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
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:
This is not the first gun and I believe it’s just a matter of time before there are deaths.
Posts on Facebook indicated when police did arrive, there were numerous officers on the scene.
I reached out to the South Bend Police Department about the fight at Navarre. Here’s their statement:
I can confirm our officers responded to reports of a fight at Navarre Middle School yesterday just after 4 pm. However, while a sizable crowd had formed, our officers only observed two juveniles actively fighting while we were on the scene.
No gun was recovered.
As with most cases happening on school property, any additional information will need to come from South Bend Schools.
I requested comment from Navarre directly but the school is closed today for Good Friday. I’ll update the story when/if I get a response.
As of right now, Navarre has not posted about the incident publicly.
This isn‘t the first time I’ve discussed Navarre Middle School.
In June of 2021, Real News Michiana revealed that Jasmine Brown, an 8th grade Social Studies teacher at Navarre was teaching CRT and advocating for Black Lives Matter in her classroom. Jasmine Brown was also Navarre’s Teacher of the Year for 2020-2021. Some of her lessons included how the prison system is designed to over incarcerate minorities and is a modern form of slavery.
As Real News Michiana’s investigations into Navarre continued, we learned that a local police hating BLM activist was promoted to Dean of School Culture at Navarre. Regina Williams-Preston called for police to be removed from schools at a press conference in May 2021.
“This is a public call to school board members, district administrators to do your job, uphold the law and remove police from schools now.”
She has also been tied to Eli Cantu, a local gang member.
Valeria Chamorro taught social studies at Navarre and was promoted to an Assistant Principal position. She repeatedly posted “All Cops Are Bastards” online.
Navarre Middle School is a part of the South Bend Empowerment Zone. Schools in the SBEZ are failing schools in the South Bend Community School Corporation. The SBEZ was created as a way to prevent a state takeover of the schools and to help prevent failing schools from further dragging down SBSC’s proficiency ratings.
Another SBEZ school had a viral moment when a South Bend Police officer was thrown out of Coquillard Elementary School during a standard community walkthrough by the CEO of the South Bend Empowerment Zone.
Dr. Cheryl Camacho expressed her discomfort with the officer’s presence in the school even though he’d been stopping by the school for years, as is commonplace for officers. After the officer asked if she was uncomfortable with him coming by the school, she said:
“Okay, yeah. And it’s not that, I wouldn’t say blanket uncomfortable. We’re just breaking from a lot of past practices to the prior years.”
Dr. Camacho is also in charge of Navarre Middle School.
From the top-down, SBEZ schools like Navarre Middle School are not focused on student education and safety. Rather than focusing on classical education, they are propagandizing students with CRT, 1619 Project lies, and BLM radicalism. Meanwhile, Navarre continues to fail students.
Navarre students are also well below the state average for student growth towards proficiency. In other words, the school is failing to bring students up to speed so they can become proficient.
Beyond the violence discussed at the top of this article, disciplinary issues are also a major problem at Navarre.
At $11,258 per pupil, Navarre Middle School is better funded than the Indiana state average ($10,262).
Their student-to-teacher ratio is equal to, or better than, the state average of 17:1. I’ve found some that calculate their ratio as being closer to 14:1. They are rated as the second-best in South Bend for student/teacher ratio.
Schools with similar demographics in Indiana outperform Navarre by wide margins according to the Indiana Department of Education.
This is a school filled with social justice activists in an Empowerment Zone run by social just activists and they are absolutely failing minority students.
Perhaps Navarre faculty needs to start focusing on education and discipline and less on activism.
There is no better example than Navarre Middle School to support parental school choice.
