Dozens of TRAILS Outdoors School student parents attended Monday meeting, cite ‘huge break of trust’ with district

By Holly Dillemuth, Ashland.news

An educational assistant at TRAILS Outdoor School in Ashland was placed on paid administrative leave on Feb. 21 after allegations of “sexual abuse/misconduct” incident that happened in 2022 at an off-campus location was belatedly shared with Ashland School District by a state investigative office.

Dozens of parents gathered in a room at TRAILS (Trust, Respect, Awareness, Interdependency, Leadership, Stewardship) Outdoor School on Walker Avenue on Monday for a meeting with Superintendent Samuel Bogdanove and TRAILS Interim Principal Ericka Beck Brattin. Ashland School Board members Eva Skuratowicz and Rebecca Dyson were also present. 

The kindergarten through eighth-grade school at 158 Walker Ave. has 140 students and focuses on outdoor education. 

“I know that there are lots of questions, lots of feelings, this is a hard thing to deal with,” Bogdanove told attendees Monday night.

But he cautioned those attending the meeting to let due process play out.

“Whether you’re in a school system, in a government reporting agency or law enforcement, but there are processes you have to go through and all of them involve due process, and so I really want to stress that with as much as we’re addressing concerns and feelings, those processes still have to run their course,” the superintendent said.

The incident did not occur at TRAILS Outdoor School, but happened off campus to a minor in Ashland in 2022, according to Bogdanove.

Many parents were more concerned with finding answers after receiving letters last week from Bogdanove and Beck-Brattin that the state Office of Training, Investigations, and Safety (OTIS) failed to alert Ashland School District that they had a report that an employee of TRAILS Outdoor School sexually abused a minor in 2022. The employee was hired by the district in 2021; a background check conducted then did not raise any issues.

A parent brought the incident of misconduct to the school’s attention, according to Beck-Brattin.

“It came to our attention and I went ahead and did as much investigation as I was able to at the time … and I determined that there was enough information to make the call,” Beck Brattin.

OTIS has known for the last two years about the incident, but failed to share it with the school district until recently. The two-year delay was caused by an error by OTIS, as previously reported by Ashland.news. The nature of the error was not specified.

Typically, if allegations of misconduct surface, they are “cross-reported” to the Department of Education, Teachers’ Standards and Practices Commission, and law enforcement, as previously reported. 

Parents noted a “clear gap of communication” between the school district and OTIS, though Bogdanove said that, generally, the district communicates with OTIS via Oregon Department of Education. 

“There was an error in the process that prevented that from happening the way it should,” Bogdanove told Ashland.news in a phone interview on Monday.

Bogdanove expanded on his comments on Monday night during the meeting.

Parents filled out a school district survey last week asking what questions they had. Bogdanove answered some of the questions they submitted, such as who receives a background check at the school district.

All staff are given background checks when they are hired, he said.

“If they didn’t have a clean background check, they wouldn’t get hired,” Bogdanove said. 

“We don’t do a separate background check once people are hired. We rely on that cross-reporting system, which has access to the same databases.”

Volunteers also receive background checks but are not cross-reported.

“What happened in this case, of course, is that there was a glitch in the system and that cross report was significantly delayed,” Bogdanove said.

An attendee asked for more specifics regarding details of the error.

“My sense was that it came down to individual error,” Bogdanove said, noting he didn’t receive full details while speaking with an investigator at OTIS.

An attendee asked if there has been an audit to see if there have been any other oversights by OTIS.

“That I couldn’t speak to, but typically, both OTIS and (Oregon Department of Human Services) are some of the most scrutinized agencies at the state level,” Bogdanove said.  

A woman who has volunteered at various schools asked why there aren’t more background checks, including an annual background check for employees.

“Is this going to change now that this occurred?” she said. “If they had been doing yearly background checks on employees, this would not have occurred.”

Bogdanove said, “Typically, cross reporting has been more effective.”

Another attendee shared that he and other parents are experiencing a “huge break of trust” with the school district.

“In order to kind of rebuild that trust, we’re all going to expect a lot of accountability and follow through, so I’m just wondering what kind of guarantee you can give parents that there has been some follow through here?” he said.

Parents wondered aloud if there are other schools in Ashland School District and/or Jackson County that have experienced this, unbeknownst to them.

Bogdanove emphasized it was an “isolated” incident, according to what he has been told by those at OTIS.

“If there was a ‘glitch,’ the entire state of Oregon is potentially susceptible,” said one parent.

“I want that verification that that is not the case, that there aren’t an abundance of reporting errors.” 

Ashland police are investigating the incident. 

“It’s being investigated by our criminal investigations division, and it’s ongoing, so I’m probably not going to be able to say much about it,” O’Meara said, in a previously reported story. “I know that we at the police department are appropriately handling the information as it’s presented to us and pursuing the investigation as the situation allows us to.”

Bogdanove said individuals can share information through a tip line with SafeOregon by calling or texting 844-472-3367 or by emailing tip@safeoregon.com

“If somebody suspects child abuse of any kind, they should be calling law enforcement,” Bogdanove said in an earlier interview with Ashland.news, “but if there are other things they want us to be aware of, they could use the tip line.”

Media asked to leave

There were at least three known individuals representing local media organizations at the meeting Monday evening: Ashland.news, NBC-5, and The Ashland Chronicle.

Bogdanove told attendees that those from media organizations would be present for the first few minutes, but then would be in the hallway if parents wanted to talk. He told Ashland.news and NBC-5 prior to the meeting that the meeting was public. All media organizations stayed in the room to report on the proceedings.

Superintendent’s letter to parents: Click here.

Superintendent’s and interim principal’s letters: Click here.

Reach Ashland.news reporter Holly Dillemuth at hollyd@ashland.news.