by P.D. Lesko
Public records revealed that the Lincoln Consolidated Schools in Ypsilanti has no policies or procedures that require background checks on volunteers. State law requires public schools to background check employees, including teachers. As a result, in March 2023 Lincoln Consolidated Schools Superintendent Robert Jansen permitted a group of untrained, unsupervised felons who had not been background checked to enter a public school to provide “security” during an after school sporting event. Photos taken at the basketball game show a murderer on parole from a life plus sixty year sentence posing for photos inside the gymnasium at the Lincoln Consolidated High School during a basketball game. The felons, according to a Sheriff’s Dept. employee, attended the high school basketball game in order to allow the students and adults present to “enjoy the game” without fear of incident.
The Ann Arbor Independent submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for all incident reports from basketball games at Lincoln High School in order to ascertain if there was, actually, any reason to fear there would not be a “safe atmosphere.” The request was refused as a violation of FERPA and HIPPA. The newspaper plans to appeal this response, because FERPA and HIPPA protect student health records, not public safety incident reports.
The felons who showed up at Lincoln High School are members of a County non-profit contractor called Supreme Felons, Inc. They were accompanied by Derrick Jackson, the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Dir. of Community Engagement.
According to text messages and emails shared with The Ann Arbor Independent, Jackson and Marvin Gundy, who is the Sheriff’s Dept. Community Outreach Coordinator (Gundy is supervised by Jackson), control Supreme Felons, Inc. This control includes dictating which of the felons would occupy which leadership positions. It was Jackson and Gundy who originally put a registered sex offender, Alan K. Fuqua, in the position of president of the non-profit. One text message from Gundy to Supreme Felons, Inc. current “president” (Billy Cole) and “managing director/vice president/director of programming” (Bryan Foley), directs the felons “not to talk to anyone” about Supreme Felons, Inc. without the permission of Gundy or Jackson.
In 2014, the Monroe Public Schools had no policy or procedure in place to screen volunteers. Finding that a registered sex offender was a regular classroom volunteer changed that.
Almost a decade later, at the Washtenaw County Lincoln Consolidated Schools, the District’s elected leaders still have “their heads in the sand, and are risking the safety of the 3,500 students enrolled,” said a Lincoln Community Schools parent volunteer who asked not to be identified because of fear of being banned from volunteering.
Fifty percent of LCS students are minorities and one-third come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, according to data from the State of Michigan Dept. of Education. The Superintendent is white and so are the majority of the members of the Board of Education.
Superintendent Jansen was hired on a three-year contract in July of 2020. He was formerly the principal of Bishop Elementary in the LCS District between 2016 and 2020. Jansen holds an Education Specialist Degree from Saginaw Valley State University, a Master of Education in Educational Leadership from the University of Alaska-Anchorage and a Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education from Western Michigan University. Jansen invited the murderer on parole and other felons into Lincoln High School without the knowledge of the District’s parents, and without a public vote of the Lincoln Consolidated Schools Board of Education, according to public records.
Lincoln Consolidated Schools Superintendent Robert Jansen refused to speak by phone and refused to answer written questions about the incident submitted to him by email in March. Likewise, Jennifer Czachorski, President of the LCS Board of Education, has repeatedly refused to answer questions about the incident and about the district’s student safety measures.
A Freedom of Information request revealed that under the leadership of Jansen, Czachorski and the rest of the Board of Education members, Lincoln Consolidated Schools does no background checks on felons who volunteer to work in the LCS. As a result, any and all individuals with felony records are free to come into the LCS and have access to the district’s K-12 students.
The members of the Board of Education were asked in an email if they had plans to implement a policy whereby volunteers in LCS schools would have background checks. None of the Board members responded to the question.
The present gap in the district’s security protocols allows felons who are registered sex offenders, rapists, murderers, drug dealers, bank robbers and individuals convicted of felony child and spouse abuse to volunteer with all of the district’s 3,500 K-12 students and in all of the district’s school buildings, including during after school programs.
LCS is the only district in Washtenaw County without a policy that calls for background checks on in-school volunteers, including those who are felons. A request for the policy of the LCS Board of Education that outlines how felon-volunteers are to be screened was denied: such a policy does not exist.
The Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti and Washtenaw Intermediate School Districts all use iCHAT to check whether volunteers in their districts have felonies on their records. Depending on the type of felony, the principals determine whether to allow the individual into the school building. If that is the case, the principal contacts the district superintendent who then approaches the respective board of education. The members of the BOE then take public votes so that it’s transparent that a felon is being allowed in their public schools. While this is a good tool, it is far from perfect and its use does not keep dangerous felons out of the public schools.
The Internet Criminal History Access Tool (ICHAT) is a name-based search of public criminal history record information maintained by the Michigan State Police, Criminal Justice Information Center. All felonies and serious misdemeanors that are punishable by over 93 days are required to be reported to the state repository by law enforcement agencies, prosecutors and courts in all 83 Michigan counties. Suppressed records and warrant information are not available through ICHAT. Also not included are federal records, tribal records, traffic records, juvenile records, local misdemeanors and criminal history from other states. Required information to perform a search includes: First name, last name, sex and date of birth.
The Superintendent of the Ypsilanti School District, Dr. Zachery-Ross, said that in her district felon-volunteers have come before the Ypsilanti BOE to answer questions before a public vote to allow the felon access to YCS classrooms and students.
Unlike in the LCS, Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti and Washtenaw Intermediate School Districts, in the Wayne Westland District a felony is an automatic out. District officials have said that it’s “a conservative approach,” but says they like to err on the side of caution.
Almost a decade ago in Monroe County, Barry Martin tightened up his district’s background check policy. When Martin was the Superintendent of Monroe Public Schools, he had first hand experience with what a lax volunteer vetting policy can do.
Martin told the Detroit Free Press: “My district used to only do background checks mostly on volunteers who took on supervisory roles, like chaperoning a field trip. If a volunteer was going to be in a classroom with a teacher at all times, they didn’t get a background check. But this past spring, they ran a background check on a parent who was volunteering in a classroom pretty regularly and they found out he was a registered sex offender.”
“It would have been caught if we had done background checks for everyone,” said Martin.
At a March 2023 basketball game at Lincoln High School, a group of felons showed up to assist with “security.” The men are members of a group called “Supreme Felons, Inc.” Sheriff Jerry Clayton made a point of saying at a public panel discussion he was moderating on April 1, 2023, his department has no service contract with the group. No law enforcement agency or school district in Washtenaw County has any service agreement with Supreme Felons, Inc.
It appears that the felons show up at venues, most recently the bus depot in Ypsilanti, wander around, take selfies, then post the photos to social media and claim in social media posts to have, “Boots on the ground.”
“Boots on the ground” is a term used by military tacticians to describe having armed, combat troops in foreign countries. The meaning of the phrase is to have troops fighting in a war zone.
Superintendent Jansen’s assistant Ty Smith, in a phone conversation in March of this year, conveyed questions from the Superintendent including this one: “How do you know the members of Supreme Felons, Inc. are felons?” Robert Jansen’s questions about Supreme Felons, Inc. suggest the Superintendent had no clue exactly who Supreme Felons, Inc. had sent into the high school during a student sporting event.
The felons used their opportunity to enter Lincoln Consolidated School property to take photos of themselves to post on social media. Others at the basketball game took photos, as well. The photo above left shows LCS Superintendent Robert Jansen warmly greeting Billy Cole, the “president” of Supreme Felons, Inc. Cole, on parole from a life plus 60 year sentence, murdered an EMU graduate in an execution-style killing. Cole shot the kneeling, bound, young man twice in the head and once in the torso in the course of a convenience store robbery. While in prison, Cole was also prosecuted for felonious assault.
Among other questions Jansen declined to answer was one that asked whether his Board of Education members had been made aware of the decision to allow felons into the high school.
Weeks after the Lincoln High School basketball game, on March 23, members of Supreme Felons, Inc. showed up without permission at Ypsilanti Community Middle School to “help with security.” Unlike Jansen, the Ypsilanti Community Schools Superintendent issued a public statement that made clear the felons’ group was unaffiliated with the YCS, did not have permission to be at the school building and that Supreme Felons, Inc. has “no place in the Ypsilanti Community Schools.”
The Ann Arbor Independent has repeatedly asked the felon members of Supreme Felons, Inc. to speak on the record about the group’s efforts to push into schools without the permission of elected members of the Boards of Education, but thus far the only response has been silence.
Derrick Jackson, who emails and text messages show participated in the formation and control of Supreme Felons, Inc., has been public in his criticism of The Ann Arbor Independent’s reporting on the group’s activities. Jackson has repeatedly refused to answer questions about his involvement with the felons, his control of the non-profit, and what control, if any, the Sheriff’s candidate has over the $1.2 million in public money awarded to Supreme Felons, Inc. by the Washtenaw County Commissioners in July 2022.
Robert Jansen and LCS School Board president Jennifer Czachorski won’t talk about the decision to welcome any felon–a murderer on parole, child sex offenders, rapists and others with convictions for violent crimes–with a warm handshake and open arms into the Lincoln Consolidated Schools. They won’t explain why they allowed felons without background checks into a high school basketball game to provide “security,” or why such “security” was necessary.
In what could be a lesson in leadership for Jansen and Czachorski, former Monroe County Public Schools superintendent Barry Martin doesn’t shy away from talking about his mistake of neglecting to order background checks for all volunteers. Martin doesn’t mince words about the importance of proper vetting of volunteers who want to enter schools and have access to students: “We just can’t be too careful anymore. We’re talking about kids.”
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