Political connectivity: How TJ Donovan steered 250 Chromebooks to Molly Gray’s home school district

On May 5, the Vermont Attorney General’s Office announced it had “secured from Comcast a donation of 250 Chromebooks” to the Orange East Supervisory Union, a rural region of eastern Vermont. Most of the computers went to a K-12 school in Wells River, where more than 50% of students are from low-income families. 

“I want to thank Comcast for making this investment in our future,” Attorney General TJ Donovan was quoted as saying of the $65,000 gift from the billion-dollar telecommunications corporation, which is involved in ongoing litigation against Vermont blocking the state’s progressive net neutrality law. 

Donovan did not mention, in the press release, the donation was inspired by a conversation with Molly Gray, an assistant attorney general on leave to run for lieutenant governor, who happens to be from Newbury, in the Orange East school district.

The attorney general also didn’t explain in that May announcement why Orange East was the only school district in Vermont that would receive Chromebooks from his office, or why he sought out the gift from Comcast in the first place. The answer to those questions, obtained in interviews and public records requests over the past month, are laid out in this article. 

Although Gray didn’t merit a mention in the May 5 press release, Donovan did thank her in a tweet that same morning. “Today I am proud to play a part in getting laptops to #Vermont kids who need them. I want to thank @mollyforvermont for raising the issue and @comcast for the generous donation,” Donovan tweeted. 

“Teachers, principles and superintendents deserve our every support,” Gray wrote, retweeting Donavan’s message. “Thanks @TJforVermont for making this happen.”

1 in 3 kids in my hometown of Newbury don’t have access to broadband. We need equal access to broadband and devices if we are going to close the #VT education gap. Teachers, principles and superintendents deserve our every support. Thanks @TJforVermont for making this happen. https://t.co/2OcVx5qfFb

— Molly Gray (@mollyforvermont) May 5, 2020

Gray’s campaign manager, Samantha Sheehan, followed up on the news with a VTDigger reporter later that day. “Will you be covering this story?” Sheehan asked in an email. “Molly raised this issue with TJ Donovan and she is pleased the chromebooks are going to her home district, where in her hometown of Newbury 30% of students are without internet.”

VTDigger posted a brief update on the donation at the time: Comcast donates 250 Chromebooks to Orange-East Supervisory Union. Subsequent reporting shows how a private conversation between the attorney general and an assistant AG, amid a campaign, led to a state-sponsored — and widely publicized — donation from a private company, exclusively to that assistant AG’s home district. 

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Gray, in an interview last month, said she raised the connectivity divide in a conversation with Donovan in early April, before business hours, making the case that universal broadband was a pressing matter of equity and public safety, with so many people now turning to the internet for basic services like school and health care. (Donovan’s chief of staff, Charity Clark, confirmed the basics of the conversation.) 

Gray said she never suggested a donation of any kind, and didn’t know about the attorney general’s plans for the Chromebooks until Donovan called her on the morning of the public announcement of the gift to Orange East. 

The Attorney General’s Office and the Agency of Education, which coordinated the donation together, gave different accounts of how the computers ended up with Orange East, but both denied any intentional effort to send the Chromebooks to Gray’s home district. 

Orange East only appeared in one email between the AG’s office and AOE before the announcement, as part of a list of a dozen districts with an immediate need for the Chromebooks. Education Secretary Dan French and Deputy Attorney General Josh Diamond also discussed the donation in at least one phone call.

French declined to be interviewed for this article, but Ted Fisher, the agency’s spokesperson, said he selected Orange East based on its technology needs, and his “significant experience with implementing instructional technology initiatives” from his time as a superintendent of the Bennington-Rutland Supervisory Union.

Comcast wouldn’t disclose the details of the donation, but a new version of the “ruggedized and spill resistant” ASUS Chromebook model provided to Orange East — according to an email from a school official, who noted “Warranties are normally three years” — was selling for $258.99 on Amazon as of early June, making the gift worth about $65,000 (not including the time of some of the state’s top education officials and lawyers in arranging the logistics). 

The company, through a trade association, is currently suing Vermont over a net neutrality law that requires companies contracting with the state to abide by Obama-era regulations, since rolled back by the Trump administration. The AG’s office is representing the state in that lawsuit. 

Clark did not respond to questions about the optics of soliciting a donation from Comcast, noting the company “is not a named party to the net neutrality lawsuit” that has left Vermont’s law in limbo. However, the New England Cable and Telecommunications Association, a trade group that represents Comcast in Vermont, is among the named plaintiffs. And the chairman of NECTA’s board, John Sutich, a Comcast executive, appears to have been Donovan’s contact person for the Chromebook donation. 

NECTA also donated $1,000 to Donovan’s 2018 campaign. The trade group released its own statement on May 5 congratulating the AG and Comcast for helping “students stay connected and stay on top of their studies.”

Matthew Dickinson, a professor of political science at Middlebury College, said while there was nothing apparently illegal about how the attorney general facilitated the donation, “you can do a good deed, which is apparently a good deed, and also understand who scratches whose back — they’re not mutually exclusive.

“I hesitate to sort of say ‘good politics,’ ‘par for the course,’” Dickinson added, “but based on your description, that kind of seems like what it is, a smart politician and a private company, understanding which side their bread is buttered on, and aligning their interests together to do something that also happens to be a beneficial outcome to the public, or at least a portion of the public.” 

Comcast, the largest internet provider in the state, isn’t scared to throw its weight around in Vermont’s Legislature, particularly when lawmakers move to regulate internet providers — an industry largely the domain of federal authorities — in almost any way. 

Rep. Laura Sibilia, I-Dover, a member of the House Energy and Technology Committee and vice chair of the Legislature’s Joint Information Technology Oversight Committee, said Comcast, despite its recent donation, has been a consistent obstacle to efforts that would expand high-speed internet to rural Vermont.

“And what’s particularly galling is that every time we have tried to do something about that for Vermonters,” Sibilia said, “Comcast has sued us — I’ve lost track of how many suits we have against us.” Sibilia added, “I’m not really excited about them getting commercials, in general, for token gestures.” 

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Donovan declined to be interviewed for this article. “I think that we have already answered your question,” Clark responded to an interview request, after a series of emailed responses to questions about the donation. Clark said she was unaware of anyone from the Attorney General’s Office indicating to the Agency of Education that Orange East should be a potential recipient of Comcast’s gift. 

“AG Donovan knew that Comcast has a program for donating laptops,” Clark said. “A Vermont school district was in need. Because AG Donovan connected Comcast with this school district, 250 Vermont children are able to meaningfully participate in remote learning with these laptops.”

Picking Orange East

So how was Orange East — among more than 110 supervisory unions and districts serving between 80,000 and 90,000 students across the state — selected to receive the computers? 

Many of the conversations about the Chromebook donation took place over the phone, according to Clark. But the logistics of the donation and announcement were communicated in interviews with officials and emails obtained by VTDigger.

On March 18, 2019, Donovan attended an “Internet Essentials” event hosted by Comcast at the Burlington YMCA, according to Clark. The AG saw Comcast give out laptops to attendees, she said, and was reminded of the handouts about a year later when he spoke with Gray. 

“When Molly Gray shared her concerns with Attorney General Donovan about children in communities not having access to computers, AG Donovan was reminded of the Comcast event. He reached out to Comcast to see if they would be interested in donating computers to a Vermont community in need,” Clark said in an email. 

In response to a public records request for communications with Comcast, the AG’s office provided a series of emails focused on the logistics of the May 5 announcement. Asked for additional communications with the Agency of Education, the AG’s office informed VTDigger last week of its need for 10 additional days to fulfill the request (as it had for the first request). 

The attorney general got the ball rolling on the announcement with an email to John Sutich, vice president of government affairs for Comcast, copying Lauren Jandl, the spokesperson for the AG’s office. “John, Connecting you with Lauren. Thanks again,” the attorney general wrote. 

“Thanks, General,” Sutich responds. “Charity and Lauren, do you have a draft release that you can share?,” he added, referring to Clark, who said previous conversations between Comcast and the AG’s office about the donation were on the phone.

Leading up to the announcement, Deputy Attorney General Josh Diamond had done most of the coordinating — first with the Agency of Education in selecting a recipient district, and then with Emilie Knisley, superintendent of the Orange East Supervisory Union, to deliver the computers to Wells River, according to emails provided by the AOE and Knisley. 

The initial outreach from the AG’s office to the Agency of Education was an email from Diamond to Emily Simmons, the AOE general counsel, on April 21. “Could you give me a call,” Diamond wrote. “I’m aware of a donor who wants to provide 250 lap tops to students in need during this COVID crisis.” 

After the call, Simmons looped in Dan French, the education secretary, along with Heather Bouchey, the deputy secretary, and Jess DeCarolis, the agency’s division director. 

“Hey Dan and Jess, Are we able to give any direction around the best use for a donation of laptops?” Simmons wrote. French asked for more details, and sounded a skeptical note, “Sometimes these types of donations require a lot of support to implement,” he wrote, “If we had a sense of what they were we could reach out to folks to find a recipient(s).”

Simmons then suggested scheduling a time when French “could participate directly in the call” with Josh Diamond.” “Sure,” French responded in a one-word email. 

After the call between French and Diamond, Simmons circled back to Bouchey and DeCarolis with an update. “The AG’s office has an offer from Comcast, which is looking to utilize one of the tax provisions in the CARES Act, to donate 250 lap tops,” she said, noting that all parties had agreed to choose one district to receive the “entire batch.” 

“We talked about identifying an SU with high poverty and reasonable broadband access, i.e. Springfield or North Country, or Newport,” Simmons wrote in the email at 8:45 a.m. on April 23.

Clark said French, during these deliberations, provided a shortlist of three districts that might be interested in the donation: Orange East, as well as Springfield School District and North Country Supervisory Union. “They named three school districts,” Clark said of the AOE, “and all three were offered computers.”

However, Fisher, the AOE spokesperson, said Springfield was the only district offered the laptops before Orange East (North Country never got an offer). And Fisher said the education agency never “named three schools” in a shortlist to the AG’s office. 

Fisher said the offers were made in order of need. Asked how that need was assessed, the agency provided its 2019 “Annual School Technology Survey,” in which superintendents and other educators are asked for a basic assessment of their hardware and connectivity needs — and specifically whether they had a “1:1 program,” in which all students have an assigned computer of some kind.

Based on that survey, DeCarolis, the division director, sent the AOE email group a list of districts with an apparent need for computers. “Quick scan indicates the following systems reporting no 1:1 program and most don’t let students take those devices that are available home,” she wrote. 

That list included, in no apparent order, Orange East (fifth on the list), among 11 other districts, from Barre and Burlington to Windsor, Addison and Orleans counties. Springfield and North Country, however, were not identified as districts in need of Chromebooks. So why was Springfield offered Chromebooks it didn’t need? 

Emails show that French reached out to Springfield before DeCarolis sent around the “no 1:1 laptop program” list, which included Orange East. At 8:38 a.m. on April 23, French sent a vague email to Zach McLaughlin, the Springfield superintendent, asking if he was interested in a donation of 250 computers. McLaughlin responded to French an hour later, saying he appreciated the offer, “A LOT,” but adding, “The good news is that I am 1-to-1 with every kid.” 

DeCarolis sent around her list at 12:09 p.m. that day, which caused French to change course, according to Fisher. “The Secretary reviewed the short list of districts without one-one laptop programs, with the criteria mentioned above in mind, and selected Orange East as the next district to contact,” Fisher wrote. French had contacted Knisley, the Orange East superintendent, and secured her willingness to take the computers by 4:08 p.m. that afternoon. 

Based on his previous discussions, French had “concluded that it made sense to identify a single school district with relatively high poverty and good broadband access,” Fisher wrote, indicators of a high likelihood of students needing computers, and having the internet connection necessary to use Chromebooks. “We were asked to recommend a community who benefit the most from this laptop donation – that’s what we did,” Fisher wrote.

As French declined to be interviewed, it is unclear what exactly he took into account in selecting Orange East. However, the available data shows there were 779 addresses without an internet connection in the district as of earlier this year, placing it somewhere in the middle of Vermont’s broadband-access spectrum. (In fact, Gray often talks about the lack of broadband access in her home district.) Barre Supervisory Union, which was also on DeCarolis’ list, has better broadband coverage, and a similar percentage of low-income students across the district.

Knisley, the Orange East superintendent, said 180 of the Chromebooks donated to the district went to the Blue Mountain Union School in Wells River. She said others have already been disseminated to students at other schools. According to AOE data, 56% of students at Blue Mountain Union School are from low-income families (compared to 55% at Barre City Elementary & Middle School, and a state average of 36%).

North Country, the third district on the AOE’s shortlist, was never offered computers because Orange East accepted them, according to Fisher. John Castle, the superintendent of North Country, confirmed last week that he did not receive a message about the potential donation. 

Castle said there was some irony in the non-offer, as he has since authorized an order of 500 Chromebooks, both to replace damaged computers next year and to expand the digital capacity of elementary students, who weren’t already assigned personal laptops before Covid-19 school closures. He expected the district would buy up to 200 additional Chromebooks in the coming months.

Would North Country have accepted the computers? “We would have very seriously considered that, being as that could have been almost half of our need for next year,” Castle said. 

McLaughlin, the Springfield superintendent, questioned why his district — where all students have laptops — received an offer from the AOE. “I’m not trying to throw Ted under the bus,” McLaughlin said of Fisher, when told of his explanation. “But yeah, I wonder what data they were looking at to come to that conclusion.” 

Knisley, the Orange East superintendent, said she didn’t think to ask why her district had been selected for the donation, assuming that it was due to its historically strained tech budget — an issue she said she had raised directly with French in the past.

“So I’ll be honest, I made an assumption that it was related to that fact that we have a need. I didn’t understand why the AG’s office was involved, but I just figured that maybe it had something to do with the emergency response aspect of all of this,” Knisley said. “And, frankly, neither did I ask the question, which maybe I should have.” 

‘Grateful for Molly Gray’

The attorney general hasn’t endorsed Gray — or anyone else — in the crowded Democratic field for the lieutenant governor’s office, being vacated by David Zuckerman, a Chittenden County Progressive/Democrat running for governor. Donovan also had been considering a run for governor in 2020, but opted against it. He announced last month that he will instead run again for attorney general, for the fourth time (once unsuccessfully).

Sen. Party: DEM./PROG.

Residence: BURLINGTON, VT

View all legislator information" class="glossaryLink ">Tim Ashe, D/P-Chittenden, the Senate president pro tempore, was the first Democrat to announce his lieutenant governor candidacy after Zuckerman confirmed his gubernatorial aspirations. Ashe has since been joined by Gray, Sen. Party: DEMOCRATIC

Residence: WILLISTON, VT" class="glossaryLink ">Debbie Ingram, D-Chittenden; and Brenda Siegel, a low-income advocate and 2018 gubernatorial candidate. In officially filing for the race last month, Gray touted endorsements from former Gov. Madeleine Kunin and Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah George. 

In Gray’s role as a prosecutor in the attorney general’s criminal division, she has been involved in high profile investigations including the racial harassment of former Rep. Kiah Morris, D-Bennington, and decades-old allegations of abuse at the St. Joseph’s Orphanage in Burlington (no charges have been filed in either case, though the orphanage investigation remains open). 

Gray said she would continue to champion expanded internet access, in whatever role she has moving forward. “For months, I have talked about the need to support our children across Vermont who do not have access to the internet as well as the tools to learn online and access critical support services,” she said in an email, adding she would continue “until every Vermonter has equal access to affordable high quality internet at their home and business.”

Asked what she thought about the optics of Donovan’s donation, Gray said: “I was pleased to have a conversation with the Attorney General” about the connectivity gap and its potentially dire consequences for Vermont’s children. Regarding the ultimate decision to ask Comcast for computers and send them to Orange East, she said: “Again, in terms of how those decisions were made, you have to ask the Attorney General.”

Apart from expressing his gratitude for Gray — and the fact that “250 Vermont kids now have computers that will help them with remote learning” — Donovan, through Clark, did not respond to questions about the optics of the arrangement. Asked if the AG thinks state-solicited resources should be made available to all students equally, Clark responded: “Yes. It’s a sad commentary that we had to ask for a corporate donation to fill a hole for kids.”

The pending lawsuit from Comcast, and other internet companies through their respective trade groups, was filed against Vermont for a state statute and executive order, both signed in 2018. The private sector groups say Vermont is attempting to use its spending powers as an end-around to regulate the telecommunications industry, which is “expressly preempted by federal law.”

The proceedings in that case have been stayed pending an appeal, currently before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, of a multistate lawsuit regarding net neutrality rules. The AG’s office has previously said the state won’t be able to activate the 2018 law until the appeals process in the federal case is fully resolved, which could take months or years. 

Comcast has made national headlines for its Covid-19 generosity. In March, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts donated $5 million to Philadelphia schools to get students citywide plugged into online learning. Also during the Covid-19 crisis, Comcast has waived late fees and disconnects, at least through June 30, according to a company spokesperson. 

Comcast declined to answer questions about the donation or its conversations with Donovan. In a one-sentence emailed statement, the company said, “This is part of a continued partnership with AG Donovan’s office to help make sure Vermonters are able to access the Internet.”

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