More and more information comes to light as I continue to investigate all-things data and solar in Grant County.
On Dec. 15, 2025, I sent a Freedom of Information request to the Sheridan School District.
In that request, I asked for communication between Superintendent Chad Pitts and several community leaders dating from August 2024 to Dec. 15, 2025.
In the documents received, I read an email thread sent to Pitts on Dec. 15, 2025, from Wade Crosswhite, a Sheridan School board member, who is president of RoofConnect, a company based in Sheridan offering national roofing services.
RoofConnect and several other businesses owned by David Workman recently integrated as Connect Service Solutions.
On Dec. 15, at 2:05 p.m. Pitts received an email from Crosswhite's Connect Service Solutions email address.
Crosswhite asked Pitts' opinion on a situation concerning a roofing contract with a Plainsville, Ohio, school district.
The email to Pitts from Crosswhite stated: "Read through this and gimme your thoughts."
The email below that line was from Workman to other Connect Service Solutions employees and Crosswhite. It was also dated Dec. 15, at 11:32 a.m. Workman wrote to some of his employees that Crosswhite had put a call into some people. Workman also wrote in that same email that he would like to know if the superintendent was "for or against" the contract.
The email thread began with an email dated that same day, at 4:32 a.m. from Bikram Chakraborty with the subject line: "Riverside School District contract, Ohio." The email was sent to several employees of Connect Service Solutions including Workman and Crosswhite.
Chakraborty wrote:
"As a resident of the Riverside Local School District, our community is very concerned with the current lame duck board of education trying to jam through what some are calling an unethical contract. We are concerned that if the contract is executed, it will violate the spirit of the restraining order issued by a Lake County Judge.
Further, insistence of requiring this contract to be signed so late in the current board members' terms with such a serious cancellation policy appears to be against the public good.
Members of the community will hold those accountable, including your company for the misuse of over $3,000.000 in taxpayer dollars Do you want your company to be associated with this?
Your company needs to intervene and pause the contract before is executed SO this project can be properly vetted - and communicated to the public before a decision is made. The project itself is not seen as unneeded but there is no trust in how this is unraveling in real time with no transparency.
It is highly unusual and unethical the manner this contract was presented by the Board president.
Typically recommendations such as this comes from the district's administrative team through the Treasurer or Superintendent.
Below is a link to a video of the intimidation tactics that occurred at last week's BOE meeting in relation to pressuring the Treasurer into signing this contract. The community has many questions.
The Board President can be heard attempting to bully the school district Treasurer into signing it. Since he wouldn't, there have been threats to fire the Treasurer by this president.
Is this how you want to start a relationship with the Riverside School District or Lake County? https://youtu.be/SfOaPKyHIKE?si=rKGNVI8Iq9w3Kp4g The person in the light blue shirt is the board president.
The person with the beard is a newly elected board member taking office on January 1st. The person in the tan/brown jacket is the current Treasurer (at least until he is suspended for protecting taxpayer dollars.) The person in the dark blue Sweater is the District lawyer."
Workman forwarded that email to two of his employees at 10:15 a.m. on Dec. 15 and wrote that he had received "5-6 of these same email templates below today and one person actually wrote their own email not using the template."
Sheridan School District's Contract
What led Crosswhite to email Pitts asking him to weigh in on Ohio?
The Sheridan School District has a maintenance and inspection agreement with RoofConnect, which was renewed most recently at the December school board meeting.
That contract is approved by Arkansas Department of Education Secretary Jacob Oliva because of Crosswhite's position on the school board and his employment at RoofConnect.
When the school board votes on the contract, Crosswhite leaves the room as required by Arkansas law.
Still, why did Crosswhite, who became a school board member in 2021, ask for Pitts' advice about an Ohio school concerning the company where he is president?
I sent an email to Sheridan school administrators and board members asking questions.
Superintendent Pitts and the Sheridan School Board,
Good morning.
In a recent FOIA request from the Sheridan School District I received an email sent from board member Wade Crosswhite to Superintendent Chad Pitts about a school's roofing contract in Ohio. In that email thread, which is attached, Mr. Wade Crosswhite asks Superintendent Pitts' opinion on a volatile school board situation in Ohio regarding a $3 million Roofconnect contract that also mentions solar panels.
The school board and the superintendent at Riverside School in Painesville, Ohio, are under fire and controversy as well as in court proceedings. See below for more information.
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1DH98RPGt7/
My questions:
Why is Mr. Crosswhite, a sitting Sheridan school board member who is also president of Roofconnect that conducts business (roofing contract) with the Sheridan School District, asking for advice from Superintendent Pitts for his business (Roofconnect) on a school matter in Ohio? After all Superintendent Pitts' salary is paid by tax payers, not Roofconnect.
Is Mr. Pitts a consultant for Roofconnect as well as serving as Sheridan's superintendent? Otherwise, why is Mr. Crosswhite asking for Superintendent Pitts' advice on a school board matter in Ohio?
Why is there a pattern (former Superintendent Jerrod Williams endorsing Roofconnect on a national level in a video) of Sheridan School District superintendents being so deeply intertwined with a company (Roofconnect) that has a board member on its school board?
Has Superintendent Pitts been offered trips by Roofconnect to roofing conventions like Mr. Williams was offered when he was superintendent?
Thank you for your prompt response to my questions.
Sincerely,
Suzi Parker
www.southarkansasreckoning.com
The reference regarding trips stemmed from an email obtained under a Freedom of Information request in which Williams was offered a free trip by a RoofConnect employee in May 2019 to a Nashville, Tenn., roofing convention held in June of that year.
The RoofConnect employee wrote: "Monday is just a welcoming event that night. Tuesday is a day full of education, with another event Tuesday night. Wednesday is education until noon and then you are free! We will have industry experts on solar, flooring parking lots, roofing, safety, HVAC, and asset management."
Williams declined the trip but told the employee, "Please include me next year and I will put the date on my calendar." However, Williams did not attend the next year.
The school board suspended Williams in late 2021. Williams later entered a mutual termination agreement with the school district in spring 2022.
Pitts replied to my question in an email sent to me by Andy Mayberry, the Sheridan School District's communications director.
Ms. Parker, Mr. Crosswhite forwarded the email to me seeking my informal perspective based on my general experience as a school superintendent, not in any consulting or business capacity. Given my role and experience, it is not unusual for individuals – including educators from other districts, elected officials, or community members – to ask for my general thoughts or perspective on various issues. I did not provide business advice or services to RoofConnect, the correspondence did not involve Sheridan School District operations or result in any district action, and I have not been offered or accepted travel, gifts, or other benefits from RoofConnect. Sincerely, Chad Pitts Superintendent
At its regular December meeting, the Sheridan School Board unanimously voted to renew its ongoing agreement with RoofConnect.
Cris Bolin, the school's chief financial officer, told the board that the job was put out for bid last year.
"RoofConnect was awarded the contract with the option to renew for an additional four years," Bolin said. "Last year, the board approved a resolution authorizing the district to conduct business with RoofConnect that is valid through Dec. 31, 2029."
The Arkansas Department of Education approved that renewal until June 2026, Bolin said.
"We are requesting an amount not to exceed $90,000 but $80,000 of that is approximately the roof maintenance contract, but we included a little bit more in case actual repairs need to be made not covered by the contract so we don't have to come back for an additional amount," Bolin said.
School board member Jacob Palmer, a candidate for Grant County Circuit Clerk in the March 2026 primary, praised the partnership between the school district and RoofConnect.
Palmer once worked at Grant REIT, a business that Workman is listed as a manager, according to the Secretary of State's website.
Palmer asked Bolin if the school had saved money using RoofConnect.
"Yes, I wasn't here before we had a roof maintenance contract so, but they do the annual inspections and preventive work like cleaning the gutters, checking seals along rooflines" Bolin said. "If it is minor repairs they go ahead and do it while they are up there."
She said last year one bidder for the job was "almost $20,000 higher" than RoofConnect.
The Sheridan School District has executed contracts with RoofConnect dating as far back as 2015, according to documents obtained by the Reckoning from the school.
I requested the most recent agreement between RoofConnect and the Sheridan School District.
"We don't actually have a 'new' contract – the district's RFP indicated the contract could be renewed for up to four years (one year at a time), so the Board most recently approved the renewal of the existing contract," Mayberry wrote in an email.
He added, "The Board approved an amount slightly larger than the total contract to include incidental repairs – those not covered by the maintenance agreement – if needed. This is the same as we did last year, and there were no incidental repairs."
Read the RoofConnect document with the Sheridan School District below. It was obtained by me from Mayberry.
What's going on in Ohio?
The Riverside Local School District in Plainsville, Ohio, is about 35 miles north of Cleveland with approximately 4,200 students.
For several months, conflict has engulfed the five-member Riverside School Board. The community erupted in contentious meetings about transparency, construction, and contracts including one from RoofConnect.
Three school board members even voted to suspend the school superintendent without pay in December. An interim superintendent was hired by the board on Dec. 15, according to local news reports.
A hearing is scheduled for Jan. 4 about the superintendent's termination.
The Riverside Local Education Association and a high school teacher also sued in December to stop the school board from transferring $4.6 million from the general fund to the permanent improvement fund, according to an article in the News-Herald in Mentor, Ohio.
Board meetings are recorded by the school district. However, Bryson Durst, a reporter with the News-Herald, has followed the controversies at Riverside. He reported that on Dec. 10 the board approved a $3,065,365 contract with RoofConnect.
Three school board members voted for the contract although two of those members lost re-election in November and are leaving the board on Jan. 1, Durst reported.
Board member Belinda Grassi, who has served on the board more than 15 years, asked several questions about the contract prior to the board's vote.
According to the Dec. 10 recording of the three-hour meeting on the school's YouTube channel, Grassi said, "I want to read something out of this contract. Once the project is awarded, any required architectural or engineering services as well as builder's risk insurance will be invoiced for immediate payment. Payment in full will be due within three business days of signing."
The crowd whistled and gasped.
Board President Scott Fishel said, "If you're going to interrupt the meeting, we're going to clear the room. That's the last warning. One more, one more time, we're going to clear the room. Don't interrupt, please."
Grassi continued. "If the customer cancels this agreement at any time for any reason, the customer shall pay a cancellation fee equal to 50% of the total contract price...customer acknowledges and agrees that all payments are irrevocable and non-refundable. So, within three days of the signing of this contract, we are going to fork over $3,065,365 to somebody we have never even had an opportunity to discuss, vet, nor anything else. Are you kidding me? In an irrevocable contract that we can't get any money back, and if we decide not to go forward with the work, we are going to pay an additional 50% penalty. That's a terrible contract, folks."
After Grassi finished, Fishel introduced a representative from RoofConnect, Melanie Leneghan. Leneghan ran for Congress in 2018 and now sits on the Delaware County Elections Board in Ohio.
"I'm here just to share with you, um, this opportunity that this is very unique and very timely for this school district," Leneghan said. "Um, we are looking to do 25-year roofs that are sustainable without a tear off for a very aggressive price, and we have confirmation that after meeting for a year and half trying to find an investor for solar to do a power purchase agreement with this school district. The savings opportunity through this is upwards of $10 million."
Leneghan continued.
"Um, there are solar deals going on in other places all the time because they're not up here," she said. "The problem with solar up here is not that we don't generate enough power, it's that we don't use enough power. So, it's very hard and I have in a year and half I was unable to find an investor that would do this in your district. The reason being what I was trying to do on the front end was to incorporate your roofs into the PPA and um, they wouldn't touch it because the numbers just wouldn't blend.
"So as we got close to the end of the Inflation Reduction Act, so the Inflation Reduction Act was...put into place by the Biden Administration and what it did was it allowed for very significant rebates on solar programs to be available to the public sector whereas previously it had only been available to the private sector through tax incentives. The public sector doesn't pay taxes so it wasn't available to them. But the Administration, put, um, something in where you would get a direct rebate check of a minimum of 30% with possible adders based on economic conditions of your community or um, if you were a former energy community, you know like a coal community um anything like that. So, um, as soon as that Inflation Reduction Act was put into place, took the IRS, um a little while."
Leneghan said, "It took the IRS quite a while to figure out the tax ramifications and as soon as that happened, I was like, I got to get this to the schools in Northeast Ohio because this is an amazing opportunity for them to get free roofing, essentially free. I can't use that word because in the Power Purchase Agreement, it pays for it, right? But essentially with the 30% rebate that the investor was getting on the roofing and solar, it was a very, very good opportunity. And I told everyone if I can find an investor, you can't lose.
"No investor will touch a project unless they're going to be able to come out of the shoot selling you electricity for less than you're paying. So, they don't want to have buyer's remorse, right? So, nobody would touch the projects up here. I couldn't get anything. And I know this sounds crazy and I apologize for this timing, but we had the IRA is coming to an end. As I don't know if you realize this, but the Trump Administration cancelled it. It's over December 31st. Done. But you, we can, we can get under the wire. There's something called safe harboring. And it's a just a bunch of legal stuff that I, I, I don't want to get into. But at the end of the day, I was able to find an investor that couldn't carry all the roofs but if Riverside could cover that much of it, they would go into agreement.
She continued telling the board and community members that the roofs at the school were "really bad."
"I mean, really bad. We're, they're very close to being completely saturated and needing a tear off but they're not there. They're not there yet. And we can put these solar investors approve of certain roofs that are water resilient, and we build the roof when we're up there and they mandate a 25-year roof. That's not cheap. So, we have to buy warranty, right? We have to buy warranty above manufactures, right? So, but the investor has to have that because their panels are 25-year panels and they, we, can't be moving panels for roofing. Okay? So, this investor was willing to enter into a Power Purchase Agreement with this school district if they carried that much of the roofing. Those roofs would cost you way more than that. You could fill probably 200 to 300 yards of dumpsters with that roof. This makes it a sustainable roof. You will never have to replace it. You never have to tear it off. It is sustainable and it doesn't count as a roof. That's a permit situation. So what's happening here is the investor is holding my feet to the fire."
She told the board the investor – who remained anonymous – was putting $5 million into the project.
"He gets that rebate," she said. "But here's the good news, you guys get a 30% rebate on what you're putting in. So, as soon as that solar project stars going, you're going to get a million dollars back. So, you're going to end up spending $2 million replacing 75-year-old roofs, making them completely sustainable, putting solar on, getting reduced electric rates. At the end of the day, your output is going to be $2 million because you're getting back, I'm not doing the exact math, but you're getting back 30% in rebate dollars from the Inflation Reduction Act."
Leneghan continued explaining the Inflation Reduction Act.
"The investor, you know, we have to show that the roof is paid for. They have to know that or they're not going to do that. And so, we're hurrying to do that. I have the PPA, by the way, ready to be signed. Once that roof is committed and paid for, you'll get back 30%. You'll get solar on all of those roofs. You have a power purchase agreement starting at less than you're paying now with a 2% accelerator. And I have worked a year and a half to find this and to get them down into a place that would make you very happy and save your district a lot of money where that money that you would have been spending on power and roofs, you can reinvest in whatever is is needed."
Leneghan said she saw people with thumbs down and a shaking head. She continued.
"But the reality of it, guys, it's the best deal you're going to ever see," she said. "You will never have solar without it. You will never get those roofs for $2 million. Your roofs are 75 years old. I don't even want to think about the kind of mold the moisture, it's holding. You have leaks all over your building. You have to get a roof. You have to. You're almost in an emergency situation quite honestly."
Leneghan was asked about the solar panels. She said, "So, the solar investors are willing to pay and put solar panels and absorb a little bit of the costs...He is relying 100% on those being used by you and the amounts that we have collected. We've collected data for over a year, right? They have to be functioning perfectly. He, you, are only paying for what you use, right? You are not paying for the panels. You are not paying for interconnection. You are not paying for engineering. You are not paying any of that. The, the, the investor takes care of it all. He insures them. He checks them every year. He checks your roof every year."
Ultimately, the board voted 3-2 for the RoofConnect contract, but the school treasurer refused to sign it. Instead, Fishel, the outgoing school board president, signed the contract.
(Begin watching at the one hour, 46-minute mark in the video below to hear Leneghan's entire presentation concerning the roofing contract.)
The next day, Dec. 11, in special meeting of the Finance & Personnel Board Committee of the Riverside Local School District, a heated exchange occurred between Grassi and board member Dennis Kenney, who lost his election in November, about the roofing contract.
Kenney voted for the roofing contract and Grassi did not. Grassi questioned about the anonymous investor.
"I would like the public to know who the investor is," Grassi said.
"It doesn't matter who the investor is," Kenney said.
"How does it not matter, Mr. Kenney?" Grassi asked. "It absolutely matters who it is. It absolutely matters. How does it matter? Because we are getting involved with a third party and I'm not going to, it's not going to be disclosed to me who are the investors."
Watch below around the 20:58 mark.
The Ohio RoofConnect Contract
Grassi posted the RoofConnect contract on her Facebook page that received 84 shares and 44 comments.
In her post, she outlined several reasons why she disagreed with the contract.
I decided to call and interview Grassi about the contract, and she told me – among other things – that I could share it with Reckoning readers.
Grasse said that the board never discussed the Power Purchase Agreement that Leneghan mentioned several times in her presentation.
In a meeting held Dec. 18, the school's treasurer, Dr. Stephen Thompson, gave a document to the board and said the school board faced impending litigation.
I contacted Grassi again. She confirmed the litigation was from a Little Rock law firm representing RoofConnect. She shared the letter with the Reckoning.
Grassi explained that in Ohio, the board president alone cannot sign contracts. That's what happened with the RoofConnect contract.
"The legal requirement is that the treasurer must also sign and subsequently issue a valid purchase order as well as provide a 412 Certificate (a guaranteed certification of available funds)," Grassi said. "None of those steps happened in this instance.
"Administration could not provide required proof of membership in the Equalis Group purchasing consortium. In Ohio, consortium memberships must be board approved," she said. "Documentation of this was unavailable and unable to be produced. As a result, the initial contract approval by a 3:2 majority would be considered invalid under Ohio law.
Grassi said that if the board moved forward, the contract "would be in violation of Ohio's required open bid process, effectively circumventing the requirements.
"We don't do business like that here at Riverside. We pride ourselves on following process and law. Of course, the process could all start again in January with a new board in place but that's not likely at this time all things considered. The community rallied and their voice was vital. I'm so proud of them and grateful for their voices. Their participation and input were vital."
Grassi told the Reckoning Tuesday that the board plans to rescind the RoofConnect contract at its meeting on Friday. She said the board feels like it has "valid authority to do so without recourse."
Back to Sheridan
I followed up with more questions to Pitts and Crosswhite on Dec. 19 and cc'd all members of the Sheridan School Board.
I'm still waiting for the answers.
