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“It was not something I sincerely believe. I made a mistake. I have lots of friends who have adopted kids.”

However, Blackburn said, she refuses to be “defined by this mistake” or to let her opponents use it as ammunition to shut her up.

“She (Braunovan) is as mean-spirited as I was, for her to keep bringing this up.”

Braunovan said she decided to release the text exchange to counter allegations from Blackburn that the board’s code of conduct is being unfairly used by trustees to squelch her contrary opinions on school issues. “That’s not why I filed my complaint.”

The text exchange was in late July. Braunovan sent her complaint to Blackburn on Sept. 20. Braunovan said the text incident happened just as the family was leaving on vacation, and she spent awhile pondering what to do about it.

Blackburn maintains some trustees are ganging up by “code of conducting her.”

She says it’s no coincidence that another complaint against her from trustee Chris Ellis was also sent Sept. 20. “It was the two of them getting together and saying ‘Let’s go after her.’ And I don’t think that’s the intention of the code.”

Ellis’s complaint was over an email Blackburn sent him in September. He couldn’t immediately find a copy of the email or recall exactly what it contained — “There’s just so many of them, you know,” he said. “She’s always criticizing me.”

“I believe she called into question my thinking capacity.”

Ellis said he decided to file a complaint because of a pattern of disrespectful behaviour by Blackburn. But he won’t do it again. “I don’t think they have any effect on Donna Blackburn, so I won’t be wasting my time or staff time or the board’s time on them.” A mediator also handled Ellis’s complaint, and Blackburn apologized, he said.