Teachers told the Vancouver school board on Tuesday they felt blindsided when the district released results of an investigation into a former teacher’s alleged sexual misconduct the day before parent conferences.
The district sent the reports, which included graphic details, from two third-party investigations in a March 19 email to families. In the email, school board members said they were sharing the reports to reaffirm the district’s commitment to transparency, accountability and school safety.
The investigations concluded that district administrators did not appropriately discipline former Hudson’s Bay High School English teacher Shadbreon Gatson or thoroughly investigate allegations of his sexual involvement with multiple students.
“If you are committed to making our schools as safe as possible, why was an email sent on Wednesday, March 19, that explicitly outlined the harm done to Hudson’s Bay students and the district’s inability to protect them without considering the need for district representation 24 hours later at parent teacher conferences?” Bay teacher RaChelle Hendricks asked the board. “Because of this, Hudson’s Bay teachers were left to navigate and respond to parent anger and questions that resulted from this email.”
The investigation into Gatson’s conduct was completed Jan. 28 by the law firm Simmons, Sweeney, Freimund, Smith and Tardif. It details interviews with three students who attended Bay between 2009 and 2015 who said they experienced sexual encounters with Gatson, including on school grounds and at Gatson’s house.
A handful of Skyview and Hudson’s Bay teachers wore teal ribbons at the board meeting in recognition of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, which is April.
Bay teacher Elana Wendel said students are getting a lot of support but staff who have worked with Gatson for years aren’t, even though students and parents are coming to them with their outrage. Wendel said she has a student whose parents are pulling her out of Bay for her senior year because of the sexual misconduct allegations.
Gatson was arrested Dec. 20 on suspicion of first-degree sexual misconduct with a minor, after a former student reported to Bay staff and Vancouver police in early December that she was sexually victimized in 2013 when she was 16, according to court records.
“If you’ve got these new, improved measures for safety, why have you not shared them with your staff and students?” Chun questioned.
She and other teachers pointed to the lack of accountability in the Gatson case.
Court records stated that in June 2013, a Bay custodian told the school’s principal, William Oman, and assistant principal, Valerie Seeley, that he interrupted Gatson and the student engaging in sexual intercourse in a band room after hours.
During the third-party investigations, Oman and Seeley voluntarily went on administrative leave pending the outcome.
The two will return from leave to modified roles for the remainder of the school year, according to the March 19 letter. Seeley was Bay’s principal and Oman was the district’s executive director for middle schools when the investigations began.
Skyview teacher Jeanne Federovitch said allowing those responsible to return to work “is not only a slap in the face to those of us who work hard every single day at doing the right thing, but it underscores what anti-public education people fear about public schools. People already suspect our profession is full of predators and administrators who just push everything along and under the rug.”
Sabrina Sheehy, a mental health therapist and Vancouver Public Schools parent, joined Monday’s meeting over Zoom. She had participated with Bay students during the Jan. 6 walkout to protest the district’s handling of Gatson’s sex allegations.
“Your apologies mean nothing if it is not accompanied by change,” Sheehy told the board.
