Daniel F.

McAllister
302-327-1100
www.bmbde.com
dan@bmbde.com

April 25, 2019

VIA U.S. MAIL AND

ELECTRONIC MAIL

Paul Miller
Board Chair
Design Thinking Academy
179 Stanton Christiana Road
Newark, DE 19702
paulmiller155@comcast.net

Re: Stephanie Silverman

Dear Mr. Miller,

I represent Stephanie Silverman, former principal of Design Thinking Academy

(“DTA”). Please direct all communication about this matter to me.

Ms. Silverman resigned her position on April 4, 2019 after being subjected to a hostile
work environment following her exposure of several improprieties by DTA board members,
former board members, and staff. The hostility stemmed from, among other things, Ms.
Silverman’s discovery that former employee and board member Rebecca Collins had assisted in
the falsification of a federal grant application and Ms. Silverman’s objections to the fact that
board member Matt Urban (“Urban”) used his position to divert approximately $85,000 in DTA
business to his own company, Mobius New Media (now doing business as NuPoint).

After terminating four employees over the falsified grant application, in consultation with
board chair Paul Miller (“Miller”) and DTA’s legal counsel, the board used the terminations as a
basis to find fault with Ms. Silverman’s leadership and used allegations about staff culture and
morale to undermine Ms. Silverman.

DTA Executive Director Melissa Siwiec (“Siwiec”) approached and induced Ms.
Silverman to leave her former position at the Tatnall School based on assurances that a $10
million grant from XQ Institute (“XQ”), which funded 80 percent of Ms. Silverman’s salary, was
secure, despite DTC’s founders (who obtained the grant) having left the school under
unexplained circumstances.

In direct contradiction to these assurances, Ms. Silverman was notified by e-mail from
XQ on September 7, 2018 that in fact XQ had been expressing ongoing concerns about DTA’s

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Page 2

operations and ability to implement the programs underwritten by the grant. On September 24,
XQ sent $500,000 to DTA, or $1.5 million less than expected.

Exposure of mismanagement.

At the July 23, 2018 DTA board meeting, Ms. Silverman learned that Urban’s company
had contracted to do work for DTA—a glaring conflict of interest. She asked if there was any
way Mobius could involve students in the logo design process, but Urban replied it would be
“too cumbersome.” At the February 25, 2019 board meeting, Urban again offered that his
company could design postcards and take photographs. Ms. Silverman agreed on the condition
that the services be pro bono and that marketing material be designed by students. When Urban
insisted on payment for services rendered, Silverman insisted that the services remain pro-bono
as agreed in the February 25 board meeting. Urban threatened Silverman, reminding her “to
remember that you are an employee of the board not the other way around.” Ms. Silverman
alerted the Delaware Department of Education and the Delaware Charter Schools Office of
Urban’s self-dealing on March 4, 2019.

On December 5, 2018 Ms. Silverman learned that four DTA employees (Christina
Hembree, Chuck Jones, Damien Burke, and Ashley Bystricky), worked together with former
employee Rebecca Collins to submit a Federal Consolidated Grant on behalf of the school by
creating false login credentials. The time-stamped grant submission indicated that Siwiec and
Collins submitted the grant, but Siwiec’s credentials had been hacked. In the timestamped
application, Collins identified herself as the school’s Chief Financial Officer, a role she had
never held even when employed at the school. As a result, Ms. Silverman, in consultation with
DTA’s legal counsel James Taylor of Saul Ewing, Chief of Staff Sindy Rodriguez, and with
Board Chairman Miller and Board of Directors Crystal Griggs approval, terminated the four
employees for falsifying a federal grant application. In a voicemail on January 4, 2019, Board
Chairman Miller requested that Ms. Silverman call the Delaware Department of Labor to try and
reverse their decision to deny Ms. Hembree unemployment benefits. Ms. Silverman refused to
do so. In response, Miller stated in an e-mail on February 8, 2019 that Ms. Silverman was being
“mean spirited.”

On January 8, 2019, Ms. Silverman was informed by DTA Chief Financial Officer
Samaira Sirajee that Chuck Jones, one of the terminated employees, was assisting Siwiec in
creating accounts on DTA’s secure network. On January 11, 2019, over Miller’s objections, Ms.
Silverman alerted the Delaware Department of Education of this security breach. (As the Acting
Information Securities Officer, she was obligated to report any vulnerability of DTA’s network
software.)

Further, Silverman raised the issue with the Board that Assistant Principal Durrell
Harris’s criminal background check showed felonies and jail time. In response, board members
 April 25, 2019
Page 3

demoted him to Dean, but assured him that the contents of his criminal background check would
not effect his employment.

Finally, Ms. Silverman reported to the Delaware Department of Education that DTA’s
funding from XQ was in jeopardy because of long term mismanagement and failure to meet
metrics.

Retaliation.

In response to Ms. Silverman’s reporting Urban’s conflict of interest, DTA’s tech

security breaches, and the precariousness of the XQ funding to the Department of Education, and
in response to her refusal to alter the termination letters of the four employees who falsified the
grant application, the DTA board and Co-Head of School Siwiec became increasingly hostile.

Miller’s response to Ms. Silverman’s discovery of the security breach was to ask why she
had access to Siwiec’s e-mail. On January 14, 2019, Ms. Silverman met with DTA Board
Chairman Miller and DTA Board Vice Chairman John Pelesko (“Pelesko”), with the
understanding that they were going to provide her with guidance and support. Instead, Miller
and Pelesko threatened to change Ms. Silverman’s title and instructed her to immediately stop
having Siwiec’s e-mails forwarded to Samaira Sirajee and to make Siwiec the school’s official
ISO (Information Security Officer) with the Delaware Department of Technology & Information
(DTI). The two expressed concern about Silverman’s “pace of decision-making.” Miller blamed
Silverman’s termination of the four employees who had falsified the grant application for the
allegedly uncomfortable staffing environment at DTA.

On February 15, 2018, the Executive Committee of the Board, including Miller and
Urban, met with Ms. Silverman, ostensibly for the purpose of reviewing Ms. Silverman’s mid-
year self-evaluation and to conduct a mid-year performance review. Miller asked her if DTA
“needed a new principal.” Urban stated that he had grown tired of all of the “tit for tat” and
“evidence collecting.”

Board member Evan Quietsch later e-mailed Silverman that she was being “petty” and
“borderline-abusive” towards staff. In a follow-up e-mail, Quietsch suggested that Ms.
Silverman was not taking her job seriously.

Ms. Silverman experienced sudden and severe physical symptoms of work-related stress
on or about February 28, 2019, following an incident with Siwiec. Siwiec attempted to provide a
false reference for Jones, the fired IT director who had breached DTA’s tech security after being
terminated. The reference was for the Delaware Department of Health & Social Services. When
Ms. Silverman tried to stop Siwiec, she became aggressive and hostile. When Ms. Silverman
tried to stop her, Siwiec became aggressive and hostile. Ms. Silverman left work early that day
to seek treatment for her alarming physical symptoms from her primary care physician.
 April 25, 2019
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Because of the increasing hostility from the DTA board and Siwiec, and the growing
stress as a result, Ms. Silverman could no longer continue at DTA and resigned on April 4, 2019.

Damages.

As a result of her reliance on DTA’s assurances of financial stability, Ms. Silverman left
her position at Tatnall School and thereby lost the benefit of significantly reduced tuition for her
daughter. Had the Board and Ms. Sewiec been honest about the precariousness of the XQ grant,
Ms. Silverman would never have left her previous position.

Ms. Silverman’s daughter is a fourth-grade student, and Ms. Silverman had previously
been eligible to pay only 25 percent of full tuition at The Tatnall School as a result of her
position there. The cost of attending Tatnall from grades 4 through 12 is $246,700.00 (at 2019-
2020 rates). Thus, in addition to enduring a progressively hostile work environment, Ms.
Silverman incurred a loss of at least $185,025.00 in detrimental reliance on DTA fraudulently
inducing her to accept the position there as well as creating a hostile work environment.

As a further result of the hostile work environment that arose in retaliation for Ms.
Silverman’s exposure of financial improprieties, she has required medical treatment with her
primary care physician, as well as prescription anti-anxiety medication. She has also lost
significant future income from DTA itself and as yet unknown professional reputational damage
to an otherwise exemplary career as a professional educator as a result of having to resign her
position.

In addition, Ms. Silverman was forced to withdraw for medical reasons from her ongoing
work at Harvard Graduate School of Education due to the stress created by DTA’s retaliatory
hostile work environment. Her success in that program has been compromised and she may be
forced to withdraw and thus lose the opportunity to acquire a credential which significantly
impacts future earnings.

Finally, both the Delaware Whistleblowers’ Protection Act and Delaware’s

Discrimination in Employment Act provide for additional damages and costs, including attorney
fees, court costs, and punitive damages.

In light of DTA’s unlawful actions, the strength of Ms. Silverman’s claims, as clearly
evidenced by public record audio recordings of board member discussions, credible witnesses
attending meetings, and communications over State of Delaware email, and the substantial
damage she has endured and will continue to endure,, I have authority to resolve Ms.
Silverman’s claims under Delaware’s Whistleblower Protection Statute, state and federal anti-
discrimination statutes, and for fraudulent inducement, for $750,000.
 April 25, 2019
Page 5

Please contact me, or have your attorney contact me, at your earliest convenience. If I
have not heard from you within 15 days of receipt of this letter, I shall assume that DTA has no
interest in resolving these claims amicably. I have been authorized to proceed with a formal
complaint in that instance.

Thank you.

Very truly yours,

/s/ Daniel F. McAllister

Daniel F. McAllister

CC: Vice Chairman: John Pelesko pelesko@udel.edu

Joseph LoPorto: jmlconevtiv@yahoo.com
Evan Queitsch: evanqde@gmail.com
Crystal Griggs: crg300@comcast.net
Matt Urban: matturban302@gmail.com
Aileen Murray: aileen.murray@dta.kq12.de.us
Stephanie Silverman