School District Destroyed Its Entire Archive Of Board Meeting Videos
By Kevin Gosztola, Editor
With little to no explanation, the school district for Elmwood Park deleted an entire archive of school board meeting videos that it had maintained on the district’s YouTube channel.
Ryan Gillespie, an attorney for Elmwood Park Community Unit School District 401, revealed that “recordings of past Board of Education meetings” were “deleted from YouTube.”
The district has adopted a policy, where a “recording of the most recent Board meeting is made available on YouTube and then deleted after the next Board meeting recording is uploaded,” Gillespie added.
However, video of the December board meeting was not taken down until January 27—nearly a week after the board held its monthly meeting for January.
There were no public comments during the December meeting, and the district only deleted the video after the Elmwood Park Advocate asked Superintendent Dr. Leah Gauthier and Board Recording Secretary Nancy Lasselle why it was still posted.
The newsletter has been unable to find any examples of school districts in Illinois or other states that have similarly deleted and removed access to board meeting videos.
Back in October, the Elmwood Park Advocate reported that the district’s archive of meeting videos had disappeared from the district’s YouTube channel.
Gauthier announced during the following month that the public would no longer be able to access the videos.
“We’re going to continue to livestream and record the regular board meetings,” Gauthier declared at a monthly board meeting on November 19. “The recorded meetings will be available for viewing until the next regular board meeting.”
The extent of the district’s shift away from transparency was unclear at the November meeting. Gauthier said nothing about permanently deleting the public records.
Now, the Elmwood Park Advocate possesses more recordings of school board meetings than the school district. (Meeting videos are uploaded each month as part of the newsletter’s commitment to transparency and accountability in the village.)
On January 5, the district denied a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request that the Elmwood Park Advocate submitted for video of a September 25, 2024, board meeting. Gauthier insisted that the district possessed “no responsive records.”
Unaware that the district had deleted all meeting videos, the newsletter submitted a request for review to the Illinois Attorney General’s Office of the Public Access Counselor (PAC). (When a public agency denies a records request, the person who asked for the records may ask the PAC to review whether the request was handled appropriately.)
The Public Access Counselor shared correspondence with the district’s attorney on January 27, which showed that the video truly no longer existed. Tom Kinane, the district’s director of technology, searched for the recording and confirmed that it was deleted and could not be retrieved.”
Gauthier and Board of Education President Frank Parisi were both asked about the policy, which involves deleting videos. At the time of publication, they had not responded.
School board meeting recordings are public records under the state’s Local Records Act (LRA) [PDF]. They are “produced” in connection with public business and should be preserved as “evidence of the organization, function, policies, decisions, procedures, or other activities” conducted by a school district.
When a school district deletes the videos, the LRA requires the district to submit “records disposal certificates” to the Cook County Local Records Commission. However, it is unknown if the district filled out any certificates that would have permitted the destruction of public records.
According to the part of the Illinois criminal code that applies to tampering with public records, it is a Class 4 felony when “a person knowingly and without lawful authority alters, destroys, defaces, removes, or conceals any public record.”
The Elmwood Park Advocate has not been able to confirm whether the meeting videos were properly destroyed.
No state law, including the Illinois Open Meetings Act, requires a school, library, or village board to livestream their meetings. When a board broadcasts their meetings and maintains public access to those videos, they do so because they voluntarily recognize the importance of transparency.
On the other hand, boards that delete videos of meetings are choosing to make it harder for the public to follow meetings and hold officials accountable.
The district initially removed just the broadcast of the school board meeting on October 21, 2025. At that meeting, Christopher Doyle, the husband of Board of Education Trustee Monica Doyle, spoke during public comment about the lack of “safety updates” from the district and focused on an incident.
“What actions are being taken regarding the safety issue near Fullerton on the tennis courts? Remember last year when I brought in a tape measure, hard hat, and safety vest during public comment to emphasize a warning that someone could get hit at that exit?” Doyle remarked. “Now that an incident has occurred, what measures will the district be implementing?”
Doyle continued, “Since being proactive is no longer an option, how will the district respond reactively to the situation? Or is the district waiting to see if this incident results in a lawsuit considering the board and district were made aware of these safety issues last year but still did not act? Which in legal terms I believe is called negligence.”
Additionally, Sarah Korntheuer, a mom of four children in the school district and a 25-year public school teacher, confronted the superintendent and school board trustees over their failure to address fears generated by the presence of federal immigration agents in the Chicagoland area. But that comment did not raise a potential liability issue like Doyle’s comment.
“The news of this complete deletion of school board meeting videos is both disappointing and alarming,” declared Don Shanahan, a teacher at St. Celestine School. “I have two children in the district, and have attended many board meetings throughout my five years in this community, some of which have wonderfully celebrated my own children’s accomplishments directly.”
"I want to give the school board my good graces, but this move rattles my trust, Shanahan further stated, “If members of the school board are so scared or embarrassed by public comments happening or spreading, the best solution to that is to do what we, as a community, elected them for: LEAD. Take the public comments and address them in a timely manner.” (Shanahan is also a movie critic who has contributed articles to this newsletter.)
Jack Bower, a resident and transparency advocate who spoke during public comment at the board’s November meeting, was shocked to learn that “the district deleted its archive of board meeting videos. Those recordings were a basic transparency measure, especially for parents who cannot attend meetings live.”
“There is no benefit to erasing records of open meetings other than to conceal things,” added Bower. “It should come as no surprise that this will undermine trust in District 401’s leadership and send the message that transparency is a liability to the district rather than a benefit.”
In addition to removing board meeting videos, the superintendent and district announced that it would no longer make presentations available before board meetings. Such information had long been shared, and that encouraged families to engage with the school board ahead of votes on potentially crucial matters.
Strong investigative work here. The timing detail where they waited nearly a week after the January meeting to delete December's video, then only removed it after you inquired, is pretty damning. I'veseen boards stonewall transparency before but systematically erasing the archive while simultaneously stopping presentation pre-releases goes beyond typical beauracratic resistance. The Class 4 felony angle around tampering with public records deserves more scrutiny.