The Kansas State Board of Education apparently paid thousands of dollars to the Overland Park law firm of Gates Shields for a series of letters reprimanding sitting Board Member Debby Potter for actions that appear to be within her scope of authority as a board member.
As earlier reported in The Sentinel, attorney Mark Ferguson sent Potter a “summary of several topics which cause me concern as legal counsel for the Kansas State Board of Education” including:
- Potter’s contact with the parents of Kansas School for the Deaf students
- Her “bizarre” (Ferguson’s words) statements about the operation of the state board
- Potter’s request of an opinion by Attorney General Kobach on the authority of the state board
- Her direct contact with a prospective state vendor
Following the publication of our story on the Ferguson-Potter Letters, we filed an Open Records request with the KSBOE for invoices from the law firm for the past year. Invoice 3481 for services rendered in November 2025 details the work Ferguson undertook on the letters sent to Potter.
On November 17:…