In a ruling issued last week, District Judge Thomas Gregory found that four Douglas County School Board trustees and the school district are liable for court costs but are exempt from civil penalties.
The petitioners have two weeks to submit their “costs and reasonable attorney fees,” stemming from their effort to obtain public records from trustees.
The respondents then have two weeks to reply with a division of the costs.
According to the order, the petitioners would have another seven days to argue for the fees before the judge renders his decision.
Gregory issued a 41-page ruling on Oct. 10 after hearing testimony on Sept. 17-18 from school board trustees and administrators.
The lawsuit was filed in August 2023 by petitioners Joe Girdner, Robbe Lehmann, Dean Miller, and Marty Swisher seeking public records requested in May and July from the Douglas County School District and trustees David Burns, Susan Jansen, Katherine Dickerson, and Doug Englekirk.
The requests sought communications to, from, and between the four trustees regarding various topics because petitioners believed they were using their personal devices to conduct board matters or receive instructions from outside sources.
According to the judgment, part of the DCSD and trustees’ main argument was that petitioners “rushed to the courthouse with minds set on accruing attorney fees and making the trustees look bad.”
“The point is well taken,” said Gregory.
Gregory observed the timeline from when the trustees took office in January 2023, to the change of legal counsel and concluded that the respondents attempted to communicate their compliance, but the petitioners carried on with their own deadline regardless.
“Petitioners did not extend common courtesy to DCSD and trustees and gave no consideration for DCSD and trustees circumstances,” said Gregory.
Despite the petitioners’ “rush,” the DCSD and Trustees still refused for over a year to conduct adequate searches, claiming the litigation was frivolous, unreasonable, and groundless.
“The litigation was not frivolous, unreasonable, or groundless,” Gregory stated in his judgement. “The petitioners sought a court order requiring DCSD and Trustees to conduct adequate searches and produce all nonprivileged responsive documents and DCSD and trustees refused further searches and pointedly refused the existence of additional records, yet after a year into the lawsuit and a court order the DCSD and trustees conducted a search and produced a small number of records.”
During testimony, DCSD and trustees made claims they did not know about the lawsuit, yet during public meetings they indicated they had received many communications about the public records request.
In another example, DCSD produced emails demonstrating usage of the trustees’ private devices for the provision of public services, but the trustees did not produce the same records, even after prior DCSD legal counsel, Rick Hsu, recognized the problem and warned the trustees that if transparency was not remedied, petitioners would file a lawsuit and be entitled to attorney fees.
“DCSD and trustees knew or should have known, without being told by petitioners, that their initial searches and corresponding productions were inadequate,” said Gregory in his judgement.
Whittell High School senior Olive Jillson Hamner is among the top 1 percent of students nationwide as a National Merit Scholarship Semifinalist.
Jillson Hamner was celebrated during the Douglas County School Board meeting on Tuesday for the achievement and recognized as the second semester student representative.
“We’re thrilled to celebrate Olive’s success and recognize her for the great work she’s been doing,” said Whittell High School Principal Sean Ryan. “There’s so much that makes students at Whittell unique and this honor reinforces the opportunities that are provided to all students at our small school.”
George Whittell High School Senior Olive Jillson Hamner was named National Merit Scholarship Semifinalist and will represent the Lake as a student representative on the school board in February.Provided / Sarah Drinkwine
Jillson Hamner was among more than 16,000 highest-scoring entrants out of 1.3 million students nationwide who took the fall 2023 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Qualifying Test as juniors, with the top-scoring participants from each state named National Merit Scholarship Semifinalist.
Whittell High School achieved a five-star status with one of the highest ratings for a regular high school in the state. According to information released in mid-September by the Nevada Department of Education, the school achieved a total index score of 90.
Semifinalists have an opportunity to continue in the competition for some 6,870 National Merit Scholarships worth $26 million, which will be awarded in the spring 2025. To be considered for the award, semifinalists must fulfill several requirements including maintaining an outstanding academic record, be endorsed and recommended by a high school official, write an essay, and earn SACT or ACT scores that confirm the student’s earlier performances on the qualifying test.
Finalists are selected based on their skills, accomplishments, and potential for success in future college studies.
The last Douglas County Student awarded the National Merit Scholarship was Douglas High School 2024 graduate Kevin O’Connell, who also earned a full four-year scholarship with the University of Reno.
“We have amazing teachers here (at Whittell) who care about our success and learning,” said Jillson Hamner. “We are small, so I can take the classes I want and receive the kind of help and mentoring needed to be successful.”
Jillson Hamner plans to study biomedical engineering at Dartmouth College.
“I’m looking forward to the opportunity and to further my education in something I am passionate about,” she said.
In recognition as the February student representative for the school board, Jillson Hamner said she had never done anything like this before, but is looking forward to the opportunity.
“I felt like it was an important opportunity for me to get involved in and help make a difference,” she said. “My goal is to make our district more united and to connect the schools down the mountain and here.”
The position for a student representative was pursued by 2024 Douglas High School graduate Madelynn Kennedy who envisioned a student seat at the board table as a non-voting participant to provide opinion, feedback and to foster a sense that the students of the district have a voice. She fought for the representation from May 2023 until she graduated. The position was approved as Board Policy 548 in July.
Before the start of the 2023-24 school year Student representative applicants had to submit a video for review by the board that outlined their involvement in school activities and what they plan to achieve as a student representative.
Superintendent Frankie Alvarado said a total of 7 students applied for the position, with two selected, one for each semester term of the school year.
Douglas High School senior Ender Dempsey was selected to begin the school year as the representative and Jillson Hamner will take over the position beginning in February.
Douglas High rated four stars with a total index score of 78.5, according to the Nevada Department of Education. Douglas High ranks ninth in the state among traditional schools, and was tied with McQueen.
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