Scottsdale school board president kept dossiers on dissident parents? Boot him now

Update: Scottsdale police on Dec. 2 closed their investigation into the allegations made against Scottsdale school board president Jann-Michael Greenburg, concluding that the Google Drive file contained only opensource and/or public records and that no crime was committed. A school district investigation continues.

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Secret dossiers compiled on dozens of political enemies, including photos of their children and potentially embarrassing dirt from their private lives.

Social Security numbers, property, tax and vehicle records, divorce proceedings and criminal history. Surveillance footage taken from a hidden body camera.

So what crime, you might wonder, did these dangerous people perpetrate to land on such a list? What terror do they contemplate, what threat do they pose?

It seems they … expressed an opinion.

Be warned, Scottsdale. If you’re a parent and you’ve had the nerve to speak out against mask mandates or remote learning policies or to question the way your child’s school teaches about things like race, you, too, could a target.

Of the school board president.

What did the president plan to do with that info?

The story unfolding in Scottsdale could be anywhere these days, as parents across the nation face off against their school boards over how and where and what their children are being taught.

Some angry parents have gone way over the line, letting lose with anti-Semitic and racist rants, disrupting public meetings and threatening school board members.

But this? This is a first. And it should be a last.

Jann-Michael Greenburg, president of the school board Scottsdale Unified School District, needs to resign.

It's one thing to keep tabs on the hateful and aggressive social media posts of people who threaten you.

But to keep files on dozens of parents, some detailing their financial and other personal histories? Dates of birth, in some cases? Social Security numbers, in others? Property and mortgage records?

I, for one, would like to know what, exactly, Greenburg planned to do with the information that was compiled on his computer.

SUSD wackos? Is that what he called them?

The story blew up last week after a story by the Scottsdale Independent, detailing how a group of Scottsdale mothers found a publicly available Google Drive file containing information on 47 parents or political opponents who have opposed the school dictrict’s COVID-19 policies and curriculum choices.

The dossiers came to light because Greenburg accidently included a link to the file while emailing one of the dissident parents.

On it were hundreds of screenshots of the parents’ social media posts, which is understandable, and bodycam videos of parents protesting district policies on COVID-19 and curriculum, which is just creepy. The videos were secretly recorded by Greenburg’s father Mark, who lives with his son.

During one of the videos, Mark Greenburg says he's taken steps to avoid detection and has a private investigator writing down the license plate numbers of the protesters' vehicles.

The files, according to various reporters who have seen them, break the parents into various categories, listing them as “SUSD Wackos,” “Press Conference Psychos” and “Anti Mask Lunatics.”

They are mostly public records containing a vast array of personal and financial information, presumably meant to embarrass the parents.

And they reportedly contain pictures of some of their children.

Don't just vote on a new president. Boot him

The dossiers are on a Google Drive file created by Mark Greenburg, with shared access by his son, Jann-Michael, according to the Scottsdale school district.

Scottsdale police are investigating and the district has hired an investigator to determine if any school resources were used in compiling the dossiers.

On Monday, the school board replaced Greenburg as president. What they ought to have done is call for him to resign from the board.

“It’s just completely unacceptable behavior from an elected official,” Amy Carney, one of the targeted parents, told Fox 10. “It’s really bizarre behavior and dangerous, and many people are afraid.”

Other parents who have long been involved in the school district, however, tell me the parents being targeted in Scottsdale have been disruptive at school board meetings, prompting calls to Scottsdale police, and are seeking to gain control over the school district.

"They prefer their history whitewashed and their kids in gender-assigned-at-birth bathrooms ...," one parent told me, via email. "They want to CONTROL curriculum and teachers and ensure that their children are never made to feel uncomfortable about our history, hear 'both sides' of things like the Holocaust, and that their Christian values are upheld."

None of which explains why their personal financial information would be on a filed created on the school board president's computer, one he has access to.

Greenburg has denied any knowledge of the Google Drive file, according to a report last week in the Scottsdale Independent.

Now that the story has blown up, he isn’t talking to reporters though he did say during Monday's school board meeting that all the facts have not yet come out. What facts those are, he wouldn't say.

The message from this now-former school board president seems clear enough:

We will determine how and where your child will go to school and what your child will be taught, and if you exercise your First Amendment right to express an opposing view then you, too, are a “wacko” or a “lunatic” or a “psycho”.

Or maybe, you’re just a concerned parent who has a right to have input into how and what your child is taught here in …

Well, this is still America, right?

Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LaurieRoberts.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Scottsdale school board president should resign. Now