Newberg School Board Illegally Hires Campaign Donor Paula Radich as Superintendent

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Last Tuesday, June 11th, 2024 the Newberg-Dundee Public School Board held a bizarre meeting that violated public meeting laws in unusual ways. Despite the presence of numerous other mainstream news crews at the meeting (which is part of why this meeting was bizarre — I’ll explain why later) no one else seems to have realized the Board broke public meeting laws to illegally hire an :interim superintendent” who, it turns out, donated to the 2023 election campaigns of each board member who voted unanimously to hire her. Actually, not only did Radich donate to their election campaigns but she also helped organize campaign meet and greet events for them as well.

Yet, the most important thing I am going to tell you in this article is that the Newberg School board also violated incumbent Newberg schools superintendent Dr. Phillips’ employment contract by hiring another superintendent while he is still superintendent. That they hired an “interim superintendent” to seize control over his duties and position in the district in no way justifies their actions considering that per Oregon state law and Newberg school district policies, Dr. Phillips had the exclusive right to appoint a temporary superintendent during his leave of absence. The school board stole this right from him, effectively wrongfully terminating his employment. While I am not a lawyer, the evidence is plain as day to anyone who takes the time to read Oregon state law, the policies of the Newberg school district and watched the June 11th meeting.

What is Happening in Newberg with its Budget Crisis?

Let me break this all down for you and put things into perspective. As many Newberg-Dundee residents are aware, the Newberg-Dundee school district superintendent Dr. Phillips notified the public several weeks ago that the district had an unexpected budgetary crisis. While there is a lot of information to sort through, (especially because hysterical propaganda has been spread by the Progressive Yamhill social activist group seeking to use this incident as a way to justify firing Dr. Phillips as superintendent, who they want to fire because he is not part of their social activist group) I will be publishing in the coming days a detailed investigative article describing the source of the budget crisis. For now if you’re not familiar with the issue I direct you to the official statement the district made regarding it prior to the hiring of Dr. Paula Radich as interim superintendent on Tuesday. The short answer is that the Newberg School district is facing a budget deficit, for many of the same reasons that numerous school districts across the state of Oregon are; declining enrollment has resulted in the state providing less funding to each school, coupled with a growing dependance on hiring expensive contract workers through temp agencies to fill positions. And, which I exposed in past articles, the numerous lawsuits against the Newberg school district that were filed by Progressive Yamhill members in the court of the bias Judge Easterday (who made bench rulings against the conservative directors with no actual trial) as part of a concerted effort to discredit the previous conservative majority board have also not helped matters.

Before I go further, I want people to know that I have been investigating the budget crisis and I have found some startling information that strongly indicates that Dr. Phillips may not be responsible for the budget issues, and that instead the responsibility for the budget crisis may be largely the fault of the school board. This will be the subject of a future investigative article I hope to publish in the coming days, as I am awaiting the fulfilment of certain public records requests. I will say that I already possess documents that strongly indicate the school board is mainly responsible for the budget crisis in the Newberg school district and that the Progressive Yamhill members on the school board have grossly misrepresented the situation to the public in order to garner support and justify replacing Dr. Phillips with someone that better aligns with their political goals and agendas.

While these are bold claims, this presently published article will demonstrate how, just like how the Progressive Yamhill controlled Newberg school board illegally revoked the parent’s rights bill and stole rights away from parents of students in the district in 2023, the school board is now engaged in a conspiracy to replace Dr. Phillips as superintendent by illegally hiring a replacement while he is on leave in violation of both district policy and Oregon public meeting laws. A replacement who has strong ties to the board directors, which they did not disclose during the meeting — instead they pretended to not have these ties to her.

The Hiring of Paula Radich As Superintendent is Bizarre

Returning back to the focus of this article, as mentioned previously, last Tuesday on June 11th the Newberg School Board held a meeting where they hired Dr. Paula Radich as “interim superintendent”. There are several irregularities with this meeting which, I believe, taken together implies a conspiracy to illegally hire Radich as a way of replacing Phillips as superintendent, giving the Progressive Yamhill group back complete control over the school district as they had enjoyed several years ago when Dr. Morelock was superintendent.

The first of these irregularities has to do with the downloadable board meeting information packets. The original board packet published on the Newberg-Dundee school district website stated that during the Executive Session

You can see this for yourself on the school district website archive of past meetings.

You can download the original board meeting packet (now marked ‘DO NOT USE’) by clicking here. In this packet you will find the following,

I highlighted two sections with yellow bars. These two sections are absent from the revised meeting agenda (which you can download here). I have posted a screenshot of the relevant section that shows the items removed from discussion in the executive session.

The removal of these two items is very important, as is the date and time of the publishing of this revised agenda, which was June 11th sometime in the morning.

Upon beginning the meeting, in the video of the meeting (which you can watch on YouTube by clicking here) you will notice Board Director Trevor DeHart is absent the meeting. The only members in attendance is Nancy Woodward, Debra Bridges, James Wolfer, Sol Allen and Jeremy Hayden. Keep this in mind, especially as my previous reporting has demonstrated these individuals are part of the Progressive Yamhill social activist group. These board members were also elected during the last board election, and this will also be an important detail to remember.

Once the meeting begins, Board Chair Nancy Woodward at 2:37 in the video broadcast of the meeting, announces that the board will be entering an executive session. She lists only those three items in the revised packet, which are,

• ORS 192.660 (2)(e): To conduct deliberations with persons designated by the governing body to negotiate real property transactions.
• ORS 192.660 (2)(f) To consider records exempt by law from public inspection.
• ORS 192.660 (2)(h): To consult with legal counsel regarding the legal rights and duties of the public body with regard to current litigation or likely to be filed.

Please take notice that the specific ORS code designations are listed for each of these. Oregon state public meetings records laws requires that a board publicly disclose the specific sections of ORS 192.660 which will be discussed during the executive session and will not be publicly disclosed. In fact, there is a quick reference guide posted on the Oregon state website making this quite clear that only those specific sections of ORS 192.660 that are disclosed before entering the executive session can be discussed during the executive session. Here’s a screenshot of what the Oregon state website says about a board discussing things that were not expressly disclosed would be discussed during the session.

The Oregon state website clearly says, “Discussions in an executive session must be limited to the topics authorized by the statutory provisions cited for that executive session.“

Among the provisions which can be cited for an executive session under ORS 192.660 includes To consider the employment of a public officer, employee, staff member or individual agent, This section is ORS 192.660 (2) (a). HOWEVER, there are limitations on precisely how a governing body can have an executive session to discuss this. As per ORS 192.660 (7) (d) states that an executive session cannot be held to discuss the employment of a chief executive officer (i.e. a school district superintendent) UNLESS several criteria are met. The law says as follows,

(7) The exception granted by subsection (2)(a) of this section does not apply to:
(a)The filling of a vacancy in an elective office.
(b)The filling of a vacancy on any public committee, commission or other advisory group.
(c)The consideration of general employment policies.
(d)The employment of the chief executive officer, other public officers, employees and staff members of a public body unless:

(A)The public body has advertised the vacancy;
(B)The public body has adopted regular hiring procedures;
(C)In the case of an officer, the public has had the opportunity to comment on the employment of the officer; and
(D)In the case of a chief executive officer, the governing body has adopted hiring standards, criteria and policy directives in meetings open to the public in which the public has had the opportunity to comment on the standards, criteria and policy directives.

You will notice that nowhere in the ORS 192.660 does the law allow a governing body to ignore these restrictions due to an “emergency”, or for any other reason.

This is important, because toward the end of the meeting, just before the Progressive Yamhill school board members voted to hire Dr. Paula Radich, Board Chair Nancy Woodward admits publicly that the board discussed the hiring of an interim superintendent during the executive session with the school’s lawyer. You can see this for yourself at 3:02:34 in the YouTube video broadcast of the meeting.

To quote Woodward from this portion of the meeting,

To start this I’d like to express that last night, right before the budget meeting, I and other board members learned that Dr. Phillips needed to take leave, and [I] understand its currently anticipated to be a leave of about two months. It is critical for daily district operations to have an acting superintendent. We have been advised that the appointment of an acting superintendent cannot wait. Upon learning of the need for leave and in my capacity of Chair, this morning, uh, last night, I called Dr. Joe Morelock because he’s the ESD [Superintendent for Willamette Education Service District] and he said he would assist us, and he would have his legal counsel Christine Nesbit who was with ESD contact me, and she contacted me first thing this morning and we discussed possibilities, and with her permission I contacted Dr. Paula Radich, a former superintendent of the school district to see if she’d be willing to serve as an acting superintendent on an emergency basis. She has indicated she is wiling to serve as acting superintendent on a voluntary basis without any expectation of compensation of any kind.

There….as many of you know, Dr. Radich was the superintendent in the school district I think for about 11 years, several years ago. She has volunteered and she is willing to start tomorrow if the board is willing, approves….our attorney has a contract ready for us to sign as soon as there is an approval made, because this is urgent, as was pointed out to us, the appointment can be up to sixty days and can be longer than needed.

So discussion…this has not been discussed in executive session. It may actually be new news to some board members the name of….uh…this…our...our attorney talked to us in executive session but no mention of who or anything, because we’re wanting to make sure we’re abiding by open meeting laws.“

How the Hiring Violates Public Meeting Laws

Contrary to Woodward’s claims that the board did not break any laws, Woodward is a terrible liar. In actuality, Woodward statements are pretty solid admissions of guilt that the board violated public meeting laws. Let me break this down for you.

First of all, Woodward’s last sentence in her statement demonstrates that the board was aware of these laws concerning the hiring of a superintendent and this is an acknowledgment the board were seeking to find a way to skirt around them. They seem to think that not mentioning who specifically they were planning to hire means that this somehow lets them evade these laws. Yet, this is not how the law is written, as I explained in exhaustive detail earlier in this article. The law is about discussing the subject of hiring a chief executive officer (superintendent) and it is by not meeting the necessary pre-requisites that makes that discussion in an executive session illegal. It is irrelevant who is being hired.

Secondly, Woodward outright admitted, “..our attorney talked to us in executive session but no mention or who or anything…”. So Woodward outright admits that the board did discuss hiring an interim superintendent during the executive session, which as I’ve previously explained in exhaustive detail, is a violation of state law for three reasons,

1. because the public was not notified this would be discussed during the executive session,
2. the board did not notify the public the position was available and,
3. the board also did not provide the public an opportunity to provide public commentary about the hiring of an interim superintendent.

These are all pre-requisites before the hiring of an interim superintendent can be discussed during an executive session. As these things never happened the discussion was therefore illegal.

In fact, the Oregon state website features a cute looking guide sheet that clearly explains what Woodward just admitted was illegal for the board to do. The document is called Four Steps for Considering Employment in Executive Session. Take a look at it, it’s quite clear to anybody with an elementary school reading level that what they did was illegal.

Thirdly, Woodward made the statement, “as was pointed out to us, the appointment can be up to sixty days and can be longer than needed“. By watching the full video you will see that no where in this meeting was this information ever “pointed out” to the board prior to Woodward’s statement, which means it must have been discussed in the executive session by the school’s attorney, as this is the only part of the June 11th meeting where that discussion could conceivably had taken place (unless, they discussed this OUTSIDE the board meeting, which would also be illegal).

Based on her statement, Woodward seems to be claiming that because the board didn’t discuss specify during the executive session WHO they were going to propose be hired during the open session that they didn’t violate any public meeting laws. But the law makes no mention about specific individuals. The law quite plainly states that having any conversation about any potential hiring of any superintendent, interim or not, in an executive session without the pre-requisites being met is illegal.

Fourthly, discussing general hiring practices in the executive session is illegal as per ORS 192.660 (7)(c). As Woodward’s statements indicate that the board discussed how long the duration of the interim superintendent contract would be for, she has also admitted the board discussed general hiring practices and so that part of the executive session was also illegal, too.

Fifthly, ORS 192.660 (8) plainly states, “A governing body may not use an executive session for purposes of evaluating a chief executive officer or other officer, employee or staff member to conduct a general evaluation of an agency goal, objective or operation or any directive to personnel concerning agency goals, objectives, operations or programs“. This means the board discussing with the attorney about how to craft a contract and its terms for a superintendent, even an interim one, is illegal. Woodward’s statements imply they had this kind of discussion during the executive session.

And finally, the board is not even following school district policy concerning the hiring of an interim superintendent. Per the board’s own policies, the board can only appoint a replacement superintendent if the present superintendent is disabled or otherwise unable.

(As a side-note on the school policy: the “for some other reason...” part in the second paragraph, obviously, means some other reason a superintendent might be physically incapable of making the decision of appointing a temporary acting one. The fact that the first paragraph says the superintendent has the right to choose an administrator to serve in their absence implies the second paragraph is only applicable if the superintendent is basically dead or dying. Being unavailable to work because you are “disabled or for some other reason” is common legal jargon in employment contracts that imply a physical inability due to injury, critical illness and/or death, and whereas I am not a lawyer, I am very experienced in the drafting of employment contracts given my prior experience as an executive in film and tech industries).

How the School Board Breached Dr. Phillip’s Employment Contract

Per the school district’s own policies, Dr. Phillips, as the superintendent, is the one who is supposed to appoint a temporary superintendent in his absence. Dr. Phillips is not “disabled” — he is not immobilized in a hospital in a coma or something. He is on full medical leave, which does NOT necessarily mean he is critically ill, as he could also just be needing to take care of another family member who is injured or ill. Even if Dr. Phillips has a serious medical issue that requires his absence from working in the district office, that does not automatically mean Dr. Phillips is physically unable to select an administrator to serve in his role in his absence. In fact, I have never heard of medical leave ever meaning such a thing. If you are “disabled” (ie dead) then you’re obviously not taking a leave of absence from the district. People who are dead cannot go on medical leave.

In truth, Woodward actually admitted she talked to Phillips about his leave, which demonstrates Phillips is not “disabled” and unable to make this decision himself. He has obviously been robbed of it by the illegal actions of the Newberg school board who is overreaching their authority in an ill-conceived scheme to depose him as superintendent.

Consequently, the board has superseded Phillips authority as the superintendent by having this hiring process for his replacement — and that, again, is illegal because they didn’t follow the policy for selection of a temporary superintendent. Strictly speaking, this is also a breach of Phillip’s employment contract as well, as the board has effectively replaced him as superintendent by stripping him of his authority to appoint an acting superintendent so they can instead hire a new superintendent (Radich) who will only report to them and one who has — as I will demonstrate later — provided financial benefit to the Newberg school board members, including Woodward herself, by donating to their election campaigns in 2023. This demonstrates the board has denied Phillips his legal right in order to appoint one of their financial backers, a campaign donor (Radich), to his job.

Now we must look at Oregon state law that defines what a superintendent is and what their duties are. ORS 334.225 outlines the definition and duties of superintended. This law quite clearly makes no distinction between an interim superintendent and a superintendent. It literally says by law they are the same thing.

The duties are identical, which means Dr. Phillips role as superintendent in the district has been replaced by Paula Radich who is now legally the superintendent, as the state law makes no distinction between an interim one and one who is not. Per Newberg district policy, the board had NO authority to hire a replacement just because Phillips went on leave, because per the policy he is the only person who can appoint a temporary acting superintendent unless he is “disabled” (which in legal jargon basically means you’re either in a coma or dead). Phillips is not and so his employment contract has been breached by the Newberg public school district during the June 11th meeting.

This effectively means the Newberg school district board has willfully and wrongfully terminated Dr. Phillips employment as superintendent.

The Bizarre Nature of the June 11 Newberg School Board Meeting

It is, quite frankly, bizarre that the school district’s attorney, who I would assume is an expert in state public meeting laws and employment law, was complicit in all of this. I see no way else but to conclude that the school’s attorney has intentionally assisted the Newberg school board with violating public meeting laws to illegally hire a superintendent simply on the basis that Woodward admitted they had a conversation during the executive session about hiring an interim superintendent.

This also means the school’s attorney is also complicit in the board’s breaching of Phillip’s employment agreement as well and conspired with the board to wrongfully terminate him. Whoever this attorney is (the attorney’s name was not mentioned during the meeting) should probably be disbarred because they have assisted the school board in an incredibly illegal act that poses tremendous risk for litigation for the district, not to mention is an incredibly unethical betrayal of the district’s employee. The public deserves to know who this mystery lawyer is.

I also find it bizarre that reporters for KGW, KOIN and other Portland based news outlets had news camera crews at this school board meeting when it had never been announced publicly the board was going to do something as news worthy as hire a new superintendent. How did they know to show up to this otherwise trivial board meeting that was announced to be about Japanese transfer students, local high school student representatives and a future economic district rezoning when the general public wasn’t notified of the agenda change? At present, this is a question I don’t have answers for, but I suspect my pending public records request with the school district may offer some answers, should that request actually be fulfilled.

It is also bizarre that Lisa Joyce (who works at the Newberg high school as a hall monitor) made public comments during the meeting (at 1:07:13) where she talked about how great Newberg schools were when Radich was superintendent, which was more than four superintendent regimes ago and a dozen years in the past. That Joyce made these comments AHEAD of the board even mentioning Radich for the superintendent during the public portion of the meeting strongly implies Joyce knew ahead of time that Radich was going to be hired. If that was the case then the reason Joyce may have known about Radich is because the board held an illegal quorum meeting outside of the public meeting to pre-decide that Radich was going to be hired.

Let me be frank in my opinion; the probability that Joyce just happened to speak at this particular meeting about what a wonderful superintendent Radich was, several hours before the board publicly mentioned they were hiring Radich as superintendent, is probably close to zero. The timeline of events strongly indicates Joyce knew ahead of time that Radich was going to be hired, and the only possible way she could have known this is if the board had held an illegal secret meeting to decide this ahead of time and Joyce knowing this decided to make public comments about how wonderful Radich is in order to earn favor from her soon to be boss. This is the only way her actions make any rational sense, unless you wish to believe this Newberg high school hall monitor possess unique and amazing psychic powers of foresight.

On that note, it is also bizarre that the board voted to hire Radich without the members having first reviewed the contract upon which Radich would be hired. If we take what Woodward claims during the public portion of the meeting, this is what the board decided to do. Personally, I think the board members did review the contract, and this review took place during the executive session. I find it very hard to believe the board members voted to hire someone to a contract none of them had ever read first, that is just so outlandishly irresponsible that even with their constant violation of laws bordering on the comical at this point, I still find it difficult to believe they would all go along with hiring someone to a contract they had never read.

Another bizarre element is that Radich said she would work for the district without compensation. This is extremely unusual; so unusual it makes more sense when put into the perspective of the illegal nature of Radich’s hiring. If the board was sued by any member of the public, or even by Dr. Phillips himself over the illegal hiring of Radich, the board members would be responsible for paying the district back any monetary compensation which Radich received. By Radich, not taking a salary the board members would not be required to pay anything back. Instead, Radich can serve to further the agenda of the Progressive Yamhill group by having administrative control over the district and able to direct employees to do her bidding. As an example, during Morelock’s tenure as superintendent the district was notoriously combative in fulfilling public records requests, and in some instances the district blatantly lied about the existence of certain documents that I was able to successfully acquire only after his termination as superintendent. Now that Progressive Yamhill has another one of their associates in control over the district, I expect the fulfilment of public records requests that may reveal information the group does not want the general public to be aware of will become challenging again.

You know what else is bizarre about this meeting? The sheer fact that Paula Radich, someone who has apparently been retired for twelve years, was unanimously hired as the interim superintendent by the school board. But this makes more sense once you realize that the board members also never disclosed their personal ties to Paula Radich, who in the past actually donated to each of the board members’ campaigns for election as school board members. Radich also publicly participated in their election campaigns.

Paula Radich’s Election Campaign Contributions to the School Board Members

By simply going to the Oregon Secretary of State website and searching for campaign contributions, you will see that Paula Radich made donations in 2023 to the PACs for Nancy Woodward, Debra Bridges, Sol Allen, Jeremy Hayden and James Wolfer — all of the people who voted unanimously to hire her as superintendent of the school district, with no debate or discussion, and as I just demonstrated, in complete violation of public meeting laws.

Let me show each donations that she made (although it is publicly available information, as a courtesy I have censored Radich’s address).

To highlight her donations, between January and March 2023, Radich donated amounts ranging from $452.10 to $202.10 to each of the PACs as in-kind contribution for “Fundraising Expenses”. In total her personal donations amounted to $1,856.30. These PACs belonged to each of the board members who voted to hire her as superintendent last Tuesday.

Radich also actively campaigned for the school board members. In a Newberg Graphic article written by Gary Allen and published on March 10, 2023, “Group forms to support school board challengers“, Radich is mentioned as the leader of a group of former Newberg school district employees who sent an expensive mailer to Newberg residents inviting them to a meet and greet with Woodward, Wolfer, Bridges, and Hayden who were campaigning for the school board seats Here’s the whole article, with the relevant section highlighted.

Given the personal ties of Paula Radich as someone who literally helped them get elected as school board members by organizing an event for them, I am highly skeptical of Nancy Woodward’s claims about someone else introduced her to Paula Radich as a potential interim superintendent. The evidence shows a pre-existing relationship between Radich and the school board members, and one which was never disclosed to the public when they illegally hired her in violation of public meeting laws.

Normally, the board members would be required by Oregon law to disclose these ties they have to Radich. However, I suspect Radich expressly was hired under the supposed no-pay arrangement so that if anyone challenges them on this relationship they can argue because Radich was not going to be financially benefited by her hire then there is no conflict of interest. Oregon laws surrounding public officials have ambiguous language that allow for these kinds of loopholes that I believe are indicative of an attempt to deceive voters by hiding close ties and that the board directors awarding Radich her old job back could possibly have been her motivation for making the donations to their campaigns to begin with. If such an arrangement had been made then there is indeed a major conflict of interest here, and that they failed to disclose these ties implies such an arrangement might exist, as they did not want attention drawn to Radich’s donations to their 2023 campaigns.

Plus, there is no guarantee that Radich will not be made the permanent superintendent or that she won’t receive any financial compensation, including backpay. Radich only stated she would not expect to be paid, not that she would never be paid.

Summarizing the Events

So let me summarize what transpired during the June 11th meeting

1. The Progressive Yamhill members (Nancy Woodward, James Wolfer, Jeremy Hayden, Sol Allen and Debra Bridges) attempted to evade public meeting laws by exploiting the privacy of the executive session to discuss the hiring of an interim superintendent under the belief that if they don’t mention who they are planning to hire then the laws won’t apply. Yet, as I’ve explained in detail, they did in fact violate the laws merely by discussing the contract duration for an interim superintendent, which Woodward publicly admitted they did discuss during the executive session.
2. Despite the board never providing any advance notice to the public that Radich was under consideration for hiring as an interim superintendent, this information managed to make its way to an employee of the school district, Lisa Joyce, who made public comments during the meeting, which endorsed Radich’s ability as a superintendent, just a few hours before the board voted to hire Radich. This, coupled with the extensive media coverage, strongly implies the decision to hire Radich had been made by the board during a secret and illegal meeting, as there is little other reason for why Joyce would have acted as a cheerleader for Radich ahead of time and so many news crews were present for the meeting, whose publicly published agenda was not particularly news worthy. These third parties must have possessed prior knowledge that Radich was to be hired in order to explain their unusual activities at the meeting.
3. As the board lacked the legal authority to hire an interim superintendent this resulted in the wrongful termination of Dr. Phillip’s employment as superintendent of the school district.

By the way, I’d like to extend a special thank you to Gary Allen at the Newberg Graphic for being such a hack fake journalist who is always so eager to publish whatever propaganda the Progressive Yamhill members send him. I must admit, his publishing of their propaganda instead of writing genuine investigative journalism does makes it easier to connect the dots on these illicit relationships between bad faith actors in our local government.

And yes, Gary Allen is a hack who has destroyed the once great reputation of the Newberg Graphic. If Allen was a real journalist then he would be the one telling Newberg-Dundee residents about these connections between Radich and the school board members who illegally hired her, since he clearly knows about the connection since he put his name on a past article about that connection. Yet, as any reader of the Newberg Graphic can plainly see when you read his coverage of the hiring of Radich, Allen has never disclosed these connections he was aware of. Instead his articles are teardowns of Dr. Phillips, which I have no doubts are just a regurgitation of the press releases that Progressive Yamhill cronies send him as part of their use of the town newspaper as a way to distribute their propaganda and gaslight the voters about what is really going on.

You know what else Gary Allen isn’t telling you about what is going on in the Newberg Dundee school district? A great deal. Whether this is due to his ignorance or intentional, is for you to decide.

Stay tuned for my next few articles. I am nearing completion of my investigation into the causes of the Newberg school district budget crisis. So far, it looks to me like it’s not what the propagandists want you to believe.

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