XPost: alt.education, or.politics, sac.politics
XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.politics.homosexuality
ST. HELENS, Ore. — St. Helens High School principal Dr. Katy Wagner has resigned, five months after she was placed on administrative leave amid
a teacher sex abuse scandal that rocked the school and the wider
community. Wagner has also been charged with mistreatment and misconduct stemming from the scandal.
Wagner agreed to resign her position on Friday, Stacey Mendoza, director
of communications for the St. Helens School District, confirmed in an
email Monday evening. The district will begin searching for a new
principal and will notify the community as soon as the school board has approved the hiring of one, she said.
Wagner has been on administrative leave since mid-November; Dr.
Charlotte Ellis has served as acting principal since early December.
The scandal broke out in mid-November when St. Helens High School choir
teacher Eric Stearns and retired teacher Mark Collins were both arrested
and charged following a two-month police investigation into allegations
of sexual abuse at the school. The revelation triggered outrage among
both students and parents.
RELATED: KGW investigation reveals dozens of Oregon teachers lost
licenses for sexual violations against students
Wagner and district superintendent Scot Stockwell were both placed on
leave days later, and Stockwell resigned in March. Dr. Steven Webb was initially appointed acting superintendent; he departed at the end of
January and was replaced by current acting superintendent Dr. Karen
Fischer Gray.
Wagner was charged in late November on two counts of criminal
mistreatment and four counts of official misconduct, with investigators alleging that she had failed to protect students from Stearns and
Collins and didn't comply with Oregon's mandatory child abuse reporting
laws. She pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The school district opened a third-party investigation into the scandal
in December and initially promised to release an investigative report
within about two months, but the timeline was later pushed back several
weeks. Then, in March, the district announced that the release of the
report would be indefinitely paused, due to what it said were pending litigation claims.
https://www.kgw.com/article/news/education/st-helens-principal-resigns/28 3-f188cc21-933b-4afa-8f49-c0603635e846
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