Chapter 9 - JUNE ELLIS
June Ellis did not look like someone who thought children should be used as paperwork.
That mattered because almost nobody looked like the worst thing they had done.
She was forty-nine.
Former school social worker.
Twenty-three years in public education.
Kept granola bars in her office.
Personally called shelters when district paperwork stalled.
She also created the host-ID workaround.
She admitted it.
The state interview began:
“Why?”
June answered:
“Because children were missing school.”
Not enough.
She explained.
Emergency transportation was reimbursed through several sources.
Homeless-student funds.
Foster-care cost sharing.
Local family-stabilization money.
Eligibility could take days.
Vans could not.
NorthStar would transport first sometimes, but invoices then sat unpaid.
After enough unpaid rides, Dana Voss threatened to stop accepting verbal emergency requests.
June was terrified children would lose transportation while adults argued over eligibility codes.
So she created hosts.
A valid student ID to move the route through the system.
Then correct it later.
She told herself it was bridge accounting.
It was false student record creation.
She knew that.
Why not create generic temporary IDs?
IT said the system could not attach state reimbursement to non-enrolled placeholders.
June asked for a software change.
Estimated implementation:
Nine months.
She did not wait.
She asked Reed.
Then three other principals.
Westbridge was not the only school.
That widened the investigation.
At least fourteen host IDs districtwide.
The three in Helen’s class were merely the ones Laura recognized.
June corrected most rides.
Not all.
She kept a private spreadsheet because the system had no proper workflow.
Then workload increased.
One coordinator left.
Corrections fell behind.
Logan Price began sending her lists:
We can reconcile these for you.
June let NorthStar prepare adjustment packets.
That was when control shifted.
“Did you give Logan your login?”
“No.”
“Shared files?”
“Yes.”
“Password?”
“No.”
“Security token?”
June looked uncomfortable.
Once.
At a district transportation workshop, her phone battery died.
Logan needed to demonstrate an invoice correction.
June approved a login from her phone after it restarted.
Could he have stolen a session?
Technical people would decide.
Then the court-order template.
June’s face changed when investigators showed it.
“I never authorized that.”
“Recognize it?”
“Yes.”
“From?”
“The Ava Keller review.”
She had seen the false order after the incident.
District counsel circulated it to a restricted safety group as an example of what staff should reject.
June downloaded the PDF.
Why?
Training.
Then later used part of the document format to show IT which fields required verification.
The file remained on the Student Services shared drive.
Logan had vendor access to one subfolder during integration testing.
Could he have obtained it there?
Possible.
Then the current three pickups.
June denied creating them.
Her account authenticated one.
HREED-ADMIN approved.
NorthStar received.
She was at St. Anne’s Hospital with her husband at 2:13 a.m.
He had emergency gallbladder surgery.
Hospital records confirmed.
Her laptop remained at home.
Her phone with her.
No district work.
Could still remote.
No evidence.
Then June produced something investigators had not requested.
An email she sent Dana Voss four months earlier.
HOST IDS END NOW. Logan has asked questions that make me uncomfortable. I want every unresolved route frozen until district audit.
Dana answered:
Understood. Finance says nothing material outstanding.
Dana had trusted Logan too.
June then made her own serious choice.
She did not report the historic host-ID falsification to the superintendent.
Why?
Because stopping future use felt easier than explaining the past.
She feared:
State reimbursement clawback.
Public scandal.
Losing emergency transportation.
Her job.
All of it.
So she buried the old program while trying to end it.
That concealment allowed Logan to keep working inside the records nobody wanted audited.
Understanding June did not clear her.
She had falsified records knowingly.
Shared inappropriate data.
Failed to disclose.
But the evidence did not show she ordered today’s pickup.
Then June looked at Laura through the interview glass.
“I should’ve listened when she emailed.”
Laura had contacted her three weeks earlier.
June answered:
Likely legacy host artifact. I’ll reconcile.
She never told Laura what host meant.
Another chance.
Then Officer Ortiz asked:
“Why is Principal Reed’s electronic signature on today’s forms?”
June looked at the digital block.
“That isn’t the version we used.”
“What do you mean?”
Reed’s current electronic signature ended with a certification code:
HR-24
The current fake forms used:
HR-19
An older signature block.
Where had HR-19 come from?
June stared.
“NorthStar.”
Years earlier Reed had signed annual vendor confirmations.
NorthStar would have copies.
The current forms had not been signed through the school system.
Someone had pasted an old signature into them.
May you like
Reed had lied enough.
This signature, apparently, was not one of his current lies.
