Gateway’s School Board Is Looking For New Legal Representation: Here’s Who They Have in Mind

This story is part of our ongoing coverage of the Gateway Unified School District Board. Find the series here.

Since a newly-seated Board majority took charge in December, the Gateway Unified School District Board has faced a variety of legal concerns. Those have included a warning from one of California’s largest teacher’s unions over alleged violations of California’s transparency law and a complaint from the Freedom from Religion Foundation about an alleged violation of the Constitution’s establishment clause after Board members voted to start with a prayer during the last meeting.

The Board’s recent actions related to employment have also prompted legal concerns. After firing the District’s long-standing Superintendent without cause in December, the Board voted last month to “bypass” its own policies in order to appoint a superintendent without having followed the usual recruitment and selection process. Then, a January inter-district email that became public revealed that Board President Cherill Clifford had actually signed a contract for the superintendent position several weeks before the Board publicly discussed superintendent appointment. That contract, according to the email, was with failed Shasta County Superintendent of Education candidate Bryan Caples, whose teaching and administrative credentials are temporarily suspended by the state.

It’s unclear if any of these legal concerns are connected to the District’s January 13 loss of legal representation by the law firm Lozano Smith. But that lack of legal representation has deeply concerned Acting District Superintendent Steve Henson, who spoke soberly to the Board during the January 18 meeting, asking members to defer a decision on hiring a superintendent until “unbiased, objective legal counsel” could be found. 

The Board took no reportable action on hiring a superintendent at that meeting.

Now a newly-posted February 3 Special Board Meeting agenda shows the Board moving forward on the issue of retaining legal counsel. The Board will consider three legal services providers, including law firm Atkinson, Andelson, Loya, Ruud & Romo (AALR&R); law firm Kingsley Bogard LLP; and private attorney Tracy Henderson. 

AALR&R is a full-service law firm that specializes in a number of legal practice areas, including education. The firm has over 200 attorneys in nine offices throughout California. Kingsley Bogard is a five-attorney firm focused on personalized representation for public-sector clients, including schools. Private attorney Tracy Henderson does not have a legal website but told Shasta Scout by phone that she specializes in civil litigation, civil rights, education and employment law.

Henderson is also the founder of two organizations: California Parents United and the California Parents Union which work to support “parent choice” against “educational indoctrination.”

According to reporting from Monterey County Now (MCN), in January 2022 Henderson sued several southern California school districts and the California Department of Health over COVID mandates, referring to her activism as “God’s work.”

As part of a January 29, 2022 interview on Business Cents radio Henderson said believing masks work to prevent COVID is a “mental disease” and putting masks on children is “child abuse” pushed by “woke leftists.” Henderson also said during that interview that “replacing” those in political offices such as school boards is the only way to create change in California. She said she hopes to turn California Parents United into a Political Action Committee or PAC, which would allow the organization to fund political candidates in future.

The Board’s agenda packet for Friday, February 3, includes information about all three legal service providers under consideration, as well as draft contracts for each. A document comparing the contract costs for each of the three legal services providers being considered is also included.

That comparison shows similar estimated legal costs of $90–$100K annually for law firms AALR&R and Kingsley Bogard, depending on the quantity of legal services actually needed. In contrast, the District’s estimated annual cost for retaining Henderson’s services is listed at $260,000, almost triple the cost of the other firms. That cost difference is driven largely by Henderson’s monthly flat fee of $12,500, in addition to hourly costs for legal services. The other two firms have no monthly fee.

The Gateway Board’s next meeting will be held Friday, February 3 at 1 pm, at the District Office, 4411 Mountain Lakes Boulevard in Redding. You can see the Board’s agenda including attachments of supporting documents here. 

Do you have a correction to this story? You can submit it here. Do you have information to share? Email us: editor@shastascout.org