MARYSVILLE — What’s next for the Marysville School District?
Nobody seems to know.
Last week, school board President Wade Rinehardt suddenly resigned. He became the third district leader to depart this year, after the finance director and head of Human Resources.
The following day, state Superintendent Chris Reykdal informed officials he would impose a financial oversight committee on the district, declaring it “financially insolvent.” He cited the high-profile departures among his reasons.
The state has never before convened a committee like this over a school district.
“There’s no real playbook for it,” said Larry Francois, superintendent of the educational service district that includes Marysville. “So it very much is something that at the state level they are figuring out as they move forward.”
A turbulent year has left parents, staff and district leadership looking out at uncharted waters. For some, recent developments are cause for hope.
Since last week, momentum has been building “for constructive collaboration,” Connor Krebbs, now acting president of the school board, said in an interview Thursday. “I think folks really have a desire to come together and work through the issues that are going on.”
Still, some are reeling from a series of blows to the district’s stability.
“I’m not gonna lie, the morale is low,” Marysville teachers union President Becky Roberts said Wednesday. “But these are teachers who care about their schools, they care about their kids and they’re in it for the long haul.”
Superintendent Zachary Robbins did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
A year of setbacks
Facing a projected budget deficit of $18 million, the district entered so-called “binding conditions” in August, meaning it had to work with the state to solve its financial troubles. Binding conditions are triggered when a school district can’t balance its budget and asks the state for help.
Marysville is the largest school district in Washington ever to enter into binding conditions.
The budget challenges stem in large part from a double levy failure in 2022, which lost the district $25 million, the district’s finance director said in November.
In March, the district’s risk managment pool voted to drop Marysville’s membership effective Aug. 31. A risk pool is a form of financial protection similar to insurance for losses like legal costs and property damage.
Leading up to the decision, the risk pool cited concerns: the district not keeping up its end of the bargain on a legal settlement, a recent steep rise in claims and poorly maintained buildings.
In April, the state superintendent’s office warned the district it would convene the oversight committee if leaders didn’t fix major issues with their financial plan.
The state later approved a revised plan.
On June 3, Marysville schools finance director Lisa Gonzales publicly aired explosive allegations of “violations of the law, inaccurate state reports, and cronyism,” naming the superintendent and the head of Human Resources in particular.
Gonzales is on paid administrative leave until her contract expires Sunday. A district spokesperson confirmed Gonzales’ contract would not be renewed.
In a separate letter to the state superintendent’s office, Gonzales accused the district’s Human Resources director Alvin Cooper of “abusive behavior.”
Cooper abruptly quit his position less than two weeks after Gonzales went public with her accusations. Robbins remained at the head of the district, despite Gonzales urging the district to place him on leave.
School board members confirmed an outside investigator is looking into the allegations.
For second grade teacher Emily Smith, “it’s been the most difficult year I’ve ever had since starting in Marysville in 1998.”
Rinehardt cites ‘toxicity’
For months, parents and staff have protested what they say is a lack of transparency in the district.
On June 17, parent Amy Hill filed a grievance letter with the county auditor’s office against Rinehardt and then-board vice president Krebbs, listing “incompetent budget oversight,” unresponsiveness and the renewal of Robbins’ contract in her objections to board leadership. The letter could have been the first step of a recall effort.
Rinehardt quit the board later that day, citing “the toxicity of the people of Marysville” and school staff in a letter addressed to district leaders.
“It is obvious to anyone with eyes and ears,” he wrote, “that significant collaboration has occurred and continues to happen between the unions, citizens and employees that wish to bully leadership and cause harm to the district.”
The recall effort was “the last straw,” Rinehardt wrote. He could not be reached for comment.
After hearing Rinehardt was stepping down, Hill withdrew her grievance to the county auditor, saying she wanted to give Krebbs an “opportunity to do his thing as president.”
Hill was “very disappointed in” Rinehardt’s letter, she said Thursday. The partnership between unions, staff and “citizens” is “a positive thing,” she said.
“To hold people accountable for positions that they voluntarily sign up to execute is the right thing,” Hill said. “And I’m truly, honestly sorry that feelings are getting hurt. But our district right now, as we stand, is in financial ruins.”
Roberts, the teachers union president, and Christy Tautfest, president of the union that includes paraeducators, also objected to Rinehardt’s letter.
“We haven’t been doing anything that would be considered bullying or harrassment, especially of the board,” Tautfest said, adding her union was “baffled” Rinehardt included the unions in his assertion about bullying.
At a board meeting earlier this month, school board members Beth Hoiby and Eliza Davis appealed to a crowd of parents and staff for understanding.
“To be in this unpaid position and be attacked the way we are is … really not fair,” Hoiby said, adding: “This is not easy work.”
A path forward
Per state law, the school board has 90 days to appoint a new board member. The board will accept applications through 4:30 p.m. July 12. The chosen candidate will serve out the remainder of Rinehardt’s term, ending in November 2025.
Hill said she applied for the open seat.
Regarding Rinehardt’s comments, Krebbs said he respected the board’s former president and his decision to leave.
“Right now, what we’re focused on is filling that void with a community member who wants to get involved and who cares about the future” of the district, he said in an interview.
After Rinehardt’s resignation, Krebbs met with Hill and parent Jalleh Hooman. Both are founding members of the Marysville Community Coalition, a group that has protested district leadership.
On Tuesday, Krebbs spoke at a forum hosted by the coalition and took questions from the audience.
“I can imagine it’s not fun to sit there” right after a recall effort, Hooman acknowledged. “But he took the flack.”
She noticed Krebbs arrived at the forum early and was one of the last to leave, staying late to speak with everyone who wanted to talk to him.
Hill said she and Hooman have had “great dialogue” with Krebbs since Rinehardt quit his position.
School board member Kristen Michal said the board was focused on “moving forward in a positive way.”
As far as the vacant positions in finance and Human Resources, the district has experienced people helping out while those positions are unfilled, she said. That gives the district “a little breathing room” to recruit.
District spokesperson Jodi Runyon confirmed former Lake Stevens Superintendent David Burgess joined Marysville on Thursday as interim Human Resources director.
A consultant is also “providing guidance and support” until the district can hire a permanent finance director, Runyon wrote in an email. The consultant is not taking over Gonzales’ duties.
Michal feels people are seeing the importance of coming together.
Ultimately, “the challenges we have on the financial side are solvable,” she said. “We’re going to get there. Not going to be easy, necessarily, but there’s a path there for us.”
No ‘painless answers’
The district has little clarity on what the state’s financial oversight committee will mean for its future.
In a letter to district leaders, Reykdal wrote the committee will have two representatives from the state superintendent’s office, as well as one “nonvoting representative” from the local educational service district and another from a different service district.
Marysville is in the Northwest Educational Service District, an intermediary between school districts and the government. It’s one of nine educational service districts statewide.
Staff at the state superintendent’s office expect to announce committee members “within the next couple of weeks,” wrote Katy Payne, spokesperson for the agency.
In a news release last week, Robbins said he felt the committee would benefit the district.
The team will examine Marysville’s situation and make recommendations to the state. The most drastic possible recommendation? Dissolution.
If the district dissolves, neighboring districts would step in to serve Marysville students, Payne wrote in an email last week. The state has never dissolved a school district before, though years ago the Vader School District in Lewis County was annexed into the Castle Rock School District.
On dissolution, “I don’t think I can wrap my head around that,” Hill said, calling it a “devastating” scenario.
However, “actual dissolution is highly unlikely,” said Michael Dooley, former school district and educational service district budgeting supervisor at the state superintendent’s office, in an email.
“The privately held opinion of state leaders is districts the size of Marysville, and bigger, are too large to ‘fail’ and so wouldn’t be ‘allowed’ to go insolvent,” he continued.
Francois, superintendent of the Northwest Educational Service District, said it was “very premature” to talk about dissolving, noting the emphasis should be on Marysville returning to financial stability.
The oversight committee “will be a net positive,” he said, adding “having more eyes focused on the district can only be helpful.”
Resolving Marysville’s financial troubles will mean further staff reductions, Francois said, noting staff losses in past years have been related more to lower enrollment than inadequate funds.
The district plans to close Cascade Elementary School, Liberty Elementary School and Totem Middle School in the 2025-26 school year. When the district announced the plan at the end of May, a district email promised staff at those schools would not lose their jobs.
“I think what we’re seeing is a pretty poignant example of the consequences of a local community deciding to withdraw its support for its local schools,” Francois said, referring to the levy failures.
With that loss of revenue, “there simply are no easy or painless answers,” he said.
“It’s a difficult situation,” Francois said. “I am still confident that there is a pathway out of it.”
Sophia Gates: 425-339-3035; sophia.gates@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @SophiaSGates.
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