Recall Ketchikan Superintendent Mrs. Lougee

A protest on Monday evening in support of recalling Mrs. Lougge, photo courtesy of Katherine Stone

Over the weekend and within 7 hours a petition on change.org gathered 250 signatures to condemn the superintendent of the Ketchikan School District. As of this writing the petition reached 394 signatures, the following is the petition:

KGBSD Board of Education,

We, the undersigned Parents, Families and Community Members of children who are attending or have attended any school in Ketchikan Gateway Borough School District, (Schoenbar, Kayhi, Houghtaling, Fawn Mountain, Point Higgins) have composed this letter to express our dissatisfaction with the current Superintendent Mrs. Beth Lougee.

This letter is an expression of our “Vote of No Confidence” in Mrs. Lougee and her ability to run our schools. We understand the severity of this decision and did not arrive at it hastily.

Ketchikan has always been a district to be proud of, one of where decisions were made on a collaborative basis with the best interest of our students in mind. Our schools always been a district that experienced great vision from our leaders, and teachers were given the respect and support to achieve our goals.

Throughout the past year we have had concerns regarding Mrs. Lougee’s leadership specifically regarding trust, collaboration, decision making, vision, her lack of respect for parents and staff and communication. We also believe that Mrs. Lougee has failed to abide by our mission that “Together we foster an educational culture of academic excellence, meaningful connections, and nurturing environments to maximize every student’s unique potential.”

Every student is the responsibility of all members of our learning community. “Together we foster an educational culture.” Students succeed best when families maintain a strong partnership with the school at all grade levels.

She has not fostered an “education culture of academic excellence, meaningful connections, and nurturing environments.” Instead she has created an unhealthy environment for both students and staff. She has created an environment of fear of retaliation and bullying to anyone who does not agree with her. Without the recognition of mistakes or the willingness to listen to parents or her own trained competent teachers, there is no hope for learning or improvement and thus no way forward.

We feel she has a lack of attention to, preparation for, or appropriate prioritizing of, the academic requirements and interests of our entire student body, as well as a failure to recognize and respect the expertise of the educational professionals in the building, and to foster healthy relationships and communication with families.

We feel she has inconsistency in application of rules and an ongoing lack of respect toward many of the parents. She has not responded to emails or questions being asked. A school cannot be run successful with a one-way avenue of communication. Even when input is sought, there is a failure to follow through or a total disregard for the ideas of many; when communication occurs, it is too often delayed and incomplete. There's just an overall feeling of we as parents are losing ground all the time. We need a different, more solid leadership. The moral is just too low and feel it is time for a change.

Additionally the move of trusted, valued and supported Educators from Fawn Mountain, Kayhi, and Houghtaling during a time of confusion, fear, anxiety and a need for consistent relationships with teachers/educators for students, families, and our community without reasoning and without consulting those educators shows her inability to continue “meaningful connections, and nurturing environments to maximize every students unique potential” as our KGBSD Mission Statement says. Workshops have been held and the parents who have expressed concerns were not invited, only those who follow her agenda or those who do not speak out seem to be invited. Mrs. Lougee is very selective of who she wants to include. As of now, it appears decisions were made already and the Town Hall Meeting set for 7/27/2020 is just a formality to appease the community rather than include them.

For these reasons stated, we the undersigned are voting “No Confidence” in Mrs. Lougee and hope and believe that you as leaders and role models will make the right decisions and choose what is in the best interest for the children, which includes input from SPED parents, parents and the community.

Some comments on this petition are as follows:

Over the last several years many citizens have lost faith in our district and its transparency. We need a superintendent that places the needs of our children first and foremost, with no vindictive tendencies, and that has an open line of communication with parents and the community. Mrs. Lougee does not provide any of this, and has a history of poor behavior and retaliation against subordinates. I do not feel she is best suited, or even mildly suited, for her position as Ketchikan's superintendent.

I'm signing because our children and our community deserve better. We deserve a leader who leads with transparency and honest, open communication. The current climate of fear and mistrust is unacceptable for the children of Ketchikan.

As of this writing NO children have passed Corona to adults according to a scientific global study:

Children contract the coronavirus less often and with less severity than the general population, and there doesn’t appear to be cases of a child passing Covid-19 to an adult, according to a new report. [...]

A China/World Health Organization joint commision couldn’t find a single case of a child passing the virus to an adult. Low case rates among children may be due more to higher numbers remaining asymptomatic, rather than a lower infection rate. Analysis of Chinese data in confirmed and suspected cases showed that 32% of affected children aged 6-10 years were asymptomatic. Precise details regarding pediatric transmission remain unclear. To date, only a handful of coronavirus deaths have been reported in children. Very few newborns or infants contract Covid-19 and generally they do well in overcoming the virus.

As an anonymous source wrote to POW Report:

I believe people will make it to be no big deal. That about 400 signatures is a tiny percentage of Ketchikan. Well isn't that the arguement with COVID 19? The percentage of infected SICK covid people in Ketchikan is absolutely TINY. This is why kids should be back in school fulltime.

If you would like to sign the petition, you may find it [here].

The meeting and Ketchikan decision on Ketchikan guidelines are recorded below (courtesy of Amber Williams)