Allegations made against D21

 Reading from a letter titled “case overview,” McGlothlin told the board “specific evidence and documentation can be found in the packet that is being publicly provided to board members for immediate investigation.” Packets had been prepared for each board member. However, McGlothlin was directed to give the packets to district legal council.

A copy of the packet was also provided to The Dalles Chronicle.

McGlothlin asked for a “public accounting” of the matter at the January board meeting.

D21 board chair John Nelson responded to the petitioners in a letter Dec. 18, stating that “It would be improper for the Board to discuss personnel matters with any outside parties who do not legally represent an employee. Even then, such communication would take place through the District’s designated legal representative, especially such as this where there have been repeated threats of litigation.” In addition, Nelson wrote that “the Board will not be undertaking any investigation or ‘public accounting’ of this matter and will not be responding to you further,” and “nor will discussion be allowed in open session of any Board meeting on the topic.”

The allegations, prepared by Dufur lawyer James Wood, involve the removal of Park as director of transportation by Chief Financial Officer Randy Anderson on Sept. 6. Park remains with the department as a part-time bus driver.

By law, the district is required to provide transportation to students living more than one mile from school. Students living closer than a mile are in the “walking zone.”

At issue in Park’s removal is the question of whether or not an address in the 2300 block of E. 12th Street is within the school’s walking zone, and whether or not Park denied transportation to a family within a mile of the school.

In a Sept. 5 letter to Park from Anderson notifying her of the district’s intention to remove her as director, and scheduling a “pre-termination” hearing Sept. 6, Anderson described Park as having misrepresented the Dry Hollow Elementary walking zone to a parent.

Anderson wrote that Park had told the parent her address was .9965 miles from the school, according to “Transfinder,” the program used by the district to calculate and establish walk zones.

Anderson wrote that using Google, Map Quest and his personal vehicle, the home was 1.1 miles from the school. He said Park told the parent that “Thompson Street was the line, and that all houses west of Thompson Street were in the walk zone,” and that the Tranfinder software was the “official measurement tool for establishing walk zones.”

“I find you have willfully engaged in misconduct and a failure to exercise professional judgment” in two ways, Anderson wrote Park. First, by “intentionally providing a parent with false information for the purpose of denying that parent’s ability to have transportation to school.”  And second, that “when confronted with this issue you were dishonest with both me and the Superintendent. Specifically, you claimed that Transfinder measured the distance in question to be less than one mile when that was clearly not accurate.”

According to Park’s own narrative, the student was not denied transportation to school. Both Anderson and Park note that the parent of the student told Park, after learning they were within the walk zone, that her son had asthma and could not walk to school. The parent was told she could get a doctor’s note to allow the kids to ride the bus, and in expectation of a doctor’s note the students were allowed to ride the bus beginning the first day of school.

Park also noted that, immediately prior to receiving the letter arranging her removal as transportation director, she learned the family was homeless and was on the district’s homeless list. “In the past I have aways received the names of homeless families [from the superintendents office] and asked to provide transportation for them,” which is district policy, she wrote. Contacting the superintendents office, she was told “the mother had registered the students as homeless but the director of transportation was not notified.”

In regards to charges that she had lied regarding the mileage, Park in her own narrative states that on Sept. 5 Anderson “casually asked if I would show him how Transfinder figured out the mileage. I showed Randy how it worked and plotted out the mileage from Dry Hollow to 12th and Thompson streets at the edge of the walk zone and the mileage came out to 1.1.”

Park wrote that she later explained to Anderson and District Superintendent Candy Armstrong that the specific address was west of Thompson Street, and offered to show how the  .9965 miles was calculated, which they declined.

A measurement of .9965 miles is just 17.5 feet shy of a mile.

Park added that she was not involved in the original establishment of the walk zone, but that the district adopted the zone and the Transfinder measurements in 2012.

A Dry Hollow Elementary walk zone map available on the district’s website shows the disputed address as being within the walk zone boundary.

She added that she has not had a “working software routing program” to recalculate the mileage for over three years and had “no way to know that the walk zones were off.”

At her pre-termination hearing, “I told Randy that I did not lie...about the mileage and I could prove it,” Park wrote. “I told him I was following the walk zone that the school board approved.” She said Anderson said he didn’t believe her, but refused to come to the office so she could show him.

“Randy kept saying that he didn’t believe me and that I was responsible to make sure the walk zones were correct and that I was breaking the law and not following district policy.”

Following her removal, Attorney James Wood wrote Armstrong Sept. 16, stating that “based on a review of documentation provided by Debbie Park, we have concluded that a serious violation of civil and legal guarantees...by school district personnel [has occurred] and that an immediate inquiry of our allegations be conducted by members of the [school board].”

The letter alleges that in the “failure of administrative staff to perform their duty...we see evidence of scapegoating and a coverup carried out to protect the superintendent and administrative staff;” that Park’s “civil and legal rights of due process” were violated; that “the person responsible for carrying out the disciplinary action was not trained and certified under law to implement such action;” that the district “failed to properly evaluate employee based on an agreed timeline as required by law;” and that “allegations concerning Park’s conduct by Anderson was both slanderous and false, without any basis in fact.”

Documents submitted to the board also include allegations of over and underpayment of bus drivers by the district and problems with the district’s bus replacement plans and budgeting.

McGlothlin also provided a petition signed by 24 members of the transportation department asking that Park be reinstated and letters from staff lauding Park as a beloved, hard working, compassionate and efficient boss.