New HR director has troubled past

The Shawano School District’s new human resources director left his previous job after allegations of misconduct at a staff party prompted a school board to break ties.

Todd Kleinhans, who started his $80,000-a-year job in Shawano this week, was accused of sexual assault and harassment stemming from a 2014 holiday party with colleagues in the Lakeland Union High School District, where he was superintendent.

Members of the teachers union subsequently issued a vote of no-confidence in Kleinhans, who had been superintendent for six years in the Minocqua-based high school district.

Although a police investigation resulted in no criminal charges from the holiday party, the Lakeland School Board voted not to renew Kleinhans’ contract, and he resigned a short time later.

Members of the Shawano School Board apparently were unaware of details of Kleinhans’ troubled past when they voted Dec. 19 to choose him from among 15 applicants for human resources director, a newly created position to oversee employee relations in the school district.

Shawano School District Superintendent Gary Cumberland said that he recommended Kleinhans for the job but knew nothing about a police investigation, a no-confidence vote by employees, or a school board action severing ties with Kleinhans.

Cumberland said he was aware only that an unfortunate situation had occurred at a party and that Kleinhans had taken responsibility for inappropriately grabbing and shouting at an employee to the effect of, “Knock it off, or I’ll kill you.” Cumberland said he shared that incident with school board members, who sought no additional information before hiring Kleinhans.

“They apparently didn’t feel a need to go any further,” he said.

Shawano School Board Vice President Michael Sleeper said the board acted on Cumberland’s recommendation to hire Kleinhans based on Cumberland’s account of the job candidate’s background. Sleeper would not comment on whether the board should have dug deeper into Kleinhans’ past, saying he did not know those details.

“I need to have more information,” Sleeper said.

School Board President Tyler Schmidt could not be reached for comment.

Kleinhans said he did not disclose the police investigation or other details about his previous job to Shawano school officials, because he did not think much of the information was relevant to his job application here.

Kleinhans, 53, said that although he agrees his conduct at the Lakeland staff holiday party was inappropriate, he said many of the resulting allegations proved to be false.

“Why would I offer up that information?” he said. “I didn’t feel there was any need for me to offer that up.”

Good record before party

Kleinhans, who was making $135,000 a year as Lakeland’s superintendent, resigned from that position shortly after the school board voted in May 2015 not to renew his contract when it expired the following year.

Lakeland School Board President Tom Gabert said Kleinhans had a good track record in the district before the holiday party, but the district paid out the final year of his contract and parted ways with him because of what Gabert described as lingering fallout from the superintendent’s misbehavior at the party six months earlier.

“This was getting to be more and more of a distraction,” Gabert said. “It was going to be more and more difficult for us to continue moving forward.”

Minocqua police reports indicate that while investigators determined the sexual assault allegations were unfounded and there was insufficient evidence to support other charges, police warned Kleinhans that criminal enforcement could occur “if we would respond to future incidents involving this type of behavior.”

Party gets out of hand

The situation began at a Minocqua tavern called The Thirsty Whale, where Kleinhans had gathered on the night of Dec. 12, 2014, for a holiday party with fellow employees at Lakeland, a district that serves about 700 high school students and has about 100 employees.

An off-duty police officer who worked as a school resource officer attended the party and later reported that Kleinhans got intoxicated and became abusive and threatening toward the police officer and other party-goers. After Officer Jesse Klingforth made a report to his superiors at the Lac Du Flambeau tribal police department, the Minocqua Police Department opened an investigation of what happened at the Thirsty Whale.

Police reports indicate that the situation was investigated as a possible case of disorderly conduct by Kleinhans.

Witnesses told police that as other party-goers tried to take away Kleinhans’ car keys to prevent him from driving drunk, the superintendent shouted profanity, shoved and kicked at people, accused someone of trying to touch him sexually, and grabbed another employee by the shirt and threatened to kill him. The investigation also turned up hearsay reports that female employees had complained that Kleinhans touched them inappropriately during the party.

After Kleinhans agreed to accept a ride home around midnight, the Thirsty Whale bartender followed outside and told Kleinhans that any such misbehavior in the future could get the superintendent barred from the establishment, police reports state.

The Lac Du Flambeau police chief later wrote a letter to Gabert informing the school board president that Kleinhans’ alleged harassment of Klingforth had continued at the school, and that the police department was considering no longer providing a resource officer for the school district. Also citing reports of sexual assault and sexual harassment that had emerged from the party, Chief Robert Brandenburg wrote he was concerned that “public perception could link our officer with the inappropriate actions of personnel who is in the leadership role of the school.”

When investigators approached Kleinhans, he initially declined to comment until after talking with a lawyer. He then told police that he denied most of the allegations from the holiday party, and he regarded grabbing one employee by the shirt and threatening to kill him as playful interaction. He also denied being intoxicated at the party.

“In his mind, it was a very good party,” police reports state.

Fallout from the party

After police closed their investigation without filing any charges, Lakeland school board members determined that the superintendent had conducted himself inappropriately with one employee who felt harassed. Gabert said the board directed Kleinhans to undergo remedial training on employee relations, which he completed successfully.

Questions continued to linger, however, about whether Kleinhans could continue serving effectively as superintendent, Gabert said.

A local newspaper, The Lakeland Times, continued to report about fallout from the holiday party. In the midst of the turmoil, members of the Lakeland school district teachers union announced a vote of no-confidence in the superintendent.

Union leaders declined to comment on the no-confidence vote, but Gabert and others believe the action was based on school district budgetary issues rather than the superintendent’s alleged conduct at the holiday party.

Kleinhans said he had navigated many difficult issues in the Lakeland district, starting with a controversy over the hiring of a new basketball coach. Kleinhans said the local newspaper continued a “pounding of my name,” and he said he was considering making a career move long before the 2014 party and subsequent police investigation.

Although he believes other issues contributed to the school board’s vote not to renew his contract, Kleinhans said he acknowledges he was wrong at the party to grab an employee by the shirt collar and jokingly threaten to kill him because the employee was trying to take away his car keys.

“It happened. It’s unfortunate,” he said. “It’s not representative of who I am.”

A longtime colleague who succeeded Kleinhans as Lakeland’s superintendent, James Bouche, said he left the holiday party early, but he disclosed the incident to Cumberland when the Shawano superintendent called for a job reference on Kleinhans. Bouche said Cumberland “asked very good questions” during their conversation.

Bouche called the Thirsty Whale incident irrelevant to the Shawano job and said he would overlook the incident and hire Kleinhans himself if asked.

“One bad evening — whatever happened that night — I think was a little blown out of proportion,” Bouche said.

Before becoming Lakeland superintendent in 2008, Kleinhans worked six years as the school’s principal, and previously had worked as a principal in Mondovi, associate principal in Sheboygan and physical education teacher in Kewaunee. He has a Ph.D. in educational leadership.

Shawano School Board members created the human resources director position last fall after a management consultant found that many of the district’s non-teaching administrative staff employees felt underpaid and were confused about job assignments. The consultant recommended hiring a human resources director and working to cultivate an improved sense of teamwork.

From the original 15 applicants for the job, Cumberland said officials interviewed seven candidates before making a selection. The other applicants have not been identified.

Cumberland said he tried to find old Lakeland Times articles online, but could not access them. He said none of the people he spoke with at the Lakeland district told him that Kleinhans had left following a school board vote to end his contract. Such board action is not uncommon with school district employees, Cumberland said.

“It may mean that they did something inappropriate,” he said. “I guess I’d want to know the circumstances.”