Note: ONLY sign this petition if you are a resident of Washoe County Nevada

Washoe County School District
Attn: School Board and Superintendent McNeill
425 E. Ninth St
Reno, NV 89512

RE: Violations of Nevada Law and Denial of Public Rights
by Washoe County School District

Dear WCSD School Board Members and Superintendent McNeill,

The Board of Trustees of the Washoe County School District (WCSD) is operating in a manner, and allowing WCSD Superintendent Kristin McNeill to operate in a manner, which violates the letter and spirit of Nevada Law. The School Board has ignored and circumvented the Nevada Open Meeting Law by purposefully holding meetings in a manner and under procedures which severely restrict public input, even going so far as to disallow the People’s elected representatives from bringing up matters of public concern at Board meetings. Further, WCSD is failing to investigate matters of serious public concern by ignoring complaints against Superintendent Kristin McNeill, including allowing serious allegations to be “investigated” by a subordinate employee and disregarding the conflict of interest present in Superintendent McNeill’s fiancé holding the position of Budget Director.

Against the backdrop of these improprieties, WCSD is failing its students, their families, and the public by holding to failed procedures which are resulting in undereducated students being denied a fair education and getting pushed out of school without having received a competent education.

It is unacceptable for Washoe County’s elected School Board to fail in its mission so horrendously while simultaneously restricting public, and even minority board-member, input into the matters critical to the improvement of Washoe County schools.

The WCSD Board’s violations of law include, but are not limited to: 

Scheduling Board meetings in facilities whose acoustics and/or poor quality sound reproduction prevent attendees and the community from fully hearing the business being transacted by the Board, and refusing to either fix the acoustics, or cancel and re-schedule the meetings;

Scheduling Board meetings too infrequently, resulting in overly long weekday meetings frequently lasting 6-8 hours and past midnight, thus preventing community members from being able to observe the entire meetings and the business being transacted;

Seating the Board at excessive distances of up to 100' or more from the meeting's attendees, thus excluding the community from fully observing the business being transacted by the Board. This excessive distancing has never been required or recommended by COVID protocols;

Allowing Board President Angela Taylor to: 

Unilaterally implement arbitrary and capricious practices that prevent individual Board members from adding items to meeting agendas; and

Deleting the traditional items "Board Comments" and "Future Agenda Items" from the agendas. 

This has resulted in de facto "gagging" of individual Board members, thus denying representation to the tens of thousands of voters who elected the individual Board members.  Taylor's practices have specifically targeted Board member Jeff Church, who has expressed opinions opposed to Taylor's. 

Refusing to enforce existing Board policies and resolutions that are violated by the WCSD Superintendent and the Board, for example:

In recently investigating a complaint against the Superintendent regarding her violation of Board Policy 1310, the Superintendent, with Board approval, chose to be "investigated" by one of her subordinate WCSD employees; and

The Board has refused to investigate Paul White's charge of racist comments by Board President Taylor as required by Board Resolution 02-011.

Allowing Board President Taylor to repeatedly and falsely state, both in public statements and in writing, that her personal opinions on WCSD issues are supported by the entire Board. Previously, Taylor publicly apologized for one such action but since then, has continued this practice. "On behalf of the board"

Allowing Superintendent McNeill to deny transparent public access to school sites.  This includes denying unannounced classroom visits by Board members or parents/community members with a vested interest, thus preventing the community from having any realistic idea of the current state of our schools. McNeill's comprehensive restriction of public access to the school sites was in place long before ANY COVID protocols were implemented. It is a blatant violation of ALL of the Board's well-publicized "Goals", including: 

"Establishing a system that is transparent, and accountable" (Goal #4); 

"Engaging family and the community in strong partnerships" (Goal #3); and

"Ensuring that our schools are supportive and welcoming environments." (Goal #5);  

Allowing the illegal conflict of interest created by the following personnel situation:

Superintendent McNeill states on her WCSD website profile that she is "engaged to Mr. Mike Schroeder;"

Mike Schroeder is listed on the WCSD Organizational Chart as "Budget Director & Office of Financial Management;

As the top-ranking WCSD administrator, Superintendent McNeill has ultimate control over WCSD's budget of almost $1B and would have many occasions when she would seek the Budget Director Schroeder's (her fiancé) support and approval on expenditures; and

NRS 281A.420 states: "Pursuant to Nevada state law, a 'conflict of interest' is the private or personal interest of a public officer or employee, or of someone close to a public officer or employee, that is sufficient to affect his or her independence of judgment or the objective exercise of public duty." – The relationship between Superintendent McNeill and Budget Director Mike Schroeder creates a conflict of interest in any matter the two must collaborate on.

In light of these violations of law, the People of Washoe County are unable to seek any redress for serious indiscretions in the running of the Washoe County School District. Because of the apparent disregard for the law and the indifference to proper procedure, the People of Washoe County are left to, at best, speculate as to the Board’s motive and at worst conclude the Board is willfully failing to consider the concerns of the citizens and the needs of the students who should be its highest concern.

Major concerns which the Board is apparently either unwilling or unable to address include:

Allowing for over a decade:
Our schools to rank worst-in-the-nation, with recent ACT test scores showing that almost 90% of WCSD graduates do not qualify for even the most minimal college classes;

The WCSD graduation rate (which WCSD can - and DOES tamper with) to steadily INCREASE, while the national ACT test scores (which WCSD can NOT tamper with) steadily DECREASES.  This has been accomplished in part by the use of "Credit Recovery" programs, which give full-credit passing grades to students who have failed semester-length classes, by doing as little as 5 hours of insubstantial "busy work" at the end of the semester; 

Teachers who give students failing grades are threatened and intimidated by site administrators unless they pass all students;

Our students to consistently rank nationally as the "Students Least Likely to Have Successful Futures;" 

Our students to NOT achieve the "annual student academic growth" required by WCSD's own publicized "Goals" (Goal #1);

Our students to NOT receive the "...foundation of skills and content knowledge necessary for Nevada students to be successful." (Nevada Academic Content Standards); and

Our schools to NOT "improve student achievement...[provide environments that] facilitate learning...and promote excellence."  (Mission of the Nevada Department of Education);

Annual budget deficits in the tens-of-millions of dollars due to WCSD's refusal to implement cost-reduction measures practiced by countless solvent school districts throughout the nation;

Consistent physical assaults and disrespectful behavior toward teachers that goes largely unpunished, makes a quality learning environment impossible, and has led to the departure of many of WCSD's best teachers. This is a violation of WCSD's widely publicized Goal #2: "...Retaining highly effective personnel;" and

An undeniably serious problem regarding on-campus drug/alcohol abuse (20-50%+ of students in any given high school class being under the influence), and WCSD has taken no steps to implement a school-wide drug-testing program;

To redress the wrongs the WCSD Board is perpetuating, the undersigned People of Washoe County hereby demand the following corrective measures:

Locate meetings in locations which are set up for clear, multi-voice audible conversations. If an acoustical problem occurs it must either be immediately fixed or cancel and re-schedule the meeting;

Change the Board Meeting Schedule to 3 times per month to shorten meetings and enable more of the community to observe the Board's actions;

Seat the Board as close as possible to the audience;

Allow any 1 Board member (not two as currently required) to place items on the Agendas; 

Permanently reinstate "Board Comment" and "New Agenda Items" on the Board meeting agendas;

Adopt a policy stating that complaints against the Superintendent will be investigated by a non-employee, independent investigator;

The Board must follow their Policy 02-011 by investigating the current racism complaint against the Board President and report their findings. All future complaints, regardless of who they are BY or AGAINST must be investigated impartially and publicly reported; 

The Board must take public action to censure President Taylor for repeatedly and mistakenly publicly speaking for all of the Board, and state that any future occurrences will result in further disciplinary action;

Approve a Board policy that ANY Board Member, parent, or relevant community member has the right to be allowed to make unannounced classroom and site visits, within reasonable guidelines; 

The Board will work with community members signatory to this letter to establish a Standing Oversight Committee to ensure Board members, parents, and community members have - and maintain this open access for unannounced visits; 

Existing law confirms the relationship between Supt. McNeill's position and that of her fiancé is an inappropriate conflict of interest. A re-assigning of positions and responsibilities must be implemented to ensure compliance with the law; 

Immediately abolish the Credit Recovery program, and institute a teacher-majority "Graduation Oversight Committee" that confirms the legitimate completion of 12th grade by ALL students recommended for graduation;

Create a 12th grade level exit exam which students must pass to receive a diploma;

Establish an ad-hoc committee which includes parties signatory to this letter to investigate and report to the community the potential savings which could be realized from: maximum privatization of support services, combining and reducing excessive administrative positions, double-scheduling at school sites, and future new-school design focusing solely on the needs for academic instruction.

Petition the Nevada State Board of Education immediately to allow WCSD to eliminate the nationally-acknowledged failure of the "Restorative Discipline" method and replace it with effective, traditional discipline methods; and

Create an ad-hoc committee which includes parties signatory to this letter, to develop and implement a voluntary, comprehensive drug-testing policy for all secondary schools.

The Nevada Open Meeting Law Manual states “In conducting meetings, one always should remember the message in NRS 241.010: ‘In enacting this chapter, the Legislature finds and declares that all public bodies exist to aid in the conduct of the people’s business. It is the intent of the law that their actions be taken openly and that their deliberations be conducted openly,’” (§7.01). In ignoring the provisions of Nevada’s Open Meetings Law, and in ignoring the mandates of law and policy in its conduct, the WCSD Board and Superintendent McNeill have stolen from the people of Washoe County their right to be not only informed, but also a part of, the deliberations of local government.

As further cited by the Open Meeting Law Manual, “The people of this state do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies which serve them. The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control over instruments they have created.” Stockton Newspapers, Inc. v. Redevelopment Agency, 214 Cal.Rptr. 561, 63 (Ct. App. 1985) (quoting Cal. Gov’t Code § 54950 (West 1985), the analogous California statute).

Having been forced to the sidelines, the People of Washoe County, signed below, hereby demand the grievances enumerated herein be immediately addressed by the Board, as demanded above. If the Board is unwilling to make these necessary changes, the People of Washoe County will be forced to seek any and all available recourse, up to and including filing suit against the WCSD for their seemingly unchecked violations of law.

Best regards,
JOEY GILBERT LAW

 

JOSEPH S. GILBERT, ESQ., et al