Power, Silence, and the PR Machine Inside Baldwin Schools

I didn’t set out to become an advocate. I’m just a mom — one who trusted that when something went wrong at my child’s school, the right people would step in to fix it.

But that’s not what happened.

Beginning in 2024, my son endured repeated trauma at school — the kind that leaves marks you can’t always see. He was one of several students affected by the behavior of a single child who, in my opinion, was not receiving the appropriate behavioral or mental health support. My son’s anxiety escalated. He stopped wanting to go to school. He no longer felt safe in an environment that should have been supportive and secure.

At first, I thought our situation was isolated. But in March of 2025, everything shifted. A Facebook post from another mother caught my attention — a plea for families affected by the very same situation we had been living through to come to the next Baldwin County school board meeting. That’s when it all began to click. We weren’t alone. Other children had been harmed too — physically, emotionally, and academically. Teachers were struggling. Families were suffering. And no one in leadership was stepping up.

That month, I stood before the Baldwin County Board of Education with other concerned parents to share what we had endured. We spoke from the heart — asking for help, for protection, for basic accountability.

We were met with silence.

Not a single acknowledgement. No apology. No corrective action. Instead, we were spoken over. Dismissed. Treated like we were the problem.

In the weeks that followed, even more stories found their way to me. Parents. Teachers. Staff. All detailing a disturbing pattern of mismanagement, retaliation, and neglect — particularly surrounding vulnerable students and special education services. The deeper I looked, the more concerned I became.

And then came the stories no one wants to hear — but can’t afford to ignore. Accounts of sexual assault involving students. Reports of coaches and staff accused of inappropriately touching or harming children. Families who tried to speak up were met with deflection, while the adults in question were quietly transferred to other schools. In some cases, the behavior allegedly continued. The students weren’t protected. The abusers were.

Then came the phone call that changed everything.

A public relations consultant — not employed by the district, not an elected official — contacted me and another mother who had spoken before the board. His name was Jonathan Gray. His tone was polished, a bit scattered, and disarming. But it was clear: he knew details he shouldn’t have had. Timelines. Personal information. Talking points. It didn’t feel like outreach. It felt like surveillance. It felt like a calculated attempt to deflect — to manage the narrative rather than address the problem.

Soon after, our family was placed in a truancy early intervention program — despite my son’s absences being directly tied to the trauma he experienced under their care. But instead of feeling like support, the meeting felt like a sales pitch. We were encouraged to sign up for mental health services through an entity I had already researched and grown deeply concerned about. The resources they were pushing had questionable oversight — and to me, they didn’t represent help. They represented a growing threat to the children in this county.

Before I ever called for the superintendent’s resignation, I publicly named Jonathan Gray and exposed what I had come to learn about his alarming influence. I questioned how a political consultant — with no official role in the district — had access to sensitive student and family data. Access that, to this day, remains legally unclear. And further, what kind of clearance had he been granted that positioned him to handle issues meant for school leadership? I had addressed all seven members of the Baldwin County Board of Education. And yet, the only person who contacted me… was him.

Not even 48 hours after my post on social media went “viral,” Gray’s resignation came. In the very article announcing it, the district made a point to claim his exit had nothing to do with “public backlash.” My backlash. Yet in that same moment, the superintendent boldly accused me — not by name, but unmistakably — of toeing the line of slander and libel. But here’s the truth: I hadn’t shared misinformation. I had shared facts. And the public responded with alarm, as they should have.

The day after Gray’s resignation was the April Baldwin County School Board meeting. I had heard enough. Nothing had been resolved regarding the issues at my child’s school. The problems that brought so many of us forward in the first place were still being ignored. And I was done with the politics. I stood at that meeting and publicly asked the man who had been paying his political consultant $9,500 a month in taxpayer dollars — a man clearly unfit to do right by the children and teachers of Baldwin County — to step down.

May came and went. More stories of abuse and retaliation kept finding their way to me — each one further confirming that what we had experienced wasn’t just tragic, it was systemic. And yet, the same people who had benefited from the cover-ups, protected by a now-resigned consultant, remained untouched. Nothing had changed.

Then June arrived. And just when I thought the story couldn’t get darker, the news broke: Jonathan Gray had been named Policy Advisor to U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville’s campaign.

After everything — the mishandled violence, the gaslighting, the personal calls, the backdoor access to sensitive information — the man helping to shape the narrative in Baldwin County wasn’t held accountable. He was stepping onto the state stage.

That was the moment I knew this wasn’t just about one school district. This was about power. Influence. Control. And what happens when families and educators dare to disrupt it.

I wish this story had a clear resolution. It doesn’t — at least not yet. But I’m sharing it anyway. Because silence shields the wrong people. And because our children deserve more than a system propped up by fear, avoidance, and denial.

Our school board remains unresponsive, evasive, and unwilling to take responsibility. As the new school year approaches, we still don’t know what will happen at our child’s school — and that uncertainty hangs heavy over our family.

And I feel a deep responsibility to sound the alarm beyond the borders of the community I call home. I’ve seen what unchecked power and inflated ego can do to a district. And I fear what that same influence, left unchallenged, could do in shaping laws and policies that impact families across Alabama.

Opinions do not reflect the views or opinions of ALPolitics.com