The Superintendent of the St Joseph School District says he, and his child are being targeted by what he calls a witch hunt. In a hastily-called news conference Wednesday afternoon, the visibly angry superintendent said he is being unfairly portrayed in a YouTube video, and that his child is being subject to “vicious personal scrutiny” at school.

Dr. Czerwonka said the video was recorded in the fall of 2013. In it he offers glowing praise for the Flippen Group.

The Flippen Groups “Capturing Kids Hearts” program was introduced to St Joseph shortly after Dr. Czerwonka took over as superintendent But he says the original video is a testimonial in which he praises the program using details from a district where he’d worked previously He says it is unfairly edited to make it look like he’s being critical of the staff in St Joseph.

The video, posted here, opens with Dr. Czerwonka introducing himself as the school superintendent. Then after a video transition, he offers a before and after story of a school district. He says that transition cuts out the fact that he’s speaking about the other school district.

He says he never made the comments about the staff in St Joseph. At the time it was recorded he had not even met many of the staff members, and he says it would have been impossible for him to speak about the SJSD staff members’ work ethic.

From the video: “…Prior to introducing the Flippen Group, and the Flippen Group’s processes, into our schools, our schools had a culture that very standoffish, very cold, the culture there was not conducive to making people better. It was more of ‘you show up and you go home’ and you really don’t touch people’s lives.”

He then goes on to explain how that all changed after the Flippen Group experience.

In a statement, Dr. Czerwonka also interjected this assertion: “My family, even my child, is under vicious personal scrutiny.”

When pressed for details, Czerwonka said that someone said to his child, at school, that “none of this would have ever happened if you hadn’t moved here.”

“That’s not appropriate for a child to hear at school,” Czerwonka said. But when asked if the comment came from a teacher or a student, he said it wouldn’t be appropriate for a child to hear from either one. He would not identify who he thought made the comment.