The Lake County State’s Attorney office has confirmed it is looking into complaints of misconduct against Grayslake School District 46 officials related to the campaign for last month’s school board elections.

E-mails sent by District 46 officials, which form the basis of the complaints, were submitted this week to the state’s attorney’s office by district critics who are affiliated with the Lake County Tea Party movement.

In a press release issued Tuesday, Lake County Tea Party spokesman Paul Mitchell, of Hainesville, said the e-mails show, among other things, that political activity was conducted by district officials using public resources.

The e-mails, also posted on the Lake County Tea Party’s website, were obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, he said.

Mitchell said that in the weeks leading up to the election, one District 46 official had inappropriately used a public e-mail account to discuss campaign activities with other district officials.

In another e-mail, a different official referred to offering gift cards to high school students as an incentive to register to vote, Mitchell said.

The officials have not disputed the authenticity of the e-mails and have declined to comment further.

In response to the disclosure of the e-mails, Tea Party activists and district residents picketed outside Grayslake Middle School prior to a District 46 school board meeting Tuesday night. During the meeting, several audience members spoke critically of district officials, who did not respond to the demands for answers.

“Somebody needs to clean this up,” one speaker from the audience, Ann Clary of Grayslake, said.

In addition to the state’s attorney’s office, another school district, Northbrook-Glenview District 30, is investigating the matter because some of the emails in question were sent from a District 30 account.

District 30 Superintendent Edward Tivador confirmed that a request had been made for one individual’s e-mails and that he was aware of the complaints against that person.

“We’re in the process of conducting an investigation,” District 30 Superintendent Edward Tivador said. “Any issue of this nature is taken very seriously by me and by this school district.”

In the midst of Tuesday’s District 46 school board meeting, officials also learned that the district has been sued for defamation by a woman who ran for in last month’s school board election.

Marchell Norris filed a suit Tuesday in small claims court against District 46, asking for $10,000. The lawsuit alleges that comments made during a March 16 school board were defamatory and represented an effort by some incumbent school board members to sway public opinion about her candidacy.

Norris’ complaint stems from a resolution to censure District 46 School Board member Michael Carbone for his alleged attempts to obtain a password to the district’s substitute teacher database so he could determine how many teachers were absent from class so they could attend pro-union rallies in Wisconsin. Carbone has denied those claims.

The resolution, read aloud during the school board meeting, stated that someone used Norris’ phone to place a call on Carbone’s behalf, asking for the password. Norris said the district has not been able to supply proof that the call came from her phone.

District officials could not be reached for comment on the lawsuit.

Norris said she felt targeted with unfounded allegations because she was a district outsider.

“I am living in this town, and people are calling me horrible names and saying I can’t be trusted,” Norris said. “All I was a person, a parent, who said I’ll run for school board.”

Freelance reporter Ruth Fuller contributed to this report.