story can be found in numerous articles online as the parents recently worked with Attorney Conlon to file a Title IX complaint against the District with the USDOJ. Also behind the scenes, another family is in a back and forth with high school admins after their daughter was the victim of a sexual assault (off campus) by another student and continued to be bullied and harassed by him and his friends upon her return to school.
—JUNE As mentioned in previous posts, TS visits the NKPD for a 2 hour interview with detectives about Thomas’ naked fat testing of students. He is assured that a task force will be initiated to look into these allegations. —AG Neronha’s son graduates as Valedictorian from NKHS.
—JUNE to OCTOBER The NKSD is dealing with a lawsuit against them brought by Aaron Thomas’ wife, a tenured teacher at the NKHS who is suing for wrongful termination.
—AUGUST Whistleblower #2, having no knowledge of TS and vice versa, discusses the naked fat testing with Auger during an encounter in town. Period. That and just that alone should have forced Auger to act and report. Period. Auger disputes the alum ever mentioned that he was “naked” while being tested. The alum is on record with the police as stating that he did, in fact, mention the testing was done naked.
—SEPTEMBER Auger receives the RI Superintendent of the Year award. With knowledge of naked fat testing, Auger meets with NKSD attorney Mary Ann Carroll, then-AD Dick Fossa, Aaron Thomas, and Union rep Dave Avedisian (verified in the Oliverio reports) to discuss the purchase of a caliper machine and new testing “protocols”, which include the directive to no longer test alone in any office/classroom, always use the new machine and always have at least 2 adults present.
Here’s where it all went wrong:
1) No one ever notified DCYF
2) As was required by SC policy, Auger never mentioned to SC members at their very next SC meeting the purchase of the new machine nor the fact that he changed the testing policy via a private meeting. Therefore, according to the 2018 SC members, they never knew any of this was going on.
3) The purchase of the machine was just under the $5k threshold required to be reported to the SC for budgetary reasons. It was paid for partially by funds raised by the Booster Club. The 2018 SC members were never informed that it was purchased or why.
4) Although the testing protocol was changed, there was absolutely zero oversight of Thomas after that meeting. As a result, per allegations and the 2nd charge brought this week of sexual assault from 2019-2020, he continued his naked fat tests on students until a 3rd whistleblower notified the NKSD in February of 2021. **Contrary to an egregious rumor posted on social media, there was NO “internal investigation” into the 2018 allegations brought to Auger—not by the NKSD nor by any other authorities. Imagine how many students would have been spared had there been!
—OCTOBER/NOVEMBER The boys’ varsity basketball banner season begins, culminating with a win in the Open Championship (for the first time in its 118 year history) and a Division 1 State Title.
—LATE 2018 NKSD wins the Meritorious Budget Award from the Association of School Business Officials International for the 4th year in a row.
NK RECLAIM YOUR DRINKING WATER PROTECTIONS BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!
NK gets its drinking water from up to 11 wells; all located over or alongside the Hunt, Annaquatucket, and Pettaquamscutt reservoirs. For decades these reservoirs were protected from hazardous contamination by our Groundwater ordinance classifying the land over the reservoirs equally to wellhead protection areas.
Back in 2007-2012 era, the town allowed a ridiculous change in ordinance that in general stated: if you bring in water from a community water supply to an area protecting a non-public wellhead, the town would relax prohibitions of hazardous commercial uses and allow them to locate in the wellhead protection area. This was designed to allow a car dealership to relocate alongside Rte. 4 where new car dealerships were not allowed due to a non-public well feeding a donut shop. The dealership actually brought water supplied by East Greenwich to the area so that he could build a dealership that was prohibited by NK groundwater ordinance due to potential “contamination” hazards from all the automotive fuels and chemicals. Not only did this put NK water in potential jeopardy, but EG used to draw water from the Hunt, but now get their water from the Scituate reservoir.
The feeling was the town water was safer and better regulated than private wells and land above the reservoirs should not held to stricter standards to protect non-public wells. The reservoirs however are the only pockets of water deep enough to sustain public wells and wells need to be relocated from time to time. Water contamination has nothing to do with water supply. Why should we allow contamination of our water supply under the dealership just because they have access to fresh water from Scituate?
Sometime during these ordinance changes, the town removed language: “Zone 1 groundwater protection areas shall include those areas designated and mapped by the state department of environmental management … “as well as those areas mapped as groundwater reservoirs (>40 feet saturated thickness, >4,000 ft. sq./day transmissivity) in the Hunt, Annaquatucket, Pettaquamscutt and Chipuxet aquifers”.
After numerous correspondences with the town clerk, she could not produce any backup material showing the standard procedure of strike-thru’s for the deleted text and underlines of newer text used for ordinance changes, nor could she determine a specific date this language was actually voted on to be removed. Whether this was a clerical error in not showing the removed portion of the ordinance to the public or town council who modified the ordinance or by design; we will never know.
My contention is the reservoir language was unknowingly removed without the public and town officials having discussed merits or disadvantages of their removal. I was asking to see the discussion and reasoning for removing the reservoir protections which she could not produce. The chair of the groundwater committee could find no minutes showing removal of the reservoirs was ever discussed in their meetings.
Despite the language protecting all three reservoirs being removed, some remnants of text protecting the Hunt remained in a subsection until earlier this year. Unfortunately, despite significant pushback from the public, the current town council unanimously voted to remove the last remaining protections from the overhauled groundwater ordinance. While none of the current council was responsible for the original removal, they knowingly swept the remaining remnants under the rug.
While all this is going on, the town has recently shut down well 6 due to PFAS contamination. PFAS is not naturally occurring and is a result of “hazardous contamination somewhere over the Hunt reservoir”. Exactly what the ordinance used to protect! Wells 3, 7, & 8 have been shut down due to naturally occurring manganese, and well 10 has been shut down and in process of being relocated due to sand contamination from drawing an excess flow of water to support demand .
While looking for a new location to relocate well 6, the town was last testing sites which are not even located over the reservoirs. NK gets its drinking water from 3 reservoirs which by definition are “pockets of water capable of supplying public wells”. NK is closing down key wells now due to PFAS contamination while concurrently modifying the groundwater ordinance to relax the protections in place that protected the reservoirs from these type hazards.
The most important issues NK needs to address during the upcoming election is electing at least 3 town councils members that will protect the drinking water by reinstating reservoir protection back into the ordinance and getting the school district issues addressed and back in good standing to maintain property values. Ask candidates now and get commitments before voting.
I personally would not reelect any of the current council due to their recent actions on unanimously removing Hunt reservoir groundwater protection language. I’ve only heard of 2 council candidates that stood up over the years and will fight to reinstate these protections. I have recently relocated out of NK and I can’t stress the importance of protecting the quality of the water. Protecting NK groundwater was always my main focus while serving on the council and years after. I wish I had NK water in my current location and find myself buying bottled water to drink.
