LONG BEACH — One word best describes last week’s marathon meeting of the Ocean Beach School District’s Board of Directors: Dramatic.

Members of the public at the June 3 meeting, including the former principal of Ilwaco High School, continued their calls for the school board to open an investigation into the district’s resignation agreement with Shawn Stern, the former career and technical education (CTE) director and spouse of OBSD Superintendent Amy Huntley. Additionally, a teacher who had lodged complaints against Stern in recent years and criticized Huntley announced she would be resigning from her position, saying she feared retaliation for speaking out.

Later in the meeting, Stern himself took to the podium to make allegations against the outgoing president of the Ocean Beach Education Association, the local teachers union. That official, also in attendance, responded to his claims and denied any wrongdoing.

Much of the public comment at the meeting continued to revolve around the board-approved separation payout between OBSD and Stern last fall, which saw the longtime educator receive the remainder of his salary and benefits for the 2023-24 school year as part of the terms. Stern taught at the district for nearly three decades and had amassed a lengthy disciplinary record in the years leading up to his separation.

Thanks in part to the robust participation during multiple public comment periods, the meeting clocked in at about three hours long.

The Observer is in the midst of a months-long process of receiving requested public records from OBSD.

More requests for investigation

Like the previous board meeting, the school board again faced several calls to open an independent investigation into the district’s resignation agreement with Stern.

Joining in on those calls at last week’s meeting was Lisa Horsley, who served as principal at IHS for one year during the 2022-23 school year before being demoted to vice principal at Ocean Park Elementary for this school year. This March, Horsley was informed she was being laid off as part of staff reductions.

Pull Quote

‘We have so much work to do because our students really need all of our time, energy and focus to be on them as we work to support their success now and in the future.’

Lisa Horsley, former Ilwaco High School principal

Horsley said she was worried about the growing division she is seeing in the district and the community, and was concerned that time and energy would be taken away from helping students — “our true purpose” — if they could not move forward from this conflict.

“I’ve always tried to live by the belief that if I have a problem or a complaint then I need to be part of the solution,” she said.

Horsley offered several suggestions that she believes could help move the district and community forward, including improving transparency by having OBSD open an independent investigation into recent decisions made within the school district.

“The hiring of an unbiased, third-party investigator will create a voice for people to speak freely during the investigation while providing transparency amongst the stakeholders participating and trusting in the process,” Horsley said. “The investigator will then make an informed decision. From that decision, we as a district and community can begin to heal and move on.”

She also called for the implementation of fairer hiring practices, and asked the board to update its policies to ensure the superintendent and other top district officials are “protected” from having any involvement whatsoever in decisions regarding spouses or family members.

“Unfortunately, I fear we have reached an impasse, and if we don’t make some compromise and changes our students will be hurt — and they don’t deserve that,” Horsley concluded. “We have so much work to do because our students really need all of our time, energy and focus to be on them as we work to support their success now and in the future.”

Teacher announces resignation

Leena Couling, a teacher at IHS, also addressed the board during public comment with a prepared statement of more than 2,300 words. She began at the district three years ago as a science teacher, with Stern serving as her immediate supervisor as CTE director, and is one of at least two teachers who had filed complaints against him in recent years alleging bullying, intimidation and unprofessional conduct.

Couling began her remarks by telling board members that they are the only ones who can regulate the superintendent, and asked them to take actions against what she said was “poor decision making, favoritism and retaliatory behavior” from Huntley by putting a “vote of no confidence” on the agenda of their next meeting.

“If you are unable to do the right thing, then I will respectfully ask that you recuse yourself from the position that you hold,” Couling told the board. “The superintendent’s actions do not reflect the behavior of someone who has the students’ or teachers’ best interests at heart.”

Board president Tiffany Turner interjected before Couling could begin making specific allegations against both Huntley and Stern, saying the board’s policy “specifically talks about not directing [comments] about any personnel.” Couling rebutted by saying she was recounting “factual things that happened to me” and said the board’s policy allows objective criticism of the district, as well as demonstrating what she said is a pattern and history of abuse of power.

Over the past couple of years, meeting agendas have included a disclaimer that states speakers may offer objective criticism of district operations and programs but that the board “will not hear any complaints concerning specific district personnel.” A board policy related to audience participation at school board meetings, adopted in 2004 and referenced in the disclaimer, states that the board president “may interrupt or terminate an individual’s statement when it is too lengthy, personally directed, abusive, obscene or irrelevant.”

Couling was permitted to read the section of her statement criticizing the district’s hiring practices, saying it has not led to the most qualified candidates being hired for positions that come available, including in CTE. She also claimed that several teachers in the district lack appropriate credentials, such as a bachelor’s degree and teaching certificate, and said some teachers — herself included — have been moved to teach content or grade levels they are not certified in.

“I get that it’s hard to get people to come to the beach to teach here, but it doesn’t mean that we should just appoint warm bodies because they happen to be in the area,” Couling said, adding that she pulled her son out of the district because he “just wasn’t thriving” and has been told by her daughter that she is not being challenged academically in some classes.

Couling concluded her statement by announcing that she would be submitting her letter of resignation the following morning, saying she doesn’t feel safe working at the district and is in “constant fear of retaliation — even more now [by] standing up here and telling my partial truth.”

Stern speaks out

At the second public comment period later in the evening, Stern himself took to the podium to criticize the Ocean Beach Education Association (OBEA).

Stern called himself a “long-term leader” of OBEA for 15 years, and served as a building representative at IHS before stepping down after Huntley, his wife, was hired as superintendent. But he said the union “changed directions in a way that I was not comfortable with” shortly after.

“And me, you know, I speak my mind about that — and I did so in a public meeting in there many times,” Stern said. “I was told that the Ocean Beach Education Association is not a democracy; it is an organization of those that show up. That was the attitude of the small group of teachers, and I chose to take my money elsewhere and leave the union because maybe this organization, if they weren’t willing to listen to me, they would listen to the money that they lost.”

Stern claimed that the union began to file complaints against him in his position as CTE director, but that none of the publicized complaints pertained to his role as a teacher — his duties as director and teacher were split evenly, he said.

“I felt harassed by OBEA, just like they’re saying tonight, OK. I felt unsafe to come to work because these teachers were gonna file another complaint against another teacher,” Stern said. “I became completely depressed. I had to take a leave of absence from the district because of this harassment. I’m under antidepressants, and sadly I did not handle myself well with other teachers and ultimately decided to leave the district.”

Accusations made

Without specifically mentioning her by name, Stern also leveled accusations against Jodie Housley, OBEA’s outgoing president, during his speech. He claimed that she had never been properly elected in accordance with the union’s bylaws and that her serving as both president and treasurer created financial conflicts of interest for the union.

“I was in the process of filing a federal complaint on behalf of the teachers’ union, but I found out that there is a clause in that federal process that you have to be a current employee to continue with that,” said Stern, adding that he has “no question” that the union violated federal law.

Housley, who was in attendance at the board meeting and later addressed the board and those in attendance herself, has served as president of OBEA since the 2021-22 school year. She previously served as treasurer, but took on the top job after then-president Doug Pellerin resigned from his position with the district a day before that school year began and after the vice president had also departed. With the secretary position also vacant, Housley said she was the only member of the executive board still holding their position.

Before taking on the job of president, which she said is “not a job teachers really want,” Housley said she reached out to other teachers many times, “but no one wanted to step up — so I decided to.”

“I thought ‘Well, someone’s got to do it,’ and I have a lot of union experience and I really care about teachers, so I did it, I stepped up,” Housley said, adding that she ran OBEA’s general meetings, filed essential paperwork and also performed her budget-related tasks as treasurer.

Housley claimed that it does not state in the union’s constitution or bylaws that the same person cannot serve in more than one role. “It just doesn’t say that. It’s not ideal, it’s not something that I would choose to do, but there was no else.”

“So I welcome anyone to go through my documents. I will show you all my records, I will show you our bank statements, I will go through the last three years and you won’t find one thing,” she added. “Open a special investigation. I’m here, I want to show everything and I shared that with the teachers, too. No one, not one teacher, has come to me and had any concern at all that I’ve addressed.”

The association finished its elections for the upcoming school year last month, with Kelli Hughes-Ham being elected president with Housley serving as vice president. Housley concluded her statement by saying no local, federal or union regulations were broken during her tenure leading OBEA, and that she worked closely with the Washington Education Association, the statewide union for K-12 and higher education employees.

Couling later took to the podium again, criticizing the board for allowing Stern to make comments about Housley, a current district employee, without objection.

“I just want to kind of point out a little bit of the hypocrisy that just happened. When I was trying to give my talk about a person who was not even in the district anymore, a former employee, I was not allowed to speak my story,” Couling said. “And that person just came up and disparaged a current employee and said things that were not true about them and there were no objections up here from the board.

“So, again, I’m gonna ask you guys to look at yourselves and think about how things are really playing out, if they’re fair on your end and are you doing the best thing for the students and the teachers.”