Documents that fueled Everett school scuffle made public

Remember that Aug. 23 video of Everett School Board members arguing and ultimately getting physical over control of a draft evaluation of Superintendent Gary Cohn?

Remember the awkwardness at a recent school board meeting when Jessica Olson tried, and was rebuffed, in her efforts to get her thoughts on Cohn’s performance included in the board’s records?

Last week we heard that Olson had emailed her comments about Cohn to the superintendent himself.

That meant they were potential public records. We filed a records request to learn what she said.

This afternoon, the school district released the document that Olson sent Cohn.

Without our asking, the district also provided an annotated response to that document, apparently prepared by Cohn, and sent this afternoon to school board members.

We also were provided (again without our requesting access) a document from August that memorialized Board President Ed Petersen’s permission for others on the school board to share the draft of Cohn’s written evaluation and the actual document itself.

All of those records can be found in the box to the right. They were provided to The Herald with Cohn’s assent or at his suggestion, according to an email that related to our public records request.

If you’ve read this far, you probably already know about the players and the back story of the controversy that is connected to these records. If not, you can catch up quickly here and here.