As of Saturday, June 4, 2022, no agenda has been provided to the public for the June 13, 2022 public meeting of the Clover Park School District Board of Directors.
But on Friday, June 3, the following announcement was posted by the Tacoma Urban League, headlined:
“Attend Clover Park School District School Board Meeting on June 13th at 6:00PM”
“On Monday, June 13th, at 6:00PM, the Clover Park School District will be discussing the investigative findings against school board director Paul Wagemann.”
They will?
And, if so, how did the Tacoma Urban League come by this information when the agenda has not been published for the public?
The Tacoma Urban League claims that “the Clover Park School District will be discussing the investigative findings against school board director Paul Wagemann.”
What “investigative findings”?
What investigation?
About what?
The Tacoma Urban League announcement then reads as follows:
“This meeting is open to the public and vital for community members to attend. This will be a space to express thoughts, opinions, and concerns in regards to any racial discrimination occurring within the Clover Park School district against administration, teachers, staff, and students.”
MR Anderson,
You have posted this letter on multiple sites, including Lakewood Life. As other community members have stated, this was in fact discussed at the last board meeting. It was said that there would be discussion and public comment at the next meeting, June 13.
If you need to refresh your memory, watch the posted recording of the last board meeting.
There is work to do in CPSD these lies and tales sideline things, maybe that’s your intention. You should be ashamed and embarrassed as a board member.
Despicable!!!!
How? Why are you saying this?
have you been following what has been happening to school board members? If not, then don’t judge others comments.
Ms. Harris,
Your thought / comment is confusing and without any known certifiable meaning.
What is despicable?
Specifically which part of the article above is despicable? The unproven allegation of racial prejudice or the Tacoma Urban League’s role, or the Clover Park School Board’s role or “no agenda” or the suggestion that everyone attend or ?????
By the way, the definition for the word despicable is deserving hatred and contempt.
While any of us may disagree on any particular issue, the world will be a better place for us all if we elininate hatred and contempt.
Joseph Boyle
Well, it may have something to do with the Board’s November censure of Mr. Wagemann for an overtly racist email exchange back in November (reported in the Tacoma News Tribune).
We need to remember that we are living in a time when ” Right is wrong, and wrong Is right”… Anyone can see that this is true. Stand tall and strong Paul..
I have two pending discrimination complaints pending at the United States Department of Education-Office of Civil Rights and the United States Department of Agriculture- Assistant Secretary on Civil Rights against Clover Park School Board Director Paul Wagemann. He and David Anderson are fully aware of the fact that some investigation took place over the last few months and the findings were not favorable for Paul Wagemann. I believe the investigation may have been conducted by a Federal Agency that handles work place racial discrimination.
David Anderson, are you writing this as a school board member or as one of three governors of Lakewood CARES, a conservative political nonprofit group deeply invested in taking control of our school board and our public schools? You need to explain why since you, John Arbeeny and Jim Cooper became the leaders of this well-known group in May of 2021, this community has witnessed the ugliest politically motivated smear campaign against our school board, administration, teachers and even the reputation of our students. You also need to explain how as a candidate for school board, you failed to inform voters that you had a huge political conflict of interest while claiming in your literature that politics had no business in our schools. The guy shouting for transparency seems to be very reluctant to expose his ties to a political group with a very troubled past in this community. Now we know that people on those racist emails for which Paul Wagemann was previously censored, are directly connected to the very group you lead.
Those who attend board meetings know that a discrimination claim had been made. It is in the public record and on video. At the May 23rd board meeting it was learned that Paul Wagemann had requested a “public hearing” and it was also announced that this issue would be discussed at the next meeting which is June 13th. It sounded exactly like an agenda item. It also was clearly stated that a formal hearing had already taken place…which means an investigation of some type. You are intentionally trying to create a distraction. Why? The public needs to know exactly why this claim was made and the findings. Are you afraid of publicity about this issue? Why? What do you fear about this if there is nothing to hide from the public?
LAKEWOOD CARES! LAKEWOOD CARES! LAKEWOOD CARES!
Sounds a bit like “chicken little”. No, Lakewood CARES is not some boogie man and the sky isn’t falling. Were you aware that Jim Cooper was a Clover Park School District Board member or that David Anderson was the Tillicum Neighborhood Association leader for 17+ years or that Paul Wagemann won his last re-election to the Board in a landslide against “woke” opposition or that John Arbeeny was a Lakewood City Council member and Deputy Mayor? Apparently not. All dangerous people apparently. What’s your claim to fame? How about dealing with reality instead of inventing phantoms?
The only racism I see in America today is that being manufactured and weaponized by the woke mob.
Just as Marx and Engels and other Satanists set out to do, today’s progressives seek to create an inversion of reality to distort our perception.
Well guess what.
We ain’t buying your B.S.
Go woke – go broke.
There’s plenty of good quality business to be done with good people who don’t rely on trickery and cry-bully tactics.
Basic public education is in place to put young people on equal footing with basic useful knowledge, and to develop social skills.
I guess free is never good enough for some folks.
The same people think we should also pay for their further radicalization and whining degrees in university.
The world does not owe you a living.
Grow up and do something constructive.
The rest of us did.
The Investigative Findings….Results of Racial Discrimination by Director Paul Wagemann…..Censured AGAIN!
2-178 Censuring Director Paul Wagemann
WHEREAS, to facilitate the ongoing and regular operation of the Clover Park School District, and pursuant to RCW 42.30.110, the Board of Directors met in Executive Session on May 9, 2022, to discuss complaints brought against a public official and the District, and again in open public session on June 13, 2022; and
WHEREAS, the Clover Park School District Board of Directors is reaffirming its priority commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion as expressed in Board Policy 1109 that “eliminating racial disparities and disproportionality in the Clover Park School District. Prioritizing educational equity leads us to enhance the experience, support and outcomes of historically marginalized groups, resulting in a cascading improvement of the whole classroom, school and district. We approach the work of equity with an asset-based philosophy that values the cultural wealth that each student, staff and family member inherently possess. We acknowledge that people of historically marginalized identities have been underserved and harmed by internal and external systems. As a district, our desire is to actualize educational justice through a collaborative, comprehensive and relentless commitment to equity and inclusion.”
WHEREAS, Clover Park School District Board of Directors acknowledges that it is the Board’s responsibility and obligation to uphold these goals and the stated requirements in the District’s Board Policy 5010 – Nondiscrimination.
WHEREAS, the Board has received an investigative report of a complaint filed and processed under Board Policy 5010 and WAC 392-190-065 that determined the actions of Director Paul Wagemann have been in violation of multiple board policies including Board Policy 5010, and also received a decision and recommendations for corrective action. The Board desires to adopt those findings and is committed to enacting corrective actions aimed at remediating this course of events.
NOW, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the Clover Park School District Board of Directors hereby adopts the investigative report, decision and corrective action recommendation regarding the complaint of Superintendent Ron Banner. The Board finds that such conduct is not in alignment with the Board’s stated and express commitment to fostering equity and inclusion and its legal requirement to maintain a work and school environment free from racial discrimination and harassment, and again censures Director Wagemann for the conduct described in the decision, as recommended in the corrective action section, and hereby directs the administration to implement the other recommendations.
1. Board member Wagemann and Superintendent Banner will be offered mediation services to engage in formal process of resolution.
2. Full board undertake school board training provided through the WSSDA Washington State School Directors’ Association on board and superintendent relations.
3. Full board engage in WSSDA Equity and Inclusion training and review/commitment to school district policies and individual board behavior relative to discrimination, harassment, intimidation and bullying behavior by individual board members and/or the board as a whole.
This is the Racial Discrimination that is recognized by the State of Washington Supreme Court Justices…..Granted ALL Supreme Court Justices have signed on this memorandum and Stand by there statement.
Director John Paul Wagemann has been Censured Twice now in a matter of Months…Maybe he should rethink his line of thought a bit….He Still has TWO pending Civil Rights Violations complaints at the US Dept. of Education and the US Dept. of Agriculture…for this same type of Racist behavior…
Dear Members of the Judiciary and the Legal Community:
We are compelled by recent events to join other state supreme courts around the nation in addressing our legal community.
The devaluation and degradation of black lives is not a recent event. It is a persistent and systemic injustice that predates this nation’s founding. But recent events have brought to the forefront of our collective consciousness a painful fact that is, for too many of our citizens, common knowledge: the injustices faced by black Americans are not relics of the past. We continue to see racialized policing and the overrepresentation of black Americans in every stage of our criminal and juvenile justice systems. Our institutions remain affected by the vestiges of slavery: Jim Crow laws that were never dismantled and racist court decisions that were never disavowed.
The legal community must recognize that we all bear responsibility for this on-going injustice, and that we are capable of taking steps to address it, if only we have the courage and the will. The injustice still plaguing our country has its roots in the individual and collective actions of many, and it cannot be addressed without the individual and collective actions of us all.
As judges, we must recognize the role we have played in devaluing black lives. This very court once held that a cemetery could lawfully deny grieving black parents the right to bury their infant. We cannot undo this wrong⸺but we can recognize our ability to do better in the future. We can develop a greater awareness of our own conscious and unconscious biases in order to make just decisions in individual cases, and we can administer justice and support court rules in a way that brings greater racial justice to our system as a whole.
As lawyers and members of the bar, we must recognize the harms that are caused when meritorious claims go unaddressed due to systemic inequities or the lack of financial, personal, or systemic support. And we must also recognize that this is not how a justice system must operate. Too often in the legal profession, we feel bound by tradition and the way things have “always” been. We must remember that even the most venerable precedent must be struck down when it is incorrect and harmful. The systemic oppression of black Americans is not merely incorrect and harmful; it is shameful and deadly.
Members of the Judiciary and the Legal Community – June 4, 2020 Page 2
Finally, as individuals, we must recognize that systemic racial injustice against black Americans is not an omnipresent specter that will inevitably persist. It is the collective product of each of our individual actions—every action, every day. It is only by carefully reflecting on our actions, taking individual responsibility for them, and constantly striving for better that we can address the shameful legacy we inherit. We call on every member of our legal community to reflect on this moment and ask ourselves how we may work together to eradicate racism.
As we lean in to do this hard and necessary work, may we also remember to support our black colleagues by lifting their voices. Listening to and acknowledging their experiences will enrich and inform our shared cause of dismantling systemic racism.
We go by the title of “Justice” and we reaffirm our deepest level of commitment to achieving justice by ending racism. We urge you to join us in these efforts. This is our moral imperative.
Sincerely,
Debra L. Stephens,
Chief Justice
Susan Owens, Justice
Mary I. Yu, Justice
Charles W. Johnson,
Justice
Steven C. González,
Justice
Raquel Montoya-Lewis, Justice
Barbara A. Madsen,
Justice
Sheryl Gordon McCloud,
Justice
G.Helen Whitener, Justice