Submitted by Trevor Seyfried

The confusing and frustrating saga of the Douglas County battle over the superintendent position continues. The Douglas County School Board responded to community pressure and reversed their decision to hire former San Joaquin Superintendent John Ramirez Jr. 

On one hand, it’s good to see a victory for the concerned parents and community members of Douglas County. But it took continued pressure and consistent turnout to board meetings from over 300 concerned parents and teachers to finally convince the board to overturn their decision to hire Ramirez Jr.—a decision reached despite his low public ratings and concerns raised about false information included in his application. 

This flip-flopped decision is the latest fiasco in a two-year battle that started with the Douglas County elections in 2022 and continues to alienate students, parents and teachers as the school board pushes their agenda forward.

These controversies echo those that plague Washoe County School District, from the revolving door of superintendents to gender identity regulations (note the plaintiffs in this case, they will make a couple cameos later). These similarities are not a coincidence. They follow a blueprint that has been playing out in cities across the country, as conservative candidates fill local government roles and turn nonpartisan positions into a battleground for enacting a harmful social agenda.

The Playbook

1. Conservative candidate runs for local government position. Sometimes they win fair and square, other times they slide into a vacancy left by other candidates that leave due to scandal or for their own mental health. Sometimes candidates are directly endorsed by the Republican party in the county. A direct endorsement by the local party wing is irregular for a nonpartisan position, but no longer surprising. In a deep red county like Douglas, it all but guarantees a win for the endorsed.
2. Once in the elected position, the electee spends all their time and energy pushing the conservative agenda du jour and stonewalling or otherwise blocking any attempts to pass meaningful legislation that does not fit their singular agenda. Throw in a couple of lawsuits, directly or through an “external” political group to drain resources and control the narrative.
3. The electee fires up the local reactionary right-wing outrage machine to attend public comment sessions en masse, protesting everything from mask mandates to bathroom selection. And not in a polite, civil discourse kind of way. Ideally, escalate this to the point of harassment, death threats and bullying.
4. The other hard-working members of the same office resign from the stress of the constant barrage of the vocal minority and the frustration at trying to work with those who have no desire to compromise.
5. Another vacant position! Return to step 1.

Douglas County speeds up the game

However, the process happened a little differently in Douglas County over the past couple of years. In this case, it was fast-tracked following the results of the 2022 election, when three incumbent seats were replaced by candidates looking to enact a right-wing agenda. They found themselves with an instant majority, and immediately began making major policy decisions and sweeping changes in the district. The most egregious of these have been met with overwhelming public backlash; an inverse of the current situation with Colleen Westlake and Jeff Church holding the minority position but bringing in their own supporters to overwhelm public comment.

The effect on the Douglas County School District has been immediate and devastating. To illustrate the tactics in play, here’s a timeline of the major developments that led to the most recent events:

September 2022: The Douglas County Republican Central Committee endorsed three candidates running against incumbent positions for Douglas County School Board.

November 2022: All three Republican-backed candidates won their seats in the 2022 election for Douglas County School Board. 

May 2023: These electees immediately focused their policy discussions around conservative social battles such as forcing transgender students to use the bathroom for their assigned gender at birth, and barring them from competing in sports with students of their same gender. Keith Lewis, the superintendent at the time, openly and strongly supported existing school district policies that were regarded as supportive and inclusive of transgender students.

July 2023: The school board forced through the selection of Joey Gilbert as the school district attorney. Yes, the same Joey Gilbert who just months prior filed a lawsuit against the Washoe County School District for policies protecting transgender students.The board skipped the Request for Proposal process and fast-tracked the selection, likely violating state law for the selection of outside consultants. 

September 2023: The school board proposed a gag order preventing the superintendent from “relating any information inside or outside of the Douglas County School District without the board’s express permission.” The order never passed, as the school board soon shifted to bigger plans to remove Lewis from the equation entirely.

The school board began to make rumblings about failing schools and low test scores and started to shift the blame to Superintendent Lewis. To do this, they compared two unrelated metrics for student success between 2014 and now. (Editor’s note: DCSD has consistently ranked among the top school districts in the state.)

October 2023: Behind closed doors, the School Board and Lewis came to a mutual agreement to terminate his contract. No reason was given to the public other than that “the parties had reached an impasse.” Lewis was highly respected and appreciated by the parents and faculty of the school district, and had by all measures led a successful career as principal and superintendent. The differences in opinion likely centered around the new board’s obsession with transgender and other conservative “culture war” issues. With the growing legal arsenal the board was building with the hiring of Gilbert’s law firm, Lewis saw the writing on the wall and took the best option available to make a graceful exit.

Meanwhile, Joey Gilbert used up over half the district yearly budget in two months with nothing to show for it.

A few days later, in a surprise vote, the school board voted to retain Lewis as superintendent. However, a few weeks later, Lewis formally resigned. This last move was not surprising to those following the battle. The board clearly would have continued to fight tooth and nail to enact their policies while minimizing the influence of Lewis and others who had the district’s best interests at heart.

It’s unclear whether the last minute vote to keep Lewis was a change of heart by one of the new school board electees, or a devious move to force Keith to resign rather than be terminated, making him forfeit the district’s payout of the rest of his salary to the end of the year. Either way, the result was the same by the end of the month, and the district was left without a leader. 

December 2023: Douglas School board trustee Tony Magnotta resigned, stating that his opinion was not being taken seriously and that he had received harassment and threats for not aligning with the board. See items 3-5 in the playbook above.

January 2024: Key supporters of the new school board majority opened up unprecedented public records requests. Before the records could be released, all of these requests were vetted by—you guessed it—Joey Gilbert. Recently elected Trustee Linda Gilkerson argued the records were necessary to support the building lawsuit regarding open meeting violations between trustees—ostensibly, not the ones on the majority side with her. 

February 2024: The school board voted 4-3 in favor of hiring John Ramirez Jr., against public sentiment, without an extensive background check—or perhaps in disregard of one.

Weeks later, in a similar vein to the Lewis decision, the board reversed its decision on Ramirez Jr.’s hiring after record board meeting turnout and community sentiment turned sour.

Although they appear to have caved to public pressure on these two occasions, these trustees do not seem to care about serving the community, the schools or the students. They seem to serve an agenda—an agenda that will drag the school system kicking and screaming to the conservative utopia where LGBTQIA+ students are forced to remain in the closet, even moderately controversial books are banned, and prayer is mandatory. The students aren’t really the intended beneficiaries—they never have been. The electees’ role on the board is the same as any other Republican party-backed local government belligerent: rally their base, run out the opposition and stonewall social progress.

With increasing candidate churn and the steady departure of key staff in the district, it may seem like the school board’s plan is backfiring. However, this disintegration of the public school infrastructure furthers the partisan school board’s goals just as much as any policy decision. Not only does it whittle away competent opposition to their agenda—it also grinds any school district operations to a screeching halt. The same electees then drum up support for more extreme changes in order to save the “failing” district. 

Whether or not the newly elected board members consciously intend to hamstring this once-outstanding school system, their policy decisions fall in line with what conservative-led school systems have enacted in Florida, Texas and other deep red counties across the country. The school board turns into just another combatant in the ongoing culture war against the “woke left” boogeyman, whether that manifests as fights over which bathrooms kids have to use or the inclusion of Critical Race Theory in curriculums. 

All this noise distracts from issues actually affecting kids, scares away quality teachers and undermines the whole system of public education. Meanwhile, local and state policymakers point to the failing school systems as justification for diverting more funds to private schools under the guise of “school choice” and cutting back on valuable public school programs. More good teachers leave, the ones who stick it out work even harder for the same pay, and student outcomes continue to slide.

Washoe County Library board sees the same 

This problem isn’t isolated to the school board positions. The same tactics work in pretty much any local government position and can currently be seen in action in the Washoe County Library System. In 2023, right-wing protesters turned up in droves to protest LGBTQIA+ books in libraries and the drag queen story hour program. Now the new appointees are trying to get the current library director fired, and have chased out board chairman Frank Perez, leaving right-wing backed Gianna Jacks in charge.

While the situation in Douglas County is perhaps a rapid and extreme turn for the worse in local politics, it is no longer an outlier. It is a glimpse into the endgame of the Jeff Churches and the Gianna Jackses of the world, where the rest of the community is at the mercy of whatever contemporary social policy slop that the conservative think-tanks pour into social media. 

These people, and those they rally, have lots of time on their hands, and they are very, very angry. They are angry enough to attend every meeting and write weekly frothing-at-the-mouth emails to the remaining sane board members who still hold the line. They will continue to do this until they remain unopposed. At which point it won’t matter what the federal or even the state government policy decides; if they control every local position they control the level of government that is closest to the day-to-day lives of the community. 

Most local governments are not organized or unified enough to handle this level of partisan takeover. They have plenty of other problems to deal with, and don’t have the time, energy or concentrated power to reliably oppose these kinds of tactics. That leaves the voting public as the only line of defense. 

City and county politics are small enough in scale for the individual to be able to make a measurable difference.  

While the Douglas County School Board’s decision reversals may only be temporary victories, they are victories that show that these battles can be won with perseverance. I salute the level-headed commenters who appear at every Washoe County School Board meeting to bravely make their case in front of the seething sign-holders and show there are still voices of reason amidst the chaos. Please be one of those voices so we can keep our local government functional, efficient and inclusive for the good of the students and everyone else who relies on those services.

CORRECTION: This opinion originally claimed WCSD Trustee Jeff Church ran unopposed. He did have an oppenent when he ran for school board.

Trevor Seyfried is a software engineer who lives in Reno with his family. Prior to Reno, he lived in Gardnerville, NV for where his wife worked in the Douglas County school system alongside Keith Lewis. They both support inclusive and diverse community events for families in Washoe County.

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