Principal’s troubles draw mixed reactions

A member of the Bonduel School Board said Friday board members knew nothing about Brad Grayvold’s troubled past when they hired him as the new elementary school principal.

“We should’ve known all that information,” board member Greg Borowski said. “It wasn’t brought up.”

Grayvold was hired June 12 as principal of Bonduel Elementary School, a position that pays $82,500 a year to oversee about 300 students.

The Shawano Leader reported June 29 that Grayvold was convicted of domestic violence in Michigan in 2010 after an altercation on school property with a woman who accused him of having alcohol on his breath. At the time of his arrest, Grayvold told police he was an alcoholic.

Records of the case show that Grayvold was found guilty of misdemeanor domestic violence and served a year on probation. After the probation, the case was expunged from his record.

The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction announced Thursday it was investigating whether Grayvold falsified information on his state license application to conceal the domestic violence case. His application shows he answered “no” on whether he had ever been charged or convicted of a crime, including one later expunged from his record.

Grayvold said Thursday he believed he was truthful on the license application because he believed the domestic violence case constituted neither an investigation nor a conviction.

If state investigators determine that he falsified his application, he could lose his license to serve as a school administrator in Wisconsin, with Bonduel students returning from summer vacation Sept. 5.

Bonduel School Board members expressed varied opinions on the matter Friday, and some declined to comment.

Board member Dennis Bergsbaken said he was not concerned about the investigation into whether Grayvold was truthful on his application for a license to work in Wisconsin schools.

“It’s none of my business,” Bergsbaken said.

Bergsbaken declined to say whether school board members were aware of the domestic violence case or reported alcohol abuse when they voted to hire Grayvold. Bergsbaken called it “terrible” that The Shawano Leader was asking questions and reporting about the situation.

“Just leave the guy alone,” he said. “Why dig up the past?”

Board members Judy Rank and Kara Skarlupka declined to comment. Board President Jay Krull and others could not be reached for comment.

Grayvold, 50, a longtime school teacher and principal in Norway, Michigan, was hired from a pool of 42 applicants for the job at Bonduel Elementary School. He began work effective July 1.

District Administrator Patrick Rau in June said he was aware that Grayvold had a troubled past. Although Rau would not elaborate, he said he had shared everything he knew with school board members before they voted to hire Grayvold.

On Friday, Rau issued a statement declining to comment on the state license investigation of Grayvold. Rau also said state law does not allow employers to consider a job applicant’s past criminal charges unless those charges result in a conviction.

“Contrary to Shawano Leader’s statements, there is no record of any past convictions of Mr. Grayvold,” Rau said.

Records released by the Michigan Department of Education include a statement signed by Grayvold in August 2010 indicating that he was working in a public school “having entered a plea of guilty or no contest or having been found guilty by a judge or jury of a crime.” The records also include a signed statement from Grayvold’s then-school superintendent reporting that Grayvold “did enter a plea of guilty to the charge of domestic violence.”

The same woman in the domestic violence case filed a request in 2011 for a protective order against Grayvold, telling a judge that Grayvold had been “convicted of domestic violence” and that he was in the hospital that day with a .31 blood-alcohol level. A judge denied the woman’s request for a protective order.

Upon request, the Leader provided copies of all such records to Bonduel School District officials after the newspaper’s June 29 report was published.

Rau said the district had done its own background check on Grayvold and found nothing that would disqualify him from consideration for the principal job.

Borowski said board members were not told anything about the Michigan domestic violence case or any other problems from Grayvold’s past.

“We didn’t know that,” he said. “That probably would’ve made my decision.”

The board vote to hire Grayvold was unanimous except for Borowski, who abstained on the vote because his wife works at the elementary school.

Borowski said that while Grayvold would not have been his first choice for the principal’s job, he still supports the new principal. Borowski voiced uncertainty about how parents and others in the community would respond to the domestic violence case or to the state investigation.

“Public perception,” he said, “is what we’re up against.”