Washoe school board fires superintendent Traci Davis

The Washoe County School District Board of Trustees voted 6-1 at a special meeting Monday morning to fire Superintendent Traci Davis with cause. Trustee Jacqueline Calvert was the only no vote. Deputy Superintendent Kristen McNeil was unanimously chosen by the trustees to fill in as interim superintendent.

After the vote, Davis told reporters she is exploring her legal options against the district. Under Davis’s contract, the only avenue to dispute the termination is in court.

The move comes after a tumultuous two weeks for the district that saw lawyers, school officials and board trustees exchanging accusations of deceit, undermining investigations and potential racial bias. Davis is black in a district of only 2.5 percent black students.

Davis, who was given 20 minutes in front of the board for her and her attorney to dispute the charges, said she was not sure how someone got the confidential information and that she did not participate in leaking it.

Davis’ lawyer, William Peterson, took that a step further saying that the hundreds of pages of documents released by the board as evidence for the charges included nothing that links Davis to the leaking of the information.

“You might as well put in a phone book. There’s nothing in them that I can see that connects Mrs. Davis to these charges,” Peterson said.

The district accused Davis of negligence after receiving documents in May — including emails, texts and other information — that the district said shows one of Davis’ former subordinates, Byron Green, fed confidential information to Jenny Ricci Hunt, an employee Davis fired in 2018 who was suing for unlawful termination.

Green’s husband, David Lasic, was Davis’ chief of staff, and trustees said that Davis was told by the district in 2017 that steps needed to be taken to prevent the confidential information from leaking. Both Green and Lasic were fired by McNeil, who was running the district while Davis was out on leave last month.

Trustee Scott Kelley said he found 14 instances of information being leaked by Davis’ closest colleagues within minutes of Davis herself receiving them. He accused her of sabotaging the district’s efforts as well as intentionally or negligently leaking the information to her subordinate.

“I think Superintendent Davis purposefully undermined the investigation,” Kelley said.

The board heard from dozens of members of the public, including parents, teachers and teacher union representatives, who weighed in on the issue, many of whom blasted both sides for the public, messy way in which the the dispute has played out.

“The way this has been handled on all sides has broken out trust. It has broken our commitment,” said Natha Anderson, president of the Washoe Education Association.

Others touched on the issue of racial discrimination raised last week by Davis’ attorney, with some noting that the previous superintendent, who was Hispanic, was also fired by the board.

“I am concerned with the way that our process is going and also with the way that we have treated minorities in leadership here,” Norris Dupree, Jr. said.

Lonnie Feemster, president of the Reno/Sparks chapter of the NAACP, said that the way the firing played out in the public over the last few weeks will have lasting impacts on the relationships between the African American and other minority communities and the school district.

“It will heighten distrust and heighten the perception that there is bias,” Feemster said.

Hired by the district in 2012 as deputy superintendent, Davis was an up-and-coming administrator who had made a name for herself after spending 16 years in Clark County an teacher who climbed the ranks to become an area superintendent.

Two years later, then-superintendent Pedro Martinez was fired and Davis was chosen as his successor. Martinez later sued and received a settlement for back pay and other benefits totalling roughly $500,000.

Because she was fired for cause, Davis will not get a settlement from the district unless a court overturns the board’s decision. She will receive $122,4121 in compensation for accrued benefits, such as paid time off and unused sick pay.

Before the vote, Trustee Angela Taylor called for an “amicable settlement” between the district and Davis, saying it would have sent staff and the community a message that the board wants stability going forward.

Taylor said that she saw no direct evidence of Davis leaking the information, but that there was strong circumstantial evidence to support the allegations.

Taylor added that failing to come to an agreement is going to leave a cloud hanging over the district going into the next school year with Davis’ likely lawsuit playing out.

Such a settlement, Taylor said, “would have solved us the pain to come.”

Contact Capital Bureau Chief Colton Lochhead at clochhead@reviewjournal.com or 775-461-3820. Follow @ColtonLochhead on Twitter.

Full disclosure: The author’s wife is employed as a teacher in the Washoe County School District.