Teachers who allegedly disrupted meeting reined in

Meek

by Lynne Lynch
| February 15, 2018 2:00 AM

MOSES LAKE — A decision on whether last year’s contested school bond election will be upheld isn’t expected from the state Court of Appeals until March 15.

Until then, it doesn’t appear there’s relief in sight to help alleviate overcrowding at Moses Lake High School.

Frustrations reached a boiling point at the Jan. 25 school board meeting. Two Moses Lake teachers, Sara Larson and Heather Holman, who were in attendance received nondisciplinary “professional guidance” letters from superintendent Josh Meek for allegedly disrupting the meeting and shouting at board member Elliott Goodrich. Some of Larson’s alleged behavior was documented on video and triggered a complaint from a member of the public.

Any audience member can be removed for disrupting public meetings according to the state’s Open Public Meetings Act. “While you were not removed from the meeting, I am of the observation that you should have been as your actions were disruptive,” Meek wrote. The letters were released to the newspaper on Feb. 9 as part of the state’s Open Public Records Act.

Larson, a Frontier Middle School teacher, was identified on the newspaper’s Facebook Live video as responsible for heckling Goodrich. At the beginning of the meeting, Larson was honored along with a team of teachers for signing up over 80 percent of Frontier students for College Bound scholarships. Larson and Holman declined to comment for the article.

An audience member, Kristine Worley of Moses Lake, complained about Larson’s alleged behavior in a letter to Goodrich and in a letter she submitted for publication in the Herald. In her letter, Worley alleged Larson told her to “shut up” when she asked her to quiet down during the meeting. Worley isn’t in favor of building the second high school in the location that’s been chosen because of gang and drug problems. She lives near the site of the proposed high school.

“When I asked her for quiet, she told me to get out,” Worley wrote. “I was shocked, appalled and downright disgusted that these ‘honored’ teachers were acting like the children that they were supposedly arguing for. When the two people who were questioning the bond got up to speak, she and her other ‘honored’ co-workers got on their cell phones and started laughing, jeering and making noise. I was very disappointed that even though there was police presence, they could have at least asked for everyone to be quiet, especially when you were trying to speak. But I guess they were only there in case a fight broke out.”

Worley also claimed that Larson and others she was seated with glared at her every time she held up a red card to show her disagreement over what was being said.

Jeremy Pitts, president of the teachers’ union, the Moses Lake Education Association, provided the following statement to the Herald:

“No one gives up their First Amendment rights when they become a teacher or school district employee. This is still America and the freedom of speech is still one of the bedrock principles we stand on. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that teachers are supported in their speech on matters of public concern and, obviously, the bond election is a matter of public concern in our community. The court has also ruled that public employers have some discretion in limiting employee speech as it pertains to their official job duties. Attending a school board meeting is not a job requirement or essential duty of any school district employee beyond the district Administrators and any attendees are there as private citizens. One’s personal opinion of others’ behavior does not entitle them to infringe on the first amendment rights of private citizens.”

Pitts wrote that he regularly attends school board meetings and hasn’t witnessed alleged bullying or intimidation. He also hasn’t seen any written complaints.

The school board hasn’t been consistent with enforcing the disruption rule of the Open Public Meetings Act, he stated.

Text messages obtained via a public records request show first-term board member Vickey Melcher was upset about the meeting.

“If I may offer my opinion – the Sara incident last night is the talk of the day at the hs and I assume other schools, as well as people who saw it online,” Melcher wrote to an unidentified district employee. “I completely understand that it could be a touchy thing because of the Union, but she needs to be dealt with firmly! In any other company, she would probably be terminated. While I understand Vicki (Groff) wanting to deal with it lightly, can she at least do it in Greg’s office (Frontier principal) so Sara gets the message this is serious? Can she be banned from attending the meetings for a while, can she be made to apologize to Elliott and the rest of us sitting up there?”

The district employee replied they were checking with their attorney to see what can be done about Larson legally and as a private citizen.

Melcher, who is a retired teacher, also wrote Larson was setting an “extremely bad example for our students.”

First-term board president Eric Stones reflected this week on the progression of this year’s board meetings.

Stones, a religion instructor and seminary education manager, empathizes with the teachers at the Jan. 25 meeting. He said he found himself going “a little aggressively” with some people on his cabinet at the Feb. 8 school board meeting during a discussion about how the reserve fund can best be used.

“I felt chagrined personally, that I went too aggressively,” Stones commented. “My feeling is compassion.”

Some of the board is a “inexperienced bunch trying to navigate a pretty tricky and divisive topic,” he said. “The learning curve is steep but we’re picking up on it quickly.”

Stones said he never felt threatened during the Jan. 25 meeting or that the meeting wasn’t under control.

Goodrich, the target of the teachers’ ire, felt differently.

“I was not the only one who suffered because of our teachers tonight,” Goodrich said in a email forwarding a complaint letter to Meek.

Video links from Jan. 26 board meeting: