Tempers erupt at Poway school board meeting

A member of the public was ejected from the school board meeting Monday night after things got heated between himself and Superintendent John Collins.

Keith Wilson was asked to leave following a verbal spat with Collins in which he repeatedly called Collins a “scumbag.”

Wilson is the father of Kim Garnier, who, along with her husband Chris, have been frequent critics of Collins and the district. Their criticisms intensified last spring after Chris Garnier was banned by a court order from stepping foot on the campus of Painted Rock Elementary, where his children attend school, due to accusations of threatening the safety of the school’s principal, Mary Jo Thomas.

The Garniers have accused the district of corruption and racism on several occasions and are frequent commenters during the public comment portion of monthly school board meetings.

Kim Garnier and her father both spoke at the Monday evening meeting, accusing the district of corruption and calling for reform.

“Parents, community members, students and yes, teachers are all growing more brave everyday,” said Garnier in her comments to the board. “We are all ready to stand up to the corruption within this district.”

Garnier said that she had experienced intimidation tactics from the district, including a sexual harassment claim filed against her by a district employee.

(On Tuesday, PUSD attorney William B. Shinoff said that no such claim had been filed against Kim Garnier.)

“It’s absolutely disgusting to accuse me, a mother of three, of sexually harassing another woman, simply so I can not bring the district’s dark secrets to the light,” Garnier told the school board on Monday. “I refuse to be silenced.”

Garnier declined to provide a copy of the letter or the sexual harassment claim to the Poway News Chieftain when asked Tuesday, saying in an email that she had turned the information over to her attorneys and saying, “I have no trust or faith in many of the people who work closely [with] John Collins and his henchmen.”

Garnier’s father, Keith Wilson, also spoke at the meeting, where he commented on purported past district corruption and referenced an alleged affair conducted between a school principal and a teacher, resulting the reassignment of the principal to the district office. No names were mentioned.

At the end of the public comment section of the meeting, Collins personally responded to Wilson, asking if Wilson had ever read Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter” and accusing Wilson of pinning a scarlet letter on Collins’s wife, who was in the audience.

“To come before this board and publicly criticize one of our own employees and continue to reference my personal life, I’m not sure if you’re here to hang a scarlet letter on my wife,” Collins said before being interrupted by Wilson, who stood and shouted that he was talking about Collins, not Collins’s wife, and called Collins a “scumbag” several times.

Wilson was asked twice by Board President Kimberley Beatty to sit down or he would be removed.

A district security officer asked Wilson to leave after he failed to sit down. Wilson left without further incident. The Garniers left immediately afterward.