As many of you know, a political battle is raging in Utah this fall over the issue of School Vouchers. Oak Norton, who has been a prominent thorn in the side of the local school system for some time now, has evidence suggesting that individuals may have been illegally using their positions within School Districts, and District resources available to them, to push their Anti-Voucher agenda.
In an anti-voucher PowerPoint presentation he acquired, Oak uncovered given to Oak by a nameless source, the the following incriminating meta-data was noticed:
Created: Tuesday, July 31, 2007 9:08 PM
Modified: Friday, October 12, 2007 10:13 AM
Last saved by: Cache County School District
Revision number: 30
Total editing time: 689 Minutes
Here is the screenshot:
Now it may be that the file was created by someone else, and merely opened and saved by an individual in the Cache County District . However, if it was actually created at a Cache County District computer, and they used 689 minutes of their time to create it, then that is a serious abuse and against state election laws.
Whether or not you agree with or oppose the the voucher laws (HB 148 and HB 174) that have been proposed, we should all oppose this kind of illegal misuse of school resources.
In full disclosure, while they are certainly not perfect, I favor the voucher laws. However, if Pro-Voucher advocates were illegally using school resources to further their cause, I would oppose their actions just as much.
UPDATE: Oak has sent me a copy of the PowerPoint document. When I open it in OpenOffice and look at the document properties, it says that it was created by someone named “Mandy” on July 31, 2007 at 21:08:54 hours. Opening the file properties in Windows also lists the author as “Mandy.” It was last modified by the “Cache County School District” on Oct. 3, 2007 at 07:08:48 hours.
I also have a forwarded copy of the email used to transmit the PowerPoint presentation, which appears to have been sent using official @cache.k12.ut.us email addresses to what appears to be a listserv or email distribution list on the @cache.k12.ut.us.
If anyone wants a copy of the PowerPoint file or the email, let me know in the comments and I will send it to you.