Olympia school board member ‘uncomfortable’ working with peers after rift at retreat

Olympia School District board member Maria Flores said she feels too uncomfortable to work with the other board members in person, and wants the board to work with the local Dispute Resolution Center and get more training following a rift at the board’s Aug. 10 summer retreat.

But the board’s president, Hilary Seidel, told The Olympian she’s unsure when any mediation will happen.

“I didn’t feel comfortable having my scheduled phone call with President Seidel this week, and I did not feel comfortable meeting with her in person or having a Zoom call,” Flores said. “This is not an easy thing to say, but it is because of the behavior that occurred at that retreat.”

Flores says that ahead of the summer retreat she emailed the board about feeling uncomfortable following a recent executive session. She said in her email she wanted the board to invite a professional facilitator to their summer retreat to conduct conflict resolution and trust building exercises.

She said that didn’t occur at the retreat, and instead board vice president Scott Clifthorne led a “rose, bud, thorn” exercise designed to help people evaluate a situation and build rapport.

“What I also said in that email to you as a certified mediator by the King County Dispute Resolution Center and an education ombudsman who founded the first education ombudsman office in the nation, I said, from my lived experience and professional experience, we can’t resolve our own conflicts,” Flores said at the retreat. “We have to have a neutral facilitator, and that’s not what occurred.”

She said because of this, there was yelling, crying, anger and anger posturing, and gaslighting at the summer retreat.

Flores said she was verbally attacked for not visiting schools enough. She said the board is aware she’s a single mother and doesn’t have the ability to take leave from her work, on top of a number of personal issues she’s also dealing with.

She said she also doesn’t feel comfortable just popping into classrooms because, as a former teacher, she wants to respect teachers’ time and space.

Flores said she was yelled at during the retreat for dissenting on some decisions, and for bringing her teaching experience and knowledge from working for state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction to the table.

“I have worked for over 20 years in public education,” Flores said. “I’m a teacher. I taught in schools not like Olympia; President Seidel, you once told me, ‘Yeah, you were a teacher, but not here.’ You’re damn right. I wasn’t a teacher here.”

Flores said during the summer retreat that two members of the public and a reporter were yelled at and told they were being threatening.

Kelcy Shaffer was at the retreat. She said Flores and another community member, two women of color, were bullied and dismissed during a discussion about accountability.

“I hope you also reflect on what it means to be anti racist,” she said at the Aug. 22 meeting. “For all the talk of equity and inclusion, it is evident that you are very purposefully isolating Director Flores because she does not agree with you, just as you’re isolating a community that does not agree with you.”

Flores said she wants the board to do a work session with the Dispute Resolution Center, and for the board to get training from the Washington State School Directors Association (WSSDA).

“I went to that retreat with full faith and an open heart, ready to do the hard work with you to repair our relationships and work through that agenda, and I stayed on task the entire meeting,” Flores told the board at the retreat. “I didn’t raise my voice. I didn’t scream like director Huffman did multiple times. I didn’t do anger posturing like vice president Clifthorne. I contained myself until we had a break at lunch where I had to put my head down and cry.

“I appreciate all of you. I disagree with you sometimes, but I appreciate you,” Flores said. “I have held your babies, Hilary, I have made many, very important memories with you, and I am committed to this work and to you and to the school district, because this is good work and public education is what I’ve devoted my life to.”

President Seidel responds

In an interview with The Olympian, Seidel said she told Flores she thought it was a good idea for the board to do the WSSDA self assessment and have a facilitated conversation at this year’s retreat, but it likely won’t happen until next year when a new president and vice president are selected. She said the vice president plans the retreat, which is where the assessment would take place.

“It’s tricky to do when you have brand new board members, which we’ve had the last couple of years, but I think we’re in a good position, potentially, to do that self assessment and coordinate that,” Seidel said. “So I hope that’s something we do, but that will be left up to the next board vice president, which won’t be determined until December.”

In response to Flores’ request for some conflict resolution work, Seidel said she’s taking some time to learn best practices and figure out what style of mediation works best for the board’s “unique situation as elected officials.”

“Anytime more than two of us are in a room together, it’s a public meeting, so it requires thinking more intentionally about how we want to approach that,” Seidel said. “And then the other part is that any kind of mediation has to be something that every party member agrees to participate in.”

She said she hasn’t had a chance to have one-on-one conversations with board members since the Aug. 22 meeting and is unsure if they will participate in mediation. Seidel said she hasn’t had those conversations in part because people have been out of town, and because she’s taking time to think.

“I think for myself, I wanted to take some time to really think deeply about what is the path forward for us, and what can we do as a board to both improve our working relationships, but also to redirect our focus on service to students,” she said. “If we want to do great work for students, we need to have the best working relationship with each other that we possibly can.”