According to a Columbia County district official on Friday, the investigator needs more time to interview people involved, which is why the much-anticipated internal inquiry into the St. Helens School District’s handling of student accusations of educator sexual misconduct has been postponed.
According to J. Marie, a district crisis communications spokesman, the initial plan called for the inquiry, which was carried out by former Willamette Education Service District Superintendent Dave Novotney, to be made public late last week.
However, Marie informed reporters Friday that Novotney, who is investigating the district’s culture and required reporting regulations in the midst of ongoing state and criminal investigations involving several employees, will require an additional two to three weeks to do his work.
According to Marie, the district’s final corrective action plan, whose adoption is currently on hold, will be informed by Novotney’s probe, thus the delay will have a cascading effect.
Karen Fischer Gray, a seasoned Oregon education administrator, was named acting superintendent by the St. Helens school board this week. Gray, a former superintendent of the Parkrose and Lincoln County school districts as well as Coos Bay, will begin her new position on Monday.
In order to rent a house in St. Helens during the week, Gray, who presently resides in Estacada, will receive $17,000 a month in addition to a $2,000 housing allowance.
Her contract expires in June, although it may be modified to allow for an early discharge based on the findings of Superintendent Scot Stockwell’s district and state investigations.
Since November, Stockwell has been on paid administrative leave after it was revealed that students at St. Helens High School had complained to administrators about two teachers’ allegedly inappropriate physical contact, but that the school had never reported the incident to the police or state authorities as required by law.
Stockwell and Katy Wagner, the principal of St. Helens High School at the time the accusations surfaced in November, are under investigation by the Oregon Department of Human Services. Due to their reluctance to disclose kid safety concerns, both are being investigated for alleged neglect.
Marie also informed reporters on Friday that although the criminal investigations are still underway, the detectives working on the case have come to the conclusion that none of the school board members were aware of the alleged inappropriate and unlawful conduct beforehand.
The expense of paying district employees who had been on administrative leave for months, as well as the cost of replacing them, was not immediately known to her.
Julia Silverman writes for The Oregonian/OregonLive on education. You can contact her at [email protected].
