Council for a Better Deer Park
Mission: Enhance involvement and transparency within the Community of Deer Park, WA across a wide spectrum of issues in schools, government, non-profits, and community services.
Email: info@deerparkcouncil.org
Website: deerparkcouncil.org
President: LaCinda Ashby
Member at Large: Dede Dodd
To the Community:
I feel compelled to help my husband, Gerry Ashby, who you elected to Deer Park School Board, Director #4, to get important information to the community about a wide variety of issues DPSD wishes to keep silent. When Gerry ran for office last fall, he heard your school issues, and he developed the following platform for his campaign. Since taking office he has worked diligently to work through the shortfalls, increase transparency, and develop strategies to move the school district forward. Before taking office in early December he met with Eric Keller, School Board President, and Alexa Allman, DPSD Superintendent, for two “onboarding meetings.” Essentially, Gerry felt considerable resistance to investigating issues from his platform. He was told there is nothing wrong at Homelink and no written complaints for the last 5 years for Gerry to review. On Homelink issues Alexa told Gerry that if the older Homelink families aren’t happy, they can leave because she has a waiting list of families. At both meetings, he made it clear Eric was not his boss and that he represented the voters and his voice would not be silenced. In fact, my husband has reiterated this time after time at several board meetings. If you review the recordings, Eric has told Gerry he can only bring up issues as a citizen. While Eric and Alexa speak for the district, Gerry was still elected by the voters to speak for them, and he will continue to do so without threat or reprisals from the DPSD Staff or School Board Directors. I will tell you that Gerry’s civil liberty rights have already been violated in writing.
From early January Gerry has maintained his and the voters voice by writing official letters to the board to address issues, provide feedback, and bring forth improvement ideas for discussion. By law, these are now public records; however, DPSD refuses to post them to the DPSD Director’s pages. Why is that? Therefore, I am posting them to this non-profit site for all the public to see for complete transparency. Otherwise, this information will continue to be buried or minimized from the parents, voters, and staff.
Gerry was on the transportation committee last spring that Alexa oversaw. Although the group was chartered to brainstorm solutions to a variety of transportation problems, he felt the meetings were a formality to Alexa’s predetermined solutions. Basically, Alexa was pushing a “Double Routing” concept where buses run twice in the AM and PM. It would work something like this. During the first run high school and middle school students would be picked up. Then the buses would rerun the route, picking up the elementary students. The reverse would happen at the end of the day. It means our drivers have to run the routes twice, adding labor and maintenance costs. Depending on parent’s work schedule, young kids could be home alone for a period of time in the AM. Most families have two working parents that rely on their eldest to look after their younger siblings. This kind of plan cost more and create hardships for working parents in our district.
On the last day the group finished up, Gerry told me he asked Alexa what solutions we had for the unsafe road conditions for the bus drivers, and her reply was, “We don’t have time.” Gerry told me he expressed his disappointment to her and stated, “What? We don’t have time for safety of our drivers and kids?” Gerry wrote a transportation 011 letter to the school board, and nothing came of it. So, Gerry went to the Spokane County Commissioners on 8 Oct 24 as a “Deer Park Citizen” and ask for their support to visit and drive with the DP Bus Transportation Superintendent and her assistant as covered in this email.
Around the middle of December last year Gerry took a tour of Arcadia school and the DPSD Transportation facility. Gerry confirmed Arcadia’s building condition and the vastly overcrowding conditions. He knew the transportation facility conditions were bad, but he found them to be absolutely atrocious. He wants the public to know that the articles on these facilities are true.
After the bond for Arcadia renovations, new Elementary, and new Transportation facilities failed to pass in February, DPSD held a public “post bond hot wash” on 20 Feb 24 to discuss the way forward. When Gerry was asked on his thoughts, he told the group, we cannot target the “no” voters. The voters have spoken, so we need to listen and act. He told them he would provide the board his “Post Bond Assessment,” which he read completely at the 26 February School Board. Later Eric would state Gerry’s extensive assessment report was just an opinion, but again, it is still not published for the public to review. Why? Because it’s embarrassing and highlights DPSD does not listen to the public.
During the 13 May School Board Meeting, Alexa presented 3 bond options for initial review, and Gerry asked where the finer funding details were to show how much money was being spent on each effort. He was referring to land, the roads, infrastructure, as well as the buildings. He said the public wants to know. Alexa ignored Gerry’s request and presented slightly modified options on 27 May. At that meeting Gerry asked where the bond funds were to renovate Arcadia for Homelink. Eric replied there isn’t, and Arcadia will be just fine for Homelink as is. Gerry replied that the DPSD just alienated Homelink families because they were included in the last bond, but not this one. Basically, DPSD wants to sell a lower bond number to get voter support. Gerry brought up his 26 February “post bond assessment” letter, which addressed the lack of a strategic plan. He told them we can’t ask the public for millions of dollars without one. One person from the floor said you don’t need a plan for a business, and Gerry replied banks require a business plan if you want to get a business loan. When the bond was put to a vote, Gerry was the only “No.” Alexa said the DPSD would turn the bond details to the county in the next week or two, alluding the district didn’t have much have time to file.
In the 3rd week in July we were out of town, and my husband took a call from Alexa. I heard him say we were not taking transportation off bond consideration. Apparently, the WA State told DPSD that we didn’t qualify for “matching” for the middle school expansion. WA State wanted their $7.5M back, but reduced it to $4-5 Million. Essentially the voters ended up paying for the entire middle school renovations/expansion without WA State matching. Alexa explained DPSD has no choice but to pay the money back, but we can include the shortfall in the upcoming bond. Gerry replied, “I thought the bond was finalized in early June?” She said we actually had a little time to modify the bond. Two options given to him. Drop transportation facility or add $4-5M to the bond to cover the middle school renovations. While Gerry supports a better home for Homelink, a new transportation facility, and a new larger elementary school, he was not available to the board to reiterate his “no” vote submitted on 27 May.
Then on September 30th the Spokesman Review published a bond article. Here’s the segment on the strategic plan
“School Board
member Gerry Ashby was absent [on vacation] from the vote to approve the
resolution, though shared an assessment of the bond’s failure at a previous
school board meeting on May 13 [from his 26 February 2024 ‘Post Bond
Assessment’].
Ashby said before
the school district went for another bond, they should first better create and
advertise a long- and short-term strategic plan pertaining to the district’s
finances. He also advocated for a detailed breakdown of how much components of
each project costs.
“We need to make
the data available to the public, whatever they ask for,” Ashby said. “It needs
to be simple, straight-forward, it has to be relevant, pertinent, consistent, [and]
accurate.”
Responding to
Ashby’s assessment, board Chair Eric Keller said the district had a strategic
plan and facilities planning was part of it. Allman said this plan had been put
on the “back burner” while planning for the bond, but not for lack of
transparency.”
Source: https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2024/sep/30/as-schools-bust-at-the-seams-deer-park-school-dist/
The plan Eric and Alexa are
talking about is the short range DPSD Facilities Plan that does not take the
school district 10 or 15 years from now when the next wave of overcrowding
issues are due to arrive. Basically, the
DPSD is telling the voters, give us the money, and we’ll figure out how to
spend it later. This is classic “Cart
before the horse.” Gerry continues to
advocate a strategic plan that covers the whole bond period for all
schools. Besides, do you think Eric and
Alexa will be around in 10 or 15 years when the next school is maxed out? I know Gerry, and he will not leave a mess
for someone else to clean up later.
In two separate school board
meetings, I asked for a copy of the DPSD Strategic Plan, and I was told to go
look at the Facilities Plan.
As a Product Manager by trade, I am used to seeing plans for at least the next
5 years, this is a school district that wants to lock us in for 27 years and
the facilities plan is only through 2025.
What about 2025 through 2052 when this bond would be paid off?! I guess there will be no needs in the
district for 27 years? What transparency
is Alexa talking about? This bond
initiative is far from transparent.
Gerry and I will be voting “no”
on the bond. It truly is sad that the school board and Alexa have failed to
come up with a good plan to address the needs of our children, but for their
future we have to reject this plan to indebt our children for the next 27
years. We can’t shackle our kids with a debt just because it checks a box on
someone’s ledger.
At Gerry’s 2nd school board meeting on 8 January, he presented a 001 letter to the school board, stating he will write the board official correspondence to bring forth issues, new initiatives, etc. This was an attempt to ensure his voice was heard, reported in the minutes and recorded in accordance with RCW 42.56 and RCW 42.30. He informed the board via 002 he wanted copies of everything he signed, which DPSD is yet to comply.
Gerry followed up with his 001 request with 001b on Jan 22, 2024, which has also been ignored. On May 28th, Gerry again reiterated complying with OPMA and increasing transparency via 001c. In early June Eric called Gerry to have a one-on-one meeting, and essentially Gerry learned that Eric just wants to be reactive to issues where Gerry wants to be proactive as captured in 001d. It was during this meeting Eric told him that the DPSD had spent hundreds of dollars for lawyers to review his letters. Gerry submitted a Public Record Request (PRR) as a Deer Park Citizen on Aug 26th to ascertain the legal fees incurred. The PRR report did not produce any sufficient detail to ascertain costs to Gerry’s letters. Overall, Gerry’s letters are pretty straight forward, so using school funds seems a waste of tax payer’s money.
During
Gerry’s onboarding in early December, Eric said Gerry could replace him on the DPSD
Facility Committee. Gerry wrote the 005
letter to formalize his joining the facilities committee. The letter also discussed how to formulate building
of the new elementary and new transportation facility with energy saving
measures. Soon after Eric went back on
his word and said he would keep his membership on the DPSD Facility
Committee. Why didn’t Eric lead this group to create a
multi-year DPSD Strategic Plan when so many people brought up the issues during
the February bond? BTW, in the USAF
Gerry lead an 80-member team in the development of an $80M satellite backup
facility. If the US military says he’s
qualified enough to oversee requirements for an $80M facility, I think our
community can trust him with his best efforts for the best elementary school
and transportation facilities. So why
would Eric deny the school district someone with that kind of experience in
facilities development and energy than himself.
On June 10th Gerry presented a way forward for addressing the lacking
DPSD Strategic Plan via 005b.
Did you know DPSD puts $850K aside every year for capital improvements (Section 3)? This money comes from residuals after each school pays for salaries, supplies, utilities, maintenance, etc. When Gerry questioned the “no money from tax payers” to fund and build the Middle School Expansion at the Dec 11th School Board meeting, Eric revealed that the money came from Homelink. Since then Gerry has asked a number of times how much each school contributes to the $850K, and the answer is always, “It all comes from one General Fund.” During the previous bond, people raised concerns about the funding of the middle school expansion, which Gerry captured it in his “bond assessment letter.” Therefore, Gerry as a Deer Park Citizen submitted a Public Records Request on 26 Aug to request to find the answer, and he got 12 raw financial documents that are around 100 pages each. At the Aug 26th School Board, Gerry voted against the DPSD budget and putting away an additional $850K until we know exactly where the money comes from. Gerry iterates, “The moving of $850K is legal. However, I don’t feel it is ethical,” considering a bulk of the funds seem to come from Homelink residuals. When Gerry taught at Homelink, he had to photocopy graph paper because Homelink couldn’t afford to buy graph paper, but yet, the school board finds a way to recoup $850K a year from “unused funds”. Not saying we need to buy gold plated pens and not have any control, but if we can’t buy graph paper…what else are our educators doing without, working around or buying out of their own pocket to educate our children?
Gerry was uncomfortable signing vouchers for vendor payments with incomplete information on what the voucher was used for via 003. He would not approve of the financials until he was confident of what the expenditures were. Over the summer, when a DPSD staff member refused to grant him access to financial vouchers during the school board meeting, he wrote the board 001e. The incident is under investigation and not yet available to the public.
On May 13th, parents and a student came forward about bullying and complained that nothing was being done. Gerry asked Alexa if she knew about it, and she replies, “Yes” and then Eric Keller discussed how they are looking into the matter. Gerry wrote his first “bullying” letter to the board on May 28th via 010 to ensure something was being done. It was completely ignored, so he wrote the 2nd letter asking for action via 010b on Aug 26th. To which Eric Keller responded that “we’re doing nothing” because the proper procedures were not followed.
Gerry wrote a follow-up 3rd letter, 010c, dated September 9th to address the alarming “we’re doing nothing” comments Eric made to his August 26th letter at the end of the Aug 26th school board meeting. Several families came to the Sep 9th School Board meeting to express detailed concerns regarding continuing bullying at the Middle School, when asked if she was aware of the issue Alexa’s response was “Yes, but there is no form.” At the meeting I asked policy questions and what was required to have bullies investigated. Parents complaining to the administration only triggers a watch for further incidents for 2 days. Only filling out a full HIB investigation form results in an actual investigation. To help parents and guardians in our school district, here is what you have to do to get an actual investigation launched to stop bullying in our schools.
You can report to any adult but should consider filling out an HIB Report (https://5il.co/1056v) that report can be turned into the school Principal or Superintendent. You can also file it with the HIB Coordinator Mr. David Bentler 509.464.5808. Additionally, if you go to dpsd.org and go to Report Incident - then select the report via web or phone option - then select Harassment, Intimidation and Bullying at this point, you will ultimately fill out the HIB Incident Report which is required to kick off an investigation.
However, if you or your child report an incident as anonymous or confidential, the school district will have adults monitor the area where the alleged incident occurred. But no real investigation will take place.
If you report the incident as non-confidential then the alleged bully will not be directly questioned. By filing non-confidential within 5 school days the school will interview the complainant (your child) and the alleged perpetrator. The school district will then mail you an outcome of the investigation.
If you are not happy with the outcome, you have 5 school days to file an appeal. You need to take a written, signed statement that says you are appealing the HIB investigation outcome. The superintendent will then review the investigative report and will issue a written notice within 5 days.
If you are still not happy with that outcome, attending a school board meeting will just waste your time as the school board will not engage. You have to file a written, signed notice to the Secretary of the School Board within 5 school days of getting the written results from the Superintendent again asking for an appeal.
At this point, the school board or disciplinary appeal council will hear your appeal within 10 school days following the filing of your written notice. They then have 5 school days to review your appeal and their decision is final.
Hope that helps families navigate the procedures to address bullying, intimidated or harassment challenges that arise within the Deer Park School District.
Despite the fact that many parents attended the Sept 9th meeting to give detailed complaints about bullying, the minutes are extremely filtered, represented by “Bully” next to the parent’s name. Here is a link to the minutes the school district publishes and here is the recording of the meeting. While student’s names are not allowed to be made public, one would think any transparent organization would list out the comments brought forward to the board. But the DPSD school board has instead adopted the absolute minimum reporting requirements from the state of Washington.
The DPSD is now forcing the public to watch the captured videos to get information. BTW, those videos are buried at the bottom of the minute’s page with a small link. What working parent has time to skim through hours of videos to get the information from the school board meeting? When each parent spoke and Alexa was asked if she knew, she would reply she was aware but no form. An educator that doesn’t bother to educate the public who took their time in an evening to come talk to the school board and her only reply was “no form”. Not exactly helpful, I only knew about the HIB because I went online to find the form you have to submit to be allowed 3 minutes to talk to the school board. However, they just listen, the school board does nothing but rubber stamp the expenses and get updates on programs. If anything needs to be done, they just tell Alexa to look into it.
At the last school board meeting on Oct 14th, several volunteer parents and coaches complained about getting access to DPSD fields and facilities. Jason Lofstrom lead off the group by reading his letter from an email he sent to the school board earlier that day. The spokeswoman for the remaining volunteer parents and coaches reviewed her letter that was signed by many disappointed voters, parents, and coaches. In summary, many run into red tape or flat out denied, forcing them to ask other neighboring school districts, who are willing help. There are postings on Facebook all the time with different boosters using the high school facilities but other groups can’t get past the red tape. It’s called favoritism and we as voters should tell Alexa to make it stop. This is ridiculous, and Gerry was embarrassed our own tax payers are turned away from our facilities. I have seen Alexa’s long response to their plea, and it’s obvious she was not listening. This is easy. When an online form system isn’t working, you fall back to the old ways of someone taking the lead and fielding the calls. The website has a 4 page form to fill out but absolutely no instructions on where to take it or who to contact with questions. Can’t the district office address these type of requests?
During Gerry’s tour of Arcadia in mid-December, staff discussed a serious gap in video coverage of the portables, supporting 3rd graders. The issue was centered on inadequate power to support the needed cameras. During school board meetings January 15th , Gerry raised the concern, but the directors seem uninterested in the fact a serious breach was possible, so he wrote a vague 007 letter to get their attention without publically calling it out. It wasn’t until Gerry spoke with the facilities manager in March before the cameras were installed. Gerry thanked the DP Facility Staff via 007b and asked for the procedures to report and address future security or safety concerns.
Gerry taught at Homelink for 6-7 years, so he has first-hand knowledge of the Homelink’s poor learning environment, its make due facilities, and subpar technology. He loved teaching there because of the great kids and staff, but he quickly saw inequities between Homelink kids and traditional school district kids. Since joining the school board, he has repeatedly asked for a panel with Homelink families to get to the heart of the issues troubling them. The school board members repeatedly said, “No. Homelink is just fine.” Even when Gerry called for a special meeting via email with key Homelink key staff around spring break, Alexa jumped on the thread and thwarted Gerry’s effort to get answers. It appears she’s trying to run interference and leverage Eric to fend off Gerry from meeting with Homelink staff. Since when does a superintendent get to tell an elected school director what issues he or she can look into? It is quite evident that Gerry was fact finding. When Gerry tried again over the summer and asked for a meeting via 008 on June 10th to take place with Homelink staff just before school started, the school board decided to thwart his efforts and vote “No” on the measure as captured in the 8 July 2024 board minutes. Seriously, DPSD what are hiding that a simple meeting/panel on Homelink improvement ideas is denied? Are you worried about the $850K funds coming up in discussion, or is the funding just the tip of the iceberg?
We hear from several parents that something better is needed for the elementary drop-off/pick-up. While our daughter was there, we dreaded the afternoon pick-up. We agree with all of you, and we feel the same way that it’s unsafe with unkind drivers at times, so Gerry pledged to look into the matter when he took office. He brought the issue up during the January 24th school board meeting, and the directors told him to work the issue with the principal as a parent. He did so and built a presentation on this topic and other issues for the March 25th school board meeting, but Eric denied Gerry from presenting. Eric stated in public to all present, “Gerry, I don’t want to listen to you for an hour.” Gerry replied, “Eric, you are not my boss. You do not get to censor my presentation. I answer only to the voters.” This clearly shows first-hand how Eric operates and runs the school board like a dictatorship. Why did Eric directly interfere with an elected public official who wished to discuss safety matters with the public? Gerry later followed up with letter 009 and the March 25th presentation. Again, the school board denied looking further into the elementary parent pickup/drop-off as captured in the 8 July 24 school board minutes. Clearly, the school board is not interested in addressing safety problems. Gerry learned recently that transportation tried to present other parent/bus pickup options at the elementary, but the request was denied. We hope this will be elevated with parent inputs to the PTO.
Gerry wanting to learn more about the I-Ready testing, he wrote the board letter 004. Gerry is currently working with DPSD staff to show another way of graphing testing results.
In hopes to give struggling math students an opportunity to improve their math and compete with other similar students from other school districts, Gerry wrote 006. He brought the math idea up again in early September and added “Art” as a possible category for competing with other schools.
We know it is frustrating and disheartening to waste time going to the school board meetings, but only by pushing back on the superintendent and the board will we the tax paying voters ensure that they are doing the best thing for our kids and their future.