As I began to receive messages and phone calls about the letter Superintendent Wharton read at the board meeting on October 16, 2023, I recognized the feeling of shock, disbelief, and hurt accompanied with witnessing abusive of power by those in public office. Every time someone relays their negative interactions with those is position of authority I remember the board meeting that began the demolition of my past trust of those with institutional power at Nestucca Valley School District.

Pre-COVID most of us understood that there was corruption in our governing bodies. However, most of us believed that corruption and deceit was for those with centralized power: Presidential administrations, the IRS, Congress, state governors, and possibly a few rogue county and city officials. But, Superintendent Wharton is right that I was, ” . . . confrontational before the trend of confrontational board meetings was a thing.” Although confrontational must be defined as asking questions, insisting on answers, and respectfully disagreeing with proposed policies. My first “confrontational” board meeting was in June 2019.

I have already written about this extensively in a previous post you can read in, “What’s that Smell in Our Sleepy Nestucca Valley” (https://wordpress.com/post/apprehendedbychrist.com/323) and in detail “How to Ruin a School District in 3 Years . . .” (https://wordpress.com/post/apprehendedbychrist.com/328). I really advise you read these short articles for context. The first post, “What’s that Smell in Our Sleepy Nestucca Valley,” was posted on June 24, 2019. Again if math is not your thing, that was just over 4 years ago. This post makes this lone comment about the Superintendent: “under the direction of our superintendent, [Nestucca Valley School Districit] has taken on many projects this last year.” This hardly meets the muster of Superintendent Wharton’s claims of “constant scrutiny” and “being targeted.” It wasn’t until my, “How to Ruin a School District . . .” post in July 20, 2019 that I “targeted” Superintendent Wharton, if you call holding a public official to account targeting.

So given these past posts, the only blogs until this series about Nestucca Valley School District, this post has the purpose of suppling the public with the documentation no longer available on the school website, as well as my own documents never before made available to the public.

Here I establish the following:

1. My “confrontational” behavior began with the school board for their public meeting violations and refusal to (again) make publics records available to the public.
2. Confrontation seems to mean to the Nestucca Valley School Board and Superintendent normal civic engagement: Request for public documents, proper ordering of agendas, arguments made is public against proposed policies, request for readdress of grievances, mild petitions requesting moratorium on policies not made available to the public, and more than two members of the public at the school board meeting.
3. It was never my intention to lay blame to the Superintendent for the board’s actions, until the school website was falsified in regards to this specific passing of policies. The website remained in this false state until the school upgraded the website and removed board information prior to July 2020, as of the publication of this post.
4. Based on the above I filed a complaint my first with Nestucca Valley School District Board and then with Teacher’s Practicum and Practices, against Superintendent Wharton in an attempt to right a public wrong against the people of the Nestucca Valley School District. I never filed anything that could be considered a personal grievance complaint with any governing body until September 2023.

My “Confrontational” Behavior

By June of 2018, I had witnessed consistent public meeting law violations, such as not lawfully posting meetings, not following the agenda, allowing employees to speak out of turn during the meeting, and repeated delays and denials for requests of supposedly “available upon request” public documents. So I wrote a letter to the school board expressing my concerns. It was the Nestucca Valley School Board, not myself, that put Superintendent Wharton in the position to answer for their behavior. Although, I have written many emails over the years to Superintendent Wharton, the majority of my emails have been addressed to the elected school board members.

Here is that first letter with the Superintendent’s responses highlighted in yellow.

The concerns raised in this letter were held by many in our school district who were aware of the issues. However, at the time I was usually the only member of the public attending the school board meetings. Occasionally, the student body president and a few employees attended, but rarely did any other parents or community members attend.

During these early meetings, I often sat as an observer and reserved questions for after the meeting or emails. Most of the emails were for clarification of the issues addressed at the meeting, as at this time there were no informational “packets” available. The informational packets that are now available online and at the meeting were based on my repeated requests for information. If you have attended a school board meeting you understand the reason behind these packets: The Superintendent, and sometimes the board members, speak in eduspeak. They use terms and acronyms unfamiliar to the general public. I usually had an idea of what was being discussed because of my educational degree and work in the school. I knew most people did not have that background. Furthermore, the use of consent agendas by the board meant that financial reports, minutes, and administrator reports were neither read out loud in the meeting or available to the audience. This made the meetings confusing, disorienting, and unappealing for attendees.

Up to this point, the only reason to find my behavior “confrontational” is if the board and Superintendent believed no one should attend their meetings or have related questions to the meetings. That all changed in spring of 2019. In spring of 2019, Nestucca Valley School Board was going through an obscene amount of policy adoption. This was necessary, according to the Superintendent, because the current policies were outdated. These update in policies required the meeting postings to be several pages longer, so it was hard to ignore the many pages taped to the school door. Curiously, the actual policies (required by law to be available to the public before adoption) were not on the school website, just the list of policies to be changed in the meeting agendas.

Of course, the titles of the policies immediately raised my concern. A few of the policies I had concerns about were titled “Weapons in the Schools,” “Freedom of Expression [Students],” “Teaching About Religion,” and “Human Sexuality, AIDS/HIV, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, Health Educations”[Comprehensive Health Education]. So I began asking for copies of the policies after the May 2019 school board meeting. None of the policies were discussed or read by the school board members. The policies were not available on the website, and EVEN Superintendent Wharton only claims there were as of June 6, 2019 (See “Misty Wharton Emails June 2019 Policy Adoption” below).

Here are the trails of emails between myself and the then board secretary, Megan Kellow, as I attempted get copies of the policies. Note that Megan never stated they were available on the school website as of June 12th.

What should be clear is on June 12th I received copies of the “I” Instruction policies which included very controversial policies. Below are the copies I received on June 12th of three of these policies. While there may be disagreement about what people find controversial, time has borne the truth that these were policies that many parents have since found disturbing. Of note, is the IGAI “Human Sexuality . . .” policy, especially in regards to items #17 (“different sexual orientations, gender identities and gender expressions”) and #18 (“laws that protect the rights of minors to anonymously access these [health] resources.”

As I was finally able to read these policies I became very concerned. The policies had undergone their first reading according to the June 10, 2019 NVSD school board agenda, so they could be adopted at the next meeting in July. As my last email from Megan states, I asked that the policies be placed on the school website as soon as possible for public review. Megan never replied so I took the next step of emailing the the NVSD board members, and once again heard from Superintendent Wharton. Her reply left me stunned.

Here is the succession of emails between Superintendent Wharton and myself on June 20, 2019.

*Note these emails are in backwards order, and should be read from the bottom up.

I remember sitting in utter shock that the NVSD Board had passed policies in my presence after I had expressed concern about the policies not being available to the public during my public comment, and I didn’t even know they did it. I am sure most people find that hard to believe, but here is why I was confused: The June 10. 2019 meeting agenda listed these policies as “7.3 Second Reading of Policy/Policy Adoption–Deletion (Packet of Policy provided [to the board] on May 13, 2019) [with this subsection) Policy First Reading–Proposed Adoption.” (See below, page 3). And they never read or discussed the policies. I had two other parent witnesses in this meeting who also were unaware the policies were passed.

Up to this point I never believed the board members, many of whom I had known for decades, or the superintendent capable of such deception. I was utterly horrified. I contemplated the full ramification of the NVSD board’s actions, the delays of response by the board secretary and the superintendent. They had passed policies they knew would be controversial without a single person in the public having copies of the policy. Because if it had been available by June 6th, as Superintendent Wharton insisted, why would I have not been directed to the school website versus getting copies from the board secretary?

I admit what I relate next is my testimony. Superintendent Wharton may remember these events differently, but I include them because I think it illustrates both our previous amicable relationship and our difference in worldviews. But I do here try to fairly represent what was told me directly by the Superintendent, as well as my own statements.

As it happened I drove by the school shortly after this revelation and noticed the Superintendent’s vehicle was parked at the district school office. I still believed Superintendent Wharton would be honest and open with me, so I took a chance and stopped to see if I could talk to her. This was late June and the office otherwise empty. When I walked up to the door it was locked so I knocked and the Superintendent opened the door to talk to me.

I expressed my main concerns about the policies, including the possibility of the “Teaching on Religion” policy being unconstitutional. Directly behind the Superintendent was a calendar depicting what looked like a Hindu goddess on the wall. I found it particularly interesting given our current conversation, freedom of religion.

I stated, “Aren’t you concerned that if you try to enforce a policy that states that teachers can neither ‘overtly or covertly’ endorse a religion that the district will be sued? There are teachers who teach in our schools and can regularly be seen attending churches on the same road and hill as the high school.”

Superintendent Wharton shrugged and said, “I didn’t write the Constitution and school districts get sued all the time, April.”

I soon left the district office. I thanked the Superintendent for her honesty and frankness. Needless to say I found no comfort in this interaction. I realized it was not just a minor philosophical or religious world view difference between Superintendent Wharton and most of the community of our school district. This was a major difference of respect for freedom and individual rights. The kind that is difficult to reconcile.

I hope by this time it is clear. I have never attacked the Superintendent’s life style choices or religious views. I believe that God gives all people the freedom to choose their life path and religious beliefs. I believe He is the only one that can hold individuals responsible for their rejection of truth and Himself. I also believe I am called to love everyone. IF I “attack,” “target,” or “scrutinize” people it is actually not them but their behavior, words, and works. Generally speaking this “scrutiny” is reserved for those in public office making decisions for the public. I state this emphatically only because it has been repeated to me by several under the influence of the Superintendent that I am against her lifestyle choices and that is my source of disagreements with her. That is not true, and I do not think anyone has evidence of such an accusation.

However, all people have their own agendas built on their core values and beliefs. I attempt to align my core values and beliefs on the Word of God. Others have their own basis for their values and beliefs that may contradict mine. I do not think that means that we cannot live together in a community and be good neighbors. But it does mean we have to agree on certain principles, like freedom of expression, speech, and religion.

As I tried to get my bearings from shock of all of these happenings, I had a bigger shock. Shortly after my meeting with Superintendent Wharton the school website under the board meeting tab had the new policies added under the May meeting packet. Below is my screen shot of the website at that time.

This was how the school website looked for 2 years. These policies were the only ones ever listed like this on the board meeting tab. Over the years I requested the board remove this false record more than 3 times. For awhile I asked them at every meeting. Needless to say it did not make the board members very happy that I refused to stop telling the truth about this issue.

It was for the falsification of the school website concerning the posting of these policies that I filed my first complaint. Superintendent Wharton claimed in her letter that I have filed “numerous complaints” against her and the board of directors, and that this cost the district thousands of dollars in legal fees (stated November 3, 2023 in executive session). I have previously filed two claims prior to September 19, 2023 First Amendment complains (of which Superintendent Wharton was unaware when she read her letter) and one concerning her letter filed on October 23, 2023.

The first complaint filed with the board was against the Superintendent for falsifying the website as seen here.

The NVSD Board ruled that they “did not need to further investigate the complaint filed July 23, 2019. ” So I filed a complaint to the Oregon Teachers Standards and Practices Commission. This was because at the time Oregon Ethics Commission only had jurisdiction over matters concerning misuse of public funds. If the school board or the Superintendent spent school funds to consult legal on this complaint then I suggest they misused funds. Either the website was falsified at the direction of Superintendent Wharton or it was not. That would have required the board to ask about three people under their employ how the website had been changed. Superintendent Wharton should have had access to legal representation through the teacher’s union, which I assume she belongs (Oregon Educators Association).

Aside from filing the complaints my confrontational behavior on this issue included soliciting signatures for a petition asking for a moratorium on the policies passed without public inspection.

Here is a copy of that petition.

In the end the NVSD Board decided to ignore those that signed this petition and the request of the ten or more people that attended the August 2019 board meeting. But they did decide to establish a policy committee. Diane Boisa had told me she wanted to appoint me to this committee. However, it was at this time that our family temporarily moved to Lancaster, California for my husband to attend West Coast Baptist College. Other than follow up with the TSPC complaint, I had no dealings from October 2019-June 2020 with Nestucca Valley School District.

Unfortunately, as we all know things did not improve during this school year. In fact, if anything things became exponentially worse because of COVID, Comprehensive Distance Learning, and the introduction of CRT policies.