As PHM returns to school today, you’ll notice some changes exclusively covered by TheBurningTruth over the past few months.
On April 15, 2024, we covered that PHM Schools were dropping the DEI officer position.
Despite having multiple sources within the school district confirming this, we were called liars.
Protestations we were wrong aside … a few days later another hammer dropped at PHM.
PHM stripped DEI from their handbooks.
All that was left was for the school board to make it official, there would be no DEI officer at PHM for the upcoming 2024-2025 school year.
On May 20, 2024 … they did just that.
As we’ve been telling you the whole time, DEI will be hidden, renamed, and will rear its ugly head again. However, this was a victory against a horrible discriminatory policy.
Unfortunately, some people just couldn’t accept this and continue, to this day, to deny the DEI officer position is perpetually vacant. It wasn’t ‘eliminated’ they say. It was just left vacant indefinitely and funding for it ceased with no plans to ever revive the position or its funding.
Totally not the same thing folks.
Today is back-to-school for PHM, and they do not have a DEI officer for the district.
On June 26, 2024, Real News Michiana published an article about Doug Chaffee. Doug Chaffee is the former Principal of Penn High School and is currently running for PHM school board. Doug Chaffee is also the father of current PHM school board member Matt Chaffee. RNM recently published an article about Matt Chaffee as well.
In the article about Doug Chaffee, RNM claimed that Doug Chaffee engaged in a “terrifying attack” against Matt Chaffee’s girlfriend at the time.
Doug Chaffee reached out to me asking if I’d be willing to publish his response. He expressed that he felt I was the only media outlet that would be fair to him and publish his response without taking sides.
Here‘s Doug Chaffee’s statement on the Real News Michiana article about him:
Clifton French of RNM has taken our conversation from September of 2023 out of context. He has not provided the full text messages between us, and he has completely twisted my words to him to create a “hit piece” on myself and my son. I am guessing Mr. French has not released the full audio recording he claims to have due to threats he made about killing his ex-wife and others on that same call. My son and I are no longer going to entertain these defamatory articles as our focus is serving the PHM community and its constituents. Thank you to everyone who supported and continues to support the Chaffee family in our endeavors to better our community.
– Doug Chaffee
I can not verify the claims made by Doug Chaffee, but I’m told his attorneys approved the release to me. I’m also told there’s more to come in future releases.
Exclusive: PHM Board Member, Matt Chaffee, Responds To Demands He Resign
Penn-Harris Madison school board member, Matt Chaffee, has responded to last night’s special session vote demanding he step down from the school board with an exclusive press release to me.
In an exclusive press release to me, Matt responds to the vote and hints at what’s to come regarding the allegations against him.
Last month, Real News Michiana published a story accusing Matt Chaffee of hypocrisy in demanding PHM board members resign in the wake of numerous violations by their members. The claim is that Matt was himself engaging in activity that warranted his resignation.
Most local media outlets showed up to last night’s vote to call for Chaffee’s resignation. The media was disinterested in previous press releases they received highlighting several examples of the board president, Chris Riley, and his actions, and the subsequent calls by Matt Chaffee for Chris Riley to resign as a result.
These previous issues included, but are not limited to:
The board losing an illegal SAC complaint with the state.
A parent winning a Civil Rights complaint against the board.
The harassing of parents critical of the board. Including police and employer harassment.
Board President Chris Riley committing several policy violations.
And refusal to punish PHM facultycaught violating policies.
None of those well-documented issues have caught the attention of local media. This angle, however, did.
The same goes for the teacher’s union representatives who circulated an email recruiting people to be at last night’s meeting. They were never interested in showing up to address proven issues with the PHM school board previously.
I wanted to point out that the media has been completely disinterested in corruption and abuse on the PHM board, but the moment a conservative member faced criticism, they showed up.
Here’s Matt Chaffee’s response to what happened last night and the allegations against him:
Penn-Harris-Madison has eliminated its controversial and ineffective DEI officer position.
It has been confirmed PHM school’s first ever diversity, equity and inclusion officer, Derrick White, will be moved to Pennway Alternative Day School, the Penn-Harris-Madison School Corporation‘s alternative high school.
Strengthen Our Schools-PHM District, an active parental group, has had the elimination of the DEI position as a top priority since it was created in 2020. Their efforts have proven successful.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) is a doctrine that promotes racial division and stokes animosity among racially diverse groups using false premises such as current American society being institutionally structured to benefit Whites at the expense of non-Whites.
Update:
Eliminating the DEI position appears to be a combination of fulfilling a need at Pennway and not filling the DEI officer position after it was vacated. Sorry if it looked like Strengthen Our Schools facilitated the end of the DEI position with a recent action. I was in the parking lot buying a chainsaw when I broke the news. Cut me some slack.
As of the evening of April 15, sources inside PHM confirm no plans to fill the DEI post.
Rumors about possibly merging it with another position are out there but my sources say that would be a deviation from the current plan with one jokingly positing if the rumors are true, it’s because I wrote about it.
Breaking: conservative radiohost directly responsible for appointment of new PHM DEI officer … is a traitor to the cause. News at 11. 😂
Update 2:
Some have taken issue with my using the word ‘eliminated’ since the PHM board hasn’t voted yet. That’s fair. Technically, the position hasn’t been ‘eliminated’ yet. PHM sources say there are no plans to replace Derrick White in that position, leaving it vacant, not eliminated. I regret the confusion.