EVERETT — The Everett Public Schools board of directors heard impassioned, poignant and at times tearful testimony from a series of speakers on Tuesday night, all of them urging the board to reconsider a decision to terminate popular Cascade High School cross country coach Steve Bertrand.
The five-member board listened to that testimony, then retired to a private executive session with superintendent Gary Cohn before emerging and adjourning the meeting without taking any action.
It means that Bertrand, who has been a cross country coach at Cascade for 37 years and the head coach for the past 35 years, is almost certainly out. Bertrand was notified before Christmas that he would not be offered a contract for the 2015-16 school year, and Tuesday’s board meeting was seen as a chance for the board — president Pam LeSesne, vice-president Ted Wenta, and directors Traci Mitchell, Caroline Mason and Carol Andrews — to overrule a termination decision apparently made by Cohn.
During the pre-Christmas meeting, Bertrand was told by a district official that Cohn “wants to see the program go in a new direction.”
The decision not to rehire Bertrand drew a crowd of around 100 to the district’s Community Resource Center for Tuesday’s regularly scheduled bi-monthly board meeting. During two public testimony segments in the roughly four-hour meeting, one speaker after another stepped to the lectern and urged the board to retain Bertrand.
The comments were heartfelt and often emotional. Robin Madsen Sundvor, who ran cross country for Bertrand from 1987-90 and is today an assistant cross country coach at Lake Stevens High School, said her participation with the Cascade cross country team helped her overcome a difficult childhood in “a very abusive home. Abuse from the time I was very little and all the way through high school.
“Cross country became my safe haven, running became my outlet, and Steve Bertrand became my father figure,” she told the board, adding, “Coach Bertrand is the reason I am here today speaking to all of you. He saved my life. If it wasn’t for him, I believe I would’ve gone down a dark path, a destructive path. … He helped me want more for my life than just being the product of abuse.”
Daniel Kore, who came to the United States from a war-torn African country, wept as he told the board how Bertrand had helped him adjust to life in this country and to avoid deportation. Over time he became a top distance runner at Cascade and now is an American citizen with two degrees from the University of Washington and a successful career.
“If it wasn’t for him,” Kore said, his voice breaking with emotion, “this wouldn’t have been possible.”
Other remarks conveyed anger that the district would terminate a longstanding coach who has so significantly and positively impacted his athletes and students. Ian Boswell told directors that
“this decision is wrong. In fact, not only is it wrong, it’s been handled with such a lack of respect for the person and his service, I’m ashamed to be associated with the school.
“The school of pride has become the school of disrespect. This decision that this board is accountable for is a great lesson for students in how not to treat other humans. And it’s a great lesson for potential coaches (in Everett) on how they’ll be treated, even if they’ve been here for 37 years,” Boswell said.
Mary Kaye Bredeson, a former Cascade parent, said she came to the board meeting to find out “how you could possibly not renew a contract with one of the finest teachers in the Everett School District. … He is one of the finest men I think I have ever come across. I was proud that my (three) children looked up to him and were mentored by him.
“Don’t make a mistake and let us lose such a fine man as Mr. Bertrand,” she said.
Teresa Thomas, the cross country coach Mount Vernon High School, said she got an e-mail about Bertrand’s dismissal, “and I about had a heart attack. Are you serious? … I came here today to strongly urge you to re-evaluate your decision, swallow your pride, and let this man come back and do what he loves, and to (continue giving) to these kids and to us.”
Among the speakers were a handful of current students at Cascade. One of them, junior Jaidacyn Madrigal, told the board that “today (Tuesday) is my birthday. And my birthday wish is that you renew coach Bertrand’s cross country contract so that I can have him as my coach for my senior year.”
Though discussions in executive session are confidential, the board was apparently persuaded by a black-mark incident against Bertrand last fall. In October, Bertrand gave his athletes the option to go out (along with cross country athletes from Jackson and Glacier Peak high schools, the latter in the Snohomish School District) to knock on doors, hand out flyers and verbally promote the campaign of Mike Wilson, a Cascade teacher who was running for the state legislature.
Bertrand, Wilson, Jackson coach Eric Hruschka and district athletic director Robert Polk were all reprimanded by the district over the incident.
For now, Bertrand, who did not attend Tuesday’s board meeting, remains the track and field coach at Cascade for the upcoming spring season, but it seems likely that he will lose that position as well at the end of the school year.
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