I think people are missing the point. Besides just investing in a bad land deal himself, for which he should have done more due diligence to see how the markets were changing in that area, Dan Meier willingly spoke publicly at forums on behalf of TRM and the land deals. Yes, warnings were included and yes, people had a right to not pursue the risky investment, which land almost always is (I write this as a commercial real estate investor myself). But the point is that the former student contacted Meier and got him to speak BECAUSE OF HIS POSITION AS A PUBLIC FIGURE AT A VERY LARGE SUBURBAN SCHOOL. He used the credibility that he had garnered in that publicly-funded job to gain the trust of potential investors. He was not just any individual — he is a public figure, and is there because he is an employee. As such, I think the school board failed in its responsibility to at least look into the situation (if they didn’t do so) and at the very least, express its disapproval that an FCPS employee, especially one of the most prominent employees of a 4,500 student school (or thereabouts; I’m a Robinson alum as well, from the first graduating classes). Meier has been placed in a position of trust, and he is a public figure by any definition. Thus, in my view, he violated that trust and he should have apologized to the board, the Superintendent, and most importantly, the community and Robinson parents and students. This was, in effect, outside employment, and if there is no current ban on senior staff having outside employment, there should be, and that ban should include things like as within that scope. That is a standard practice within private and public sector (Federal) levels, and it is there for a reason.

Another reason that he should be disciplined is that hemanaged to bring notice of the “deal” to a number of current Robinson staff, all of whom report to him. That is very inappropriate for him to have done and at the very least, it shows poor judgment on his part. He clearly did damage to his working relationship with a number of staff who, having bought land or had colleagues do so and then lost it, they then saw Meier’s role in the “scheme” and how that influenced their participation (it brought them in because they trusted him, or they figured he wouldn’t make the investment himself unless it was “a sure thing,”, etc. Thus, their working environment and relationship has been damaged, and in some cases, irreperably. Clearly that should draw the Board’s attention.

Let me address something specifically that Meier’s supporters repeatedly point to in his defense. What happened in court, where the judge threw the case out (and rightly so) because the specifics of the allegation were wrong, does not make him innocent. It simply means the actual areas of guilt about which I write were not appropriately brought in a court of law. His actions should have been dealt with in another venue entirely, as I assert here.

When one holds events and speaks openly in an effort to bring in investors, one’s efforts might fall under the oversight of the Federal regulators, including the Securities and Exchange Commission. I’d have to know more about the specific deal, such as whether they were raising funds to pool together to buy property, or whether each individual was being asked to buy their own lot(s). That would make a difference there. But you see how quickly doing things like this can get you in trouble? From reading Dan Meier’s son’s description of his father’s actions, it seems clear that Dan was going into this investment without much of a background. (He also claimed that others asked him about the land deals, but how would they have known enough to ask if Meier had not told them at least that he made money doing some investment; it didn’t fall from the sky. Thus, that strikes one as too clever by half. You either told them about it, or they discerned it magically themselves, and the latter defies belief.) Given that lack of experience and knowledge, why would anyone trust him other than that he had gained their trust through his current position as a public-funded employee? That holds him to a higher level, or at least it should. Finally, with regard to SEC rules, the government has rules that limit the types of people who can be brought into these kinds of investments. There’s a reason for allowing only “qualified investors” to participate in this investments. Qualified investors are people who have significant annual income (several hundred thousand dollars, at a minimum), and/or current assets in the millions. In other words, “qualified investors” can handle a loss like these investors experienced. I bet Dan Meier didn’t know that, but he should have and that he even had an obligation to know that. Even if they were buying the lots separately from TRM and were not pooled together, TRM and Meier (representing TRM and speaking on their behalf) should have only shared the investment with actual “qualified investors” according to the legal definition. At least that would not have caused such a destructive uproar among faculty and staff who lost their own money in the land deals.

As a Robinson alum from its first days, and a former Robinson parent, I think the school has been damaged by allowing Meier and life to go on as if nothing wrong was done. His actions were inappropriate, given the role of trust he holds as the principal of this large school. He got that because of his job; he didn’t have that simply because of who he is. in the same way that we don’t want public figures such as Congressmen and Cabinet Secretaries and county sheriffs and the like gaining personally because of the public job they hold, we should not allow Meier to put himself in that position either. We have forced persons like that to retire from their jobs just because they wrote a book that earned them a lot of money, which they only got because of the public role they held. (Think of former Speakers Jim Wright and Newt Gingrich, both ousted.) That’s much less of a violation than what Meier did. I’m not inclined to think that allowing him to continue in that significant role is enough, given the depth and breadth of his actions. He earned commissions every time he got someone to make the investment into vacant land. He spoke about the investment opportunity to other staff during school hours and on school grounds. He gained personally, and that he lost money, too, along the way is irrelevant to this situation. He should have kept his investment ideas to himself, and just focused on educating our children, which is a much more important investment we had already entrusted to him, a trust that he has broken.

Robinson alum and former parent