Concerns about mild punishment for racist incidents related to Vancouver director’s vacation

The Evergreen School District still isn’t sure why a public high school principal took six weeks of administrative leave raising about $ 3,100 a week in the process.

So far, while some updates have become known to the public, district officials have declined to get specific, saying they could not discuss personnel matters.

The school district put Mountain View High School principal Matt Johnson on leave on March 16. He returned briefly on April 21, but soon found himself back on vacation after questioning the mysterious allegations against him.

On that day, Johnson wrote in an email to all employees that “the complaints in the investigation were not supported by credible evidence”. The Colombian newspaper first covered the email and Johnson’s vacation.

After he put Johnson on leave, district officials criticized his claim.

“Unfortunately, this statement is inaccurate because the investigation identified a number of concerns that Matt and the executive team need to address,” wrote Bill Oman, senior director of secondary education, the following day.

“Matt was put on administrative leave this morning as we investigate the impact of his message,” added Oman.

The sign in front of the Evergreen Public Schools was pictured on July 29, 2020. The school was one of many to announce plans for the fall of online-only classes.

Troy Brynelson / Troy Brynelson

According to the parents of Mountain View students and several faculty members, Johnson’s vacation is, at least in part, linked to concerns about other faculty members using racist language with little, if any, consequences.

Several teachers told OPB they were interpreting Johnson’s email as an attempt to discredit concerns. The teachers refused to speak on the file, saying they feared retaliation for speaking in public. OPB has filed a public record request for complaints against Johnson.

One notable claim, confirmed by the faculty, the student family present, and others unauthorized to discuss staffing issues, concerned a physical education teacher in the spring of 2020.

The teacher, Tim Buswell, reportedly shouted the N word to a Latino student who refused to dress in gym clothes that day. According to these sources, the student refused the teacher’s instructions and used the racial fraud in the same sentence. Buswell responded by shouting the word repeatedly while several gym class students and a faculty member watched.

A parent, Michael Bolds, who is black, found out about the incident when he was picking up his two children from Mountain View that day. His daughter told the story to her sibling when the family drove home. Bolds said when he heard their conversation he asked what had happened and then stopped the car.

Bolds said he drove back to Mountain View immediately and went to the front office. He said he asked to speak to Johnson. Bolds said he knew Johnson before when he was one of his son’s little baseball coaches.

Instead, Bolds said he had been directed to speak to an assistant principal.

“The conversation was not satisfactory to me,” said Bolds. “He just made it sound like it was being treated. It would be done. “

Michael Bolds’ wife Jennifer Bolds said three of her four oldest children have been or are currently attending Mountain View. She said her children had experienced racism in their lives but never saw a teacher use racist language.

“I think there should be no tolerance,” she said.

Buswell called her several times that evening to apologize, they said. He called Michael, who told the teacher that he would rather speak in person. Buswell also called the family’s 25-year-old daughter, Shay Scott, who never visited Mountain View but is listed as a guardian on her sibling’s student records.

Scott said the alleged incident injured not only the student but all of the school’s colored students.

“As if they don’t already feel out of place, are you shouting that out?” said Scott, a 2014 graduate of Evergreen High School.

Mountain View is 47.7% white, 29.7% Spanish or Latin American, 8.7% Asian, 3% black, 1.7% Hawaiian or Pacific, and 0.5% Native American or Alaskan, according to the latest state data. Students who identify as two or more races account for 8.7%.

The next day, school staff pulled Bolds’ daughter out of class to speak to Buswell, the family said. They said they put her and a friend in a room with Buswell and a counselor.

“I didn’t like that at all,” said Michael Bolds. “You have adults who have teamed up with her. I wanted to be there and I told them. “

The family of the student Buswell allegedly addressed the bows declined to comment on the article. Repeated attempts to contact Buswell were unsuccessful.

The Bolds said they eventually sat down with Johnson, the director. Jennifer Bolds said the conversation had resulted in no conclusions.

“They couldn’t tell us what was in the works, what his punishment was, but they could tell us he was training. But for privacy reasons he couldn’t tell us, ”said Jennifer Bolds. “It’s hard. You know, you’re crazy and you don’t feel right. We should probably have put more pressure on.”

It is unclear whether Buswell ever had any consequences. Evergreen’s communications director Gail Spolar declined to answer most of the questions OPB asked about the incident, including whether the district had ever investigated.

“The district takes all complaints very seriously and investigates them thoroughly and in a timely manner, and takes all necessary action based on the results of the investigation,” said Spolar.

Instead, Spolar instructed OPB to file a public record request, which often takes weeks – sometimes months – to be provided.

After meeting with Johnson, the Bolds family said they had never heard of the incident from the district again. Jennifer said she felt the family got lip service.

“I was expecting like a follow-up or something,” she said.

Shortly after the Bolds’ meetings, the emerging COVID-19 pandemic effectively closed the school.

Buswell remained employed at Evergreen Public Schools even after the incident. First hired in 1986, he filed his resignation on March 2, 2021, about a year after the alleged incident. The school board approved the resignation on March 23.

Buswell makes about $ 8,442 a month, Spolar said.