Wolves in the Henhouse > School Superintendent put on paid leave in Oregon

 

Handling of Child Sex Abuse cases lead to

Superintendent suspension

As acting board Chair Trinity Monahan put it, the St. Helens school community has lost faith in its district leadership, leading the school board to push out Superintendent Scot Stockwell.

Payton Mauldin, a junior at St. Helens High School, speaks about the current conditions at St. Helens High School during a protest at Columbia River Highway and Gabel Road.

Staff Photo: Jaime Valdez

“Based off of our last meeting, it was pretty clear that at this point the community has lost faith in a number of different things,” Monahan said. “For the purposes of being able to move forward, I believe that it’s going to be in our best interest to move towards placing our current superintendent on paid administrative leave.”

During an emergency online meeting held Friday, Nov. 15, four members of the St. Helens school board voted unanimously to place Stockwell on paid administrative leave in the wake of community outrage surrounding the district's handling of sexual misconduct allegations against two teachers — one current and one former — at St. Helens High School. The board typically has five members, but former Chair Ryan Scholl stepped down and resigned following protests and a raucous school board meeting prompted by the Nov. 12 arrests of current choir teacher Eric Stearns and retired math teacher Mark Collins on several sex abuse charges.

The indictment in Columbia County Circuit Court accuses Stearns of sexually touching six minors in overlapping time frames over the course of nearly a decade from 2015 up to this year. Collins is accused of sexually touching three minors between Jan. 1, 2017, and July 25, 2023.

Safety concerns surrounding the protests also caused St. Helens High School to dismiss students early Nov. 14 and cancel school across the district the following day.

Stockwell is now in company with St. Helens High School Principal Katy Wagner, who was placed on paid administrative leave just a few hours before the impromptu meeting.

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