MAY 13, 2022 UPDATE:
The recall attempt against Washoe County School Board President Angie Taylor has failed.
The Washoe County Registrar's Office confirmed Friday that the conditions for recall signatures have not been met, so the attempt cannot move forward. The county reports receiving just 624 of the 11,000 signatures required to prompt a recall election.
"I'm grateful, honestly," Taylor said. "I'm grateful for this community. I'm going to keep doing what I've been doing through this whole process, which has really been very uncomfortable and very much a distraction. Just keep working hard. I'm going to keep working hard for the district."
The man who funded the petition, Reno resident Robert Beadles, is blaming voter fraud for the failure, saying the county's voter rolls aren't accurate.
Taylor said she expects Beadles to continue to target her, as she runs for a seat in the Nevada Assembly.
"If I am fortunate enough to be selected to represent our district in the Assembly, then I'm hoping that my colleagues on the [Washoe County School] Board will take what we've heard-- this really strong message from the community, and stay the course," Taylor said.
Taylor currently serves as school board president, and her trustee term expires in 2024. If she wins, the board would have to fill her seat.
In the meantime, Beadles has filed a lawsuit against the Nevada Secretary of State and the Washoe County Registrar of Voters. He claims in the complaint that people weren't allowed to "meaningfully observe" the counting of ballots in the 2020 election, and says that allowed for fraud.
Despite investigations into past allegations, the Secretary of State's office reiterated Friday that it has found no evidence of widespread voter fraud in Nevada.
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ORIGINAL STORY:
A Reno resident has filed notice that he's working to oust two local public officials from office. In February, Robert Beadles notified the Washoe County Registrar that he'll be circulating petitions to recall Washoe County Commission Chair Vaughn Hartung* and Washoe County School Board President Dr. Angie Taylor.
As of March 2, Beadles hadn't released his petition against Hartung, but his petition against Taylor has a long list of accusations. And both petitions have to clear a lot of hurdles before they'd force a recall election.
"Recalls in Washoe County have been extremely rare," Washoe County Registrar Deanna Spikula said. "I haven't seen one since I've been here, and I've worked in this office for 11 years."
According to county records, the last recall election in Washoe County was in 1998. It was a trustee in the Palomino Valley General Improvement District. And it turns out, there's a reason for the relative rarity. Forcing a recall election is a complicated, time consuming, and expensive process.
Beadles has already put down the $28,000 required to pay for the verification of petition signatures against Angie Taylor. He'll have to gather more than 11,000 of them in less than 90 days.
In order for a signature to be valid on the recall petition, the voter has to be registered in District E, which covers north and northwest Reno, and Verdi. They also have to have voted in the last election where Taylor was on the ballot, which was 2020. She won that race with 62.5% of the vote.
Since it's not a statewide recall, each signature will be verified. Spikula says her office will have to hire temporary staff or borrow them from other departments in order to get them all verified in time. If all deadlines are met and all signatures are deemed valid, Spikula says a recall election could happen as early as mid-April.
Spikula says the format for a recall election (in-person, mail-in, or a combination) hasn't been decided yet. But she says the timing isn't ideal, as her office prepares for a primary election in June. The first absentee ballots for the primary go out in late April.
"Having two ballots from two different elections sent to every registered voter-- I would worry about confusion," Spikula said.
Only registered voters in District E would receive a recall ballot, if it's sent by mail. And while the petitioner (Beadles, in this case) pays for the signature verification, Washoe County pays for the recall election itself. Spikula did not have an estimate on the cost yet.
Beadles says all the effort is worth it, and that he'll spare no expense. He plans to recruit* signature gatherers to canvass District E.
"I don't care," Beadles said. "God's blessed us. We've got a lot of money. So our kids are worth it. It's really that simple. After seeing what she said and what she did, it was very apparent to me that this woman does not belong in charge of our kids."
Beadles is a father and grandfather, but doesn't have children in Washoe County School District. He takes issue with the school board's actions on the pandemic, like the school masking policy. Regarding board meetings themselves, he says the facilities are too small to allow members of the public to participate, and that the decision to remove one of two public comment periods prevents parents from having their say.
Beadles also claims the district is teaching Critical Race Theory, and that test and proficiency scores are down during Taylor's leadership.
"As the chair, many of those things [Taylor] either knew or should have known," Beadles said. "She has the power to stand up for our kids and change the direction of things, and she's not doing that."
Taylor disagrees, saying in most cases that she-- and other trustees-- have no way of knowing what's happening in individual schools on any given day.
"We designate the day-to-day operations of the district to the superintendent," Taylor said. "We are elected officials. We don't work there full time. We make $750 a month, so we don't do the day-to-day. We aren't aware of the day-to-day."
Taylor said many of the complaints in the petition are either outside of her power as a trustee, or were voted on and approved by the full board.
"This is a group of people who have made a decision that they want to target me," Taylor said. "I am one vote on the board of trustees. I have worked very, very hard to represent this district, and I believe the people in my district know that."
Beadles will also be circulating a petition to put Bev Stenehjem on the ballot against Taylor, if the recall election moves forward. Voters could then choose to replace Taylor immediately with Stenehjem, rather than having the board fill her seat with a chosen replacement, if voters choose to recall Taylor.
The Claims:
Beadles lists these 12 claims in his petition to recall Angie Taylor. Scroll down to see each claim broken down for context, and the response from Angie Taylor.
• Repeated child abuse of a disabled student that took place over a 6-month period resulting in a disclosed $4,400,000.00 settlement for the victim
This claim refers to a recent settlement reached between an undisclosed family and the Washoe County School District, following the abuse of a child by another child of similar age on a Washoe County school bus. In its November 9, 2021 meeting, the board voted unanimously to approve a $400,000 payment to the family, the district's "self-insured retention limit" through its insurance policy. The remainder of the settlement amount ($4 million) was paid by insurance.
While Taylor said in an interview that she cannot disclose the details of the settlement per the requests of the family involved, she gave this response:
"I don't ride school buses. There's no possible way for me as a school board trustee to be aware of the day-to-day occurrences in the district. When you have a district with almost 8,000 employees and 62,000 students, it's a big enterprise, and sometimes not great things happen. Our job is to solve those problems when they come to us, and take care of the people involved."
• The Professional Equity Lens and Critical Race Theory (“CRT”)
Beadles claims in the petition, and on his website, that Washoe County School District is teaching Critical Race Theory. Taylor, other district officials, and members of the board, have repeatedly denied that CRT is part of the curriculum. The issue became a public debate when the board considered adding a "social justice" component to its curriculum, but then voted to create a task force to discuss the best approach instead, following impassioned public comment regarding the idea.
Taylor's response:
"Critical Race Theory is a boogeyman. Critical Race Theory does not exist in K-12 education. It just does not. What exists in K-12 education is-- 'Let's talk about all of the things in our country, partly that made us great, partly that we learned from, and that we bounce off from.' I'm always going to believe it's important that we make sure every student can see themselves, their accomplishments, what their people have gone through, and others can see that and share in it together."
• The handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and relief funding
Since there were dozens of decisions and votes on different aspects of pandemic policy over two years, it's difficult to fact check or contextualize this complaint. Beadles said in an interview that the board "didn't follow the science" when presented with information about mask-wearing in schools, and had concerns about the use of pandemic funding.
Taylor's response:
"We voted as a board to adhere to the directives that came out of Governor Sisolak's office. All the way through, we voted to adhere to those directives. So, to target me from the board voting to adhere to those directives, I think, again, that's not quite the whole story."
• Removal of the first public comment, future agenda items, and approval of agenda items
In June of 2021, the board removed the first of its two general public comment opportunities from the format of its regular meetings, after some meetings ran well after midnight due to lines of public commenters. The placement of the first public comment was before the scheduled agenda items, meaning that scheduled business was being delayed, sometimes by hours. The other public comment opportunity (which is required by Nevada Open Meeting Law), toward the end of the meeting, was retained. In addition, the board calls for any related public comment before action on any agenda item.
Beadles called the removal of the first general public comment an attempt to silence parents and community members.
Taylor said she made the decision after discussion with the board leadership team, and since then, no two trustees have approached with an agenda item to reverse the decision. It would take two trustees to get the item on the agenda for a vote.
"We are absolutely 100 percent in compliance with Nevada Open Meeting Law," Taylor said. "The first [public comment period] began to get so long that we would not get to agenda items sometimes until 9 or 10 at night. What about the parent who has public comment on things that are scheduled? Should the scheduled items have to wait until after non-scheduled items? We will stay here and hear all those public comments, but let's take care of the scheduled business first, so those people with items on the agenda aren't disenfranchised."
• Quality of education of WCSD students, including student proficiency in English, Math, Science, and preparing WCSD students for higher education
General "quality of education" is difficult to quantify, but the district has the data for student proficiency here. A quick search of proficiency rates shows some upward trends and some downward trends during the period from 2015-2020. Prior to 2015, the district used a different assessment method, so district staff says it's not possible to draw a comparison to rates before Taylor took office. Washoe County's rates from 2015-2020 are consistently above the state average.
District staff notes that 2020/2021 proficiency rates are skewed, because participation was not mandatory during the pandemic. Most proficiency rates for 2020/2021 show significant drops in both test scores and participation.
Taylor's response:
"It is not a secret that Nevada has chronically been one of the lowest states to fund education. And there is a direct relationship between the two. Are we where we want to be? No. But there are some things we can look back and say, 'Hey, you know what, this is moving in the right direction. Let's keep that going.'"
• Decrease in ACT and SAT scores in WCSD and failure to address the quality of education of WCSD students
For SAT numbers, College Board, which administers the SAT, changed the test for the 2016 cohort, so numbers can't be compared between now and before Taylor took office. Additionally, district staff sent the participation numbers for the SAT from the past three years, which has been steadily dropping as more colleges and universities waive the test requirement.
SAT test-takers in Washoe County:
2022: 299
2021: 293
2020: 808
For ACT numbers, the situation is the opposite. All Nevada students are now required to take the ACT, starting in 11th grade. Since that change in 2015, there has been a drop in ACT scores from an average of 21, to an average of 17.9.
District staff wrote this explanation:
It is really important to remind everyone that Nevada did not administer the ACT universally until 2015, but ACT+writing was not a required test for graduation until spring 2016. That means that any ACT data reported on National Center for Education Statistics or ACT’s website prior to that year only includes students who voluntarily took the ACT before they graduated. They would likely only do this if they were college-bound, so it is a very selective group of higher-achieving students.
As you can see here on National Center for Educational Statistics, in 2015 only 40% of our Nevada students took the ACT (composite score of 21), whereas in 2019, 100% of students in Nevada took it (composite score of 17.9). With the universal test, students take it halfway through their 11th grade year and we test earlier than even many of the universal-testing states, so even that isn’t a perfect comparison.
In prior years, it’s possible that many of our ACT test-takers took it in 12th grade to maximize their likelihood of a higher score. Also, National Center for Ed Stats and ACT’s site only look at graduates, while Nevada Report Card reports results of all test-takers, graduates or not. So again, it’s a select group of students.
Finally, Nevada Report Card publishes the percentage of students meeting a Nevada-defined cut score, not the ACT “college-ready” cut score that ACT reports. All that to say, it wouldn’t be accurate to do longitudinal reporting of ACT for Nevada or WCSD prior to 2015-16.
Taylor's response:
"When you're in a state that has mandatory taking of the ACT, those scores tend to be a little lower, because there are students that think 'I don't need this; I'm not going to college. I'm going to military, I'm going to trade school,' and so on. They tend to be a bit lower. It's also tough because we take it during the 11th grade year, so our students are already at a disadvantage, and we are still close to the national average."
• Prior knowledge of former-Trustee Jackie Calvert living outside of her district and tax-payer funds used during investigation
In September 2021, former Washoe County School Board Trustee Jaqueline Calvert stepped down from her position, after it was discovered that she had moved out of the district she was elected to represent. She called it her error, and said she failed to realize she'd moved into a different district.
Beadles believes other board members, including Taylor, knew she no longer lived in her district, but didn't act on the knowledge.
Taylor's response:
"We spent a lot of time and a lot of money with two external investigations. None of that was founded. We had two external investigations that landed in the same place. Why would I have that information?"
• Actions resulting in a lawsuit filed in the Second Judicial District Court of the State of Nevada in and for the County of Washoe, entitled Fiannaca v. Washoe County School District, Case No. CV21-02232
This refers to a lawsuit filed in Washoe County's Second Judicial District Court by Valerie Fiannaca, Melanie Sutton, Roger Edwards, and Bev Stenehjem. Court documents show the plaintiffs accuse Washoe County School District of violating open meeting law.
The complaint accuses the district of using a room for meetings that is "wholly inadequate" for the number of interested community members, changing the public comment format to "silence the public," for meetings running so late that members of the public lose their opportunity for public comment, and waiting too long to approve meeting minutes.
It accuses Taylor of only restricting disruptive behavior like clapping when she doesn't agree with the point being made, and removing/changing items on the meeting agenda.
The lawsuit asks that the court find the district in violation of Nevada Open Meeting Law, and asks for the district to pay plaintiffs' attorney's fees. The case was filed on Dec. 23, 2021, and is still active/pending.
Taylor said she is not permitted to comment on ongoing lawsuits.
• WCSD meeting rooms and venues
As mentioned above, some community members take issue with the size of the Board of Trustees meeting room, saying it's not large enough to accommodate all interested parties. The boardroom has a limited number of seats for the public, but the district also provides an "overflow room" for those who can't fit in the main room.
Taylor acknowledges that the boardroom is small, but says, with the exception of one recent special meeting, they have not had a single meeting with a full overflow room. When asked about whether the board could move its meetings to larger facilities (like at local schools), as they've done in the past, Taylor said the school police chief has advised them not to, because members of the public in schools while students are present is a major security risk. Taylor says the new Debbie Smith Elementary School building is designed with a new boardroom for these meetings, but it has not been built yet. When that is built, regular board meetings will be held there.
"What the meeting law says is that we do what we can to make reasonable accommodations as best we can," Taylor said. "And so we put speakers outside, and put some in the shade when it got to be too hot."
• Misuse of tax payer funds to attempt to censure Trustee Jeffrey Church
In September 2021, the board placed an item on the agenda to discuss the potential censure of board member Jeffrey Church, who represents district A. The board agenda item includes more than 200 pages of accusations, including emails from Church, as evidence of his alleged efforts to undermine district policy and goals, actions that open the district up to liability, and complaints from constituents.
After repeatedly delaying the agenda item, the board ultimately voted not to censure. The meeting drew a large crowd of public commenters, the majority in support of Trustee Church.
Taylor's response:
"Two other board members came to me and said that we should censure Jeff Church. Then it's my job as president-- and I didn't disagree, let me be very honest with you-- then it's my job as president to make the case, which is what I did. The board decided not to [censure], and so you move on."
• Requiring WCSD students to declare a gender pronoun
This complaint refers to a form that some teachers have asked students to fill out in their classrooms, which ask for general student information, including preferred name and preferred gender pronoun (eg. he/him or she/her or they/them), and other details like interests and hobbies. WCSD staff confirms that there is no district-wide requirement for students to declare a gender pronoun.
Taylor's response:
"When students fill out their cards, their information cards, in their classroom, they denote whatever they want to denote about themselves. That's what they're talking about. That's not a school board issue. It's not a school board issue at all. It's more about-- how do we make sure every student feels like they're safe, regardless of how they identify."
• Encouraging teachers to not inform parents of information students tell them
Regarding the above concern, some of the forms from teachers that ask for students' preferred pronouns also ask if it's alright to use the preferred pronoun in different settings, like in front of a classroom, or in a phone call to parents. In one example provided by Beadles, a teacher allegedly told students that she wouldn't inform their parents if students who identify as trans didn't want her to.
At the time of the interview, Taylor wasn't certain of what this complaint referred to, so couldn't offer a response.
*Update: On March 25, two of the people who joined Beadles in filing the recall petition against Vaughn Hartung rescinded the petition. Since two out of three filed to rescind, the petition is considered dead.
*Correction: A previous version of this story stated that Beadles plans to hire signature gatherers. He clarified on March 4 that he is using volunteer signature gatherers to canvass District E.