Blue Valley School District Transfers Two Minority Students to Appease the Expulsion Demands of a Judge Parent

Top School District makes the two students, who are brothers, look like transfer students and transfers them back to their “homeschool”, which they have not attended a single day in their lives

Criminal False Communication by Blue Valley

On February 8, 2023, a bullying incident happened in our 8-year-old son’s 3rd grade class. A group of students stood on chairs and tables, chanted “A… is gay”, held signs saying “A… is gay”. The target of this bullying was A.W., the son of Joann Woltman, who is a judge in the Johnson County Courthouse, Kansas.
After this infamous bullying incident, a mob of parents led by Joann Woltman decided to take matters into their own hands.
This parent mob with racist motives scapegoated our 8-year-old son for the infamous bullying incident and pressured Blue Valley into expelling him.
February 9, 2023, was a snow day.
On February 10, 2023, out of the blue, our 8-year-old was accused of having a murder list and secluded, while his 10-year-old brother was accused of attempting to make bombs.
The two brothers and their mother, who was a teacher’s aide at the same school, were made to leave the school before the school day was over. None of them would ever be able to go back to the school, which effectively made their departure expulsions.

Murder List and Bomb Hoaxes at Wolf Springs Elementary

The police report dated February 10, 2023 (Overland Park Police Department, Case Number 2023002771) shows that the school principal found no threat on the day our 8-year-old was secluded and banned from the educational setting on February 10, 2023 (see “Publicly available version of the police report”).
The Overland Park School Resource Officer who investigated the murder list and bomb allegations found that the two brothers were completely innocent of the allegations against them.
According to the same police report, there was no murder list, our 8-year-old did not even know what a murder list was. The source of all the allegations was one female classmate’s oral report. In other words, the whole thing was because of a “Karen call.”
As for the bomb allegations, it turned out that the source of the allegations was our 10-year-old’s search history on his school Chromebook. Specifically, he allegedly typed the word “bomb” once on Wikipedia.
Yet, Blue Valley already had an understanding with Joann Woltman about our 8-year-old’s immediate and permanent removal from the school, i.e., about his de facto expulsion. As a result, Blue Valley unilaterally transferred both of our children to another school following a series of publicly humiliating announcements (see “Murder list announcements”).
When we opposed this scandalous disciplinary action, however, Blue Valley retaliated by:
- framing a case against me (“School board attorney frames the father”),
- reassigning my wife, who was a teacher’s aide in the Chinese Immersion program at the same school, as a special education teacher’s aide to another school’s intense resource classroom, which was meant for students with severe disabilities
Overall, Blue Valley misrepresented our children and me as safety threats and accused us of causing community wide disruption by threatening to shoot up the school, by making bombs to blow up the school, and by threatening Blue Valley officials and faculty on social media, respectively (see my “Facebook posts where I allegedly threatened Blue Valley officials and faculty“).
My children’s educational records unequivocally show that they have no history of behavior issues. Similarly, I am a College Professor with a PhD, and have no history of violence or aggression.
Yet, Blue Valley spread the lies about us and my children among its staff, and later unlawfully banned me from accessing the school property and staff.
Since then, we have witnessed Blue Valley using not only its own resources, but also many individuals and agencies outside its organization as proxies to drive our entire family out of the district and to prevent us from spreading the truth and from rocking the boat.
After Blue Valley announced that our children had been transferred to another school, Amy Farthing, a district executive, suggested in an email that we consider alternative schooling options, namely virtual learning and homeschooling (see “Kids are happiest at home” attached).
The emails I sent to Blue Valley personnel were blocked between April and August, 2023, without informing neither me nor the Blue Valley personnel I was trying to communicate with, including a district executive and several personnel in three different schools.
Blue Valley created a hostile environment for my children at school, especially for the younger one, and then reported him as truant three times in three academic years. Blue Valley weaponized the truancy procedures of DCF, the DA’s Office, and the Johnson County Court, as sticks that made alternative schooling options look like carrots.
Blue Valley’s Superintendent threatened to sue me for defamation if I did not stop talking about the murder list hoax (see “Superintendent’s empty threats” attached).
Blue Valley colluded with the following individuals from outside agencies to achieve its aim of covering up the murder list and bomb hoaxes:
- Kansas State Department of Education (KSDE), and especially the board member Michelle Dombrosky, who blocked my emails to the KSDE domain so that I would not be able to utilize KSDE’s grievance procedures and expose the corruption in Blue Valley. The student-rights lawyer Clifford Cohen who represented us after the murder list hoax but who did nothing except for pushing us to request a transfer. He abruptly and prematurely withdrew his representation after Blue Valley informed us of its decision to unilaterally transfer my wife and children. Still, the fact that we had a lawyer at the time served to make it look like, at least on paper, we were given due process. Guardian Ad Litem Dennis Stanchik and Judge Jennifer Ashford, who shifted the blame for my child’s truancy on him and on his family. They dismissed the truancy case against us once we unenrolled our younger son from Blue Valley. Psychotherapist Tish Taylor to rubberstamp its own psychoeducational evaluations that made our children out to be students with behavior issues, in striking contrast to their educational and medical history, as well as to everyone who have known the two children in some capacity.

Criminal Legal Malpractice by Student Rights Lawyer Clifford Cohen

After Blue Valley officials decided that D.U. was going to be a scapegoat, they used Clifford Cohen to legitimate the scandalous disciplinary action they took against our family. Specifically, just because we attended a meeting with Blue Valley officials and were represented by Clifford Cohen in that meeting, Blue Valley, by all outward appearances, gave us due process.
- In reality, however, Clifford Cohen represented the family for a few hours only. Blue Valley did not produce the findings of its investigation into the threat allegations, and did not allow us to tell our side of the story (see “You had your attorney”). The only evidence Blue Valley shared with us was our 8-yerar-old’s silly artwork (see “The artwork”), and we were shushed by both Blue Valley’s General Counsel and by Defendant Cohen when we began asking questions about Blue Valley’s investigation.
Clifford Cohen and Blue Valley had a mutually beneficial relationship: Blue Valley generated clients and hence income for him, and he in return legitimated the disciplinary actions Blue Valley took against his clients.
We filed a legal malpractice lawsuit against Clifford Cohen (see “Second Amended Petition”).
- Clifford Cohen did nothing to defend the family, but instead pushed us to stomach the outcome imposed on us by Blue Valley (see “Your decision” attached). I was not able to find any case related to Clifford Cohen in the Johnson County Courthouse, even though he seems to have roots in the county (considering his office was in Johnson County and his grandkids attend Blue Valley schools).
- Defendant Cohen’s attorneys refuse to produce his CV and his litigation history. Moreover, they refuse to produce information about how many of his clients were Blue Valley students/parents and how much of his income he generated as a student rights lawyer came from these students/parents.
We call for all of Clifford Cohen’s former clients to come forward with information about their own cases.

Abuse of Power by Judge Jennifer Ashford and Guardian Ad Litem Dennis Stanchik

Blue Valley wanted to drive our entire family out of the district and used truancy laws towards this aim.
Blue Valley allowed or facilitated the rumors about our children, which spread like wildfire at the school they were transferred to. As a result, both of our children, and especially the younger one, were treated by peers and teachers with prejudice. As a result, our younger child had serious school avoidance issues and stopped going to school in April, 2023.
Consequently, we asked the school principal Cade Chace to dispel the rumors about D.U. and to make the school safe for him. In response, the principal threatened to report truancy if we did not enroll him in virtual learning or in another school (see “1st truancy threat and push for virtual learning”).
Moreover, Cade Chace weaponized DCF against us by reporting our child’s school absences as an educational neglect case (see “Cade Chace’s report to DCF“).
Our younger child began attending another Blue Valley school in August, 2023. Throughout his time at school, he was treated differently by school staff, who received certain instructions to do so from the district.
As a result, he again began having school avoidance issues, and Blue Valley reported him as truant in late September or early October, 2023.
On October 5, 2023, Dennis Stanchik was assigned as his Guardian Ad Litem by the court.
Dennis Stanchik talked to us only once, on November 3, 2023. Our conversation was via Zoom and lasted half an hour, as he used a free version of Zoom.
Dennis Stanchik never talked to our child. He saw him only once, through Zoom, when our child briefly appeared during his first truancy hearing on November 9, 2023.
Dennis Stanchik has never been to our house. To the best of our knowledge, Dennis Stanchik never interviewed anyone who knew our child, either at school or outside the school. To the best of our knowledge, Dennis Stanchik never went to school to meet with or to observe our child.
Yet, Dennis Stanchik attributed our child’s school absences to the so-called mental health issues going on in the family. As a result, he demanded mental evaluations of both our child and us during a truancy hearing in early January, 2024 (see “GAL’s push for mental evaluations”).
Dennis Stanchik also requested us to sign release of information forms with the evaluators so that he could “brief” them or tip them off (by letting them know what is “wrong” with us) before they conduct the evaluations. He made it clear that he wanted to reach out to the evaluators prior to the evaluation, rather than after the evaluation.
When we challenged Dennis Stanchik’s rationale during a truancy hearing, Judge Ashford threatened to take our child away if we did not proceed with the mental evaluations. Judge Ashford explicitly ordered us in multiple hearings to do the mental evaluations for our child and for ourselves, as well as to sign the release of information papers for Dennis Stanchik so that he could access the evaluators.
When I subsequently went to the District Courthouse and made an inquiry with one of the clerks, however, I was told that there was no such court order. Moreover, we received the previous court orders by mail before December 2023, but received no court orders in writing afterwards. All the court orders from January, 2024 onwards were stated by the judge orally during the hearings, all of which took place via Zoom.
Neither Judge Ashford nor Dennis Stanchik elaborated on their allegations against us, i.e., why D.U. and his parents needed mental evaluations, despite the multiple inquiries we made orally during hearings as well as in writing (see “GAL fishes for mental problems”).
Overall, Dennis Stanchik’s intention was to make it look like we proceeded with the mental evaluations of their own will, not because they were forced to do so.
The truancy court also triggered an educational neglect investigation on us by reporting us to DCF, which subsequently ruled that the educational neglect allegation against us was not substantiated.
It is well-known that truancy threats, reports to Child Protection Services or Department for Children and Families, and demands for mental evaluations of the student and his/her family members are tools used by school districts to retaliate against families for defending their parent rights.
On January 29, 2024, our younger child got punched in the back by a strange student in the bathroom when he was walking towards the sink to wash his hands after urinating. When he turned around, he got kicked in his genital area very hard twice. He told about the incident to his friends in the classroom, who encouraged him to report the incident to the classroom teacher, which he did.
After school, however, the school principal sent the parents an email saying that our child was given an out of school suspension because he made derogatory remarks about a classmate (specifically, he said that she was mean) and violated her personal space.
Between January 31 and February 2, 2024, our child saw doctors to get the impact of the bathroom attack checked, which included an ultrasound check as recommended by his pediatrician.
Dennis Stanchik did not show any interest in this incident, nor in our child’s health or well-being. He only emailed us to demand the doctor’s notes in the hope of finding a day of unexcused absence that he can use against us in truancy court (see “GAL’s reaction to the bathroom incident”).
On February 21, 2024, I succumbed to the pressure we had been receiving from Dennis Stanchik and Judge Ashford, unenrolled our younger child from Blue Valley, and registered for homeschooling.
Since the very outcome that Blue Valley desired and engineered has been achieved, Judge Ashford dismissed the case against us on February 29, 2024.
On October 30, 2024, Blue Valley reported our younger child as truant for the third time, even though he was no longer enrolled in Blue Valley and we had informed various Blue Valley officials and representatives that our son was receiving education elsewhere (see “Third truancy report”).
We call for all of Dennis Stanchik’s clients who have had similar experiences with him in truancy court in the past to come forward with information.

Fraud by Psychotherapist Tish Taylor

We hired psychotherapist Tish Taylor to evaluate our children after they were traumatized by the murder list and bomb hoaxes.
Tish Taylor strangely consulted with Blue Valley’s board attorney Melissa Hillman to write her report on our younger child. Blue Valley did not allow Tish Taylor to talk to his teachers at school, and instead directed her to Melissa Hillman, who is a lawyer and not an educator, and who does not know our child one bit. However, Tish Taylor incorporated the information she received from Melissa Hillman into her evaluation report. In that sense, Melissa Hillman was a secret rater in our child’s evaluation.
There were similarly irregularities with our older child’s evaluation. E.g., Tish Taylor again was not allowed to talk to his teachers. She also (again) did not make an attempt to observe our child in a social or educational setting.
Similar to our younger child’s evaluation, the evaluation results were in striking contrast to his educational history, and our input was not at all reflected in the results. Further, Tish Taylor’s conclusions looked like a carbon copy of Blue Valley’s conclusions.
Moreover, Tish Taylor was visibly uncomfortable when I met with her to discuss my older child’s evaluation report. During that meeting, which was included the service we paid for, Tish Taylor made it clear that she did not want to deal with either of our children anymore.
As part of the due process complaint we filed with the Kansas State Department of Education against Blue Valley in May 2024, I served a subpoena on Tish Taylor to produce the data collection sheets that she used in her psychoeducational evaluations (see “Subpoena to Tish Taylor”). Tish Taylor’s attorney objected to this subpoena on August 22, 2024.
On August 30, 2024, Tish Taylor’s attorney filed a motion to quash our subpoena (see “Tish Taylor’s motion to quash” attached). Her motion unequivocally manifested input from Melissa Hillman. Therefore, I called this motion “motion to whitewash data manipulation.” (see “Parents’ motion to compel discovery”).
We call for all of Tish Taylor’s former clients with similar experiences (i.e., those who paid her to get a second opinion but found her to be nothing but a rubber stamp for Blue Valley) to come forward with information.

Collusion between Kansas State Department of Education and Blue Valley Against Parents

I reported Blue Valley’s mishandling of the murder list hoax to KSDE board members in April, 2023. He received no response, and later found out that KSDE had blocked my emails when I received a notice from my email provider stating so.
In early January 2024, we filed a formal complaint with KSDE. My emails initially did not go through. As a result, I used another email account to file our complaint.
The investigator assigned to the case, Diana Durkin, talked to me on the phone for around half an hour, and that was the only significant information exchange between the two of us.
Yet, Diana Durkin had had a phone conversation with the Special Education Director of Blue Valley, Mark Schmidt, beforehand, and then she had a Zoom meeting with both Mark Schmidt and Melissa Hillman after her conversation with me.
In our phone conversation, Diana Durkin did not ask me for more evidence. She also did not do a field investigation to gather evidence, although I had requested that in his complaint, as virtually all the evidence and witnesses are exclusively controlled by Blue Valley and parents in general are unable to access them.
During the same phone conversation, Diana Durkin steered the conversation away from the issues stated in the complaint, such as the violation of the parent right to participate in their child’s evaluation and the objectiveness and transparency of the evaluation, and towards irrelevant topics such as the utility of the assessment tools used in the evaluation (see “Diana Durkin’s report“).
In early May 2024, I filed a due process complaint with KSDE, which initially did not go through. As a result, I had to use an alternate email account to file his complaint.
During the proceedings, the Hearing Officer assigned by the KSDE sided with Blue Valley, which refused to produce its internal email communications regarding our children, on the grounds that it cost too much to search for and review those emails.
On the other hand, Blue Valley voluntarily produced all the email exchanges between Blue Valley and us, which amounted to nearly 1,500 documents. In other words, Blue Valley has all the time and money it needs to search for and review our emails, but not its internal emails.
On September 4, 2024, the due process Hearing Officer held a status conference, in which she severely restricted our discovery request regarding Blue Valley’s internal emails about our children. Specifically, the Hearing Officer ordered us to provide fewer and fewer and more specific search terms, shorten the timeframe, and further narrow down the Blue Valley employees whose emails would be subject to search.
On the same status conference, Blue Valley’s legal team presented me with a fait accompli, stating that they would outsource the already severely restricted email search to a vendor and file a motion to shift the search cost to us. The proposal shocked me, but the Hearing Officer seemed to have been pre-informed about it (see “Blue Valley’s motion to shift email search costs”).
I objected to the proposal, stating that we were entitled to all the internal emails if we were going to pay for the search. I also expressed my willingness to be involved in the vendor selection process, but the Hearing Officer dismissed me by virtually vouching in advance for the vendor that Blue Valley would potentially choose.
On September 20, 2024, the due process Hearing Officer ruled in favor of Tish Taylor’s motion to quash, based on the strangest excuse that our motion did not state the relevance of the information requested from Tish Taylor to the due process proceeding (see “Order quashing the subpoena to Tish Taylor”). As a result, we were barred from accessing the data that formed the basis of the evaluation reports we paid Tish Taylor to write about our children.
KSDE assigned a subsequent and substantively different due process complaint we filed on September 1, 2024, to the Hearing Officer presiding over our first complaint. That way, the KSDE engineered the consolidation of our new due process complaint with our old complaint, thereby effectively barring us from filing new due process complaints, which is a violation our parent rights pursuant to K.A.R. 72-3415 (f) (1) and (2):
“Nothing in this section shall be construed to preclude a parent or an agency from filing a separate due process complaint on an issue different from issues presented in a due process complaint already filed…Upon motion of either party and if deemed appropriate by the due process hearing officer presiding in the initial hearing, the issues raised in the separate complaints may be considered and resolved in the same due process hearing.”
By then, D.U.’s parents had figured out that parent complaints with KSDE were meant for whitewashing Blue Valley’s wrongdoings, so that parents’ cases could be irrevocably prejudiced and did not make it to the next level, i.e., the Federal Court.
Parents call for everyone who has filed a complaint with KSDE against Blue Valley to come forward with information and to join them in a class action lawsuit against both KSDE and Blue Valley.