Conflict broils between city and school board in Tumwater after meeting no-shows
The Tumwater City Council and Tumwater School District were scheduled to have a joint meeting on April 14. Three out of the five school board members were absent from the meeting.
Board members Melissa Beard and Julie Watts were the only people from the district, including general staff members, who attended the meeting. School Board President Casey Taylor and board members Ty Kuehl and Rob Warner were not in attendance. Kuehl and Warner both notified staff they wouldn’t be in attendance due to being out of town. Taylor did not provide a reason to the city or school board for not being in attendance, City Administrator Paul Simmons said.
Taylor said in an email to The Olympian Tuesday night: “First, I want to clarify there was not a Tumwater School District Board of Directors meeting tonight nor a joint meeting with the city. You can check the school district website for meetings the district and board have scheduled. I was not able to attend the 4/14 meeting that the city held because of a prior commitment to be a volunteer coach to 9, 10, and 11 year-old kids’ baseball team. All 13 kids on the team showed up in the pouring rain, parents and family members as well. It was a back-and-forth game that was well played by both teams.”
Superintendent Kevin Bogatin was also not in attendance. He told The Olympian in an email on April 14 that, once it was determined that the majority of the school board would be unavailable to attend, it was recommended that he not attend as well.
“The district and board are interested in developing a joint meeting with the city council in the near future,” Bogatin said. “I’ll be reaching out to the city administrator to pull together a small planning group that will include representatives from the council, board, city, and district. We look forward to the meeting and furthering our partnership.”
The agenda included topics such as the School Resource Officer program, sharing facilities, the Tumwater FRESH Program, and creating a community of welcoming and belonging.
Tumwater Mayor Leatta Dahlhoff requested that Simmons track down answers about why the other board members weren’t in attendance, since the city has been working to schedule a meeting with the school board since January.
The council unanimously decided that next time, they will go to the school board for the next attempt at a joint meeting.
The council and two school board members discussed the recent changes to the SRO program during the meeting. In recent years, two officers were assigned to work with the school district. In February, the Tumwater Police Department announced that it had to temporarily reassign one SRO due to staffing shortages.
Acting Chief Carlos Quiles told the council that the one SRO is doing just fine handling the role on his own, and he believes the officer can handle all the district’s schools until the department is able to refill the second position.
“Since the temporary reassignment, Officer Stauffer has been delivering outstanding level of service, and to date, I have not been notified of any calls, issues or investigations that have not been handled by our SRO and or with support of our patrol staff, and if school district staff were here, they would confirm that and make sure I’m getting that information accurate.”
Quiles said the district has historically only had one SRO. But if they aren’t able to refill the second position by the 2026-2027 new year, the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office might offer support.
School board member Melissa Beard said she supports boosting the number of properly-trained officers working in schools, and her fellow board members have expressed similar sentiments. She said the loss of one SRO came as a great concern to the three board members who weren’t present at the April 14 meeting.
City Administrator Paul Simmons said he noticed early on in his new position in Tumwater the contention between the City Council and the school district. He said he had a recurring meeting arranged with Superintendent Bogatin and Mayor Dahlhoff to discuss issues, and those were going well up until the SRO discussion.
Simmons said the city offered the school district a number of dates for a potential meeting to discuss shared ventures, including the SRO program, and the city didn’t hear back. Time passed, and then the board made a last-minute change to a March meeting agenda to discuss the City of Tumwater allegedly breaching its contract with the district, Simmons said.
Simmons said he attended that March meeting and took questions regarding the SRO program from the board. He told the board that the council wasn’t there to be a part of the discussion, and he “implored and begged” the school board to attend a joint meeting with the City Council.
He said his request was met with two members, Kuehl and Warner, stating that they would be out of town, and that Taylor wasn’t planning to come and provided no reason. Simmons said he was told district staff would be in attendance.
“And then we learned late yesterday that, in fact, staff weren’t coming,” he said. “They were instructed not to come, and that the agenda that we have been discussing for months and have sent over for review was not acceptable, and that we shouldn’t have had logos on there, and that this isn’t an official discussion.”
Simmons said he hopes the board members in attendance will watch the recorded meeting and provide feedback.
School board member Julie Watts said she thinks the way the SRO discussion was placed on the board’s agenda was unfortunate. She said it doesn’t reflect how the superintendent or any school board member feels about the relationship between Tumwater schools and the City Council.
Watts said there have been discussions about ways to bolster the partnership between the city and schools. She said one proposal is to have a committee of two council members, two board members, the city administrator and the superintendent. Another is to have a representative from each body attend the other’s meetings.
Council member Brandon Weedon said he wanted to thank the two board members for attending the meeting. He said the absence of the others “speaks clearly to where their true priorities lie.”
“As a new member of this council and a lifelong member of this community, I’ve made it a priority to listen closely to our concerns, of our neighbors, to try to see topics not from one point of view, but from many,” he said. “Over the past several months, one issue has come up again and again, from parents, from educators and community members, they lack the leadership within our local school district.”
Weedon said there have been a number of issues at recent school board meetings, such as board members being restricted from asking questions, agendas being posted late or with no notice, and public comment periods being restricted in a way that makes it difficult for folks to participate without signing up well in advance.
“These are not small procedural choices. These are decisions that directly impact transparency and public trust,” he said.
Dahlhoff said one of the city’s three areas of focus this year is to turn up the energy and engage with the community more. She said part of that is optics and messaging, and when people aren’t present, it sends a message.
She said her message in return is that she’s setting expectations for those who weren’t in attendance at the April 14 meeting to show up and work together. If not, she said it will be “really uncomfortable” for them, because the city isn’t stopping the work it’s doing.
“So I’m not going to stop, and I’m not going to be bullied to remove a logo and change a title — that is a waste of my time, that is a waste of your time, and that’s not how I serve, and that’s not how I’m going to serve, and that’s not how I lead,” she said. “So let’s focus on where we overlap. Let’s move forward together. And I ask those who are not present to really consider the legacy that you’re leaving, and I’m not going to stop with that.”
This story was originally published April 15, 2026 at 9:05 AM.
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