Breaking: Gateway Email Documenting Signed District Board Contract With Caples Emerges

Gateway Unified School District serves over 2200 Shasta County students in grades K-12. The District is led by an appointed superintendent who works under the direction of an elected district school board. 

It’s a legal structure that’s recently put Gateway’s Acting Superintendent, Steven Henson, in a very difficult position. In December, Henson was reappointed to his role by the Gateway Board after it fired long-standing District Superintendent Jim Harrell. Henson also served as acting superintendent during Harrell’s extended leave of absence which ended in October of 2022.

Henson’s role in the District allows him to advise, but not direct the District Board. He formalized that advice publicly during a January 18 Board meeting, when he spoke from the public lectern, advising Board members that choosing to appoint a superintendent without following the Board’s written policies, and without legal counsel, could legally endanger both the District and individual Board members. 

Henson shared similar concerns with the Board via email the day before that meeting. His email, which has now become public, confirms rumors that the Gateway Board hoped to enter into a contract with failed candidate for Shasta County Superintendent of Education Bryan Caples. Henson’s email includes a reference to a contract with Caples that he says appears to have been signed by Board President Cherill Clifford on December 30, more than two weeks before the Board met to discuss the superintendent appointment.

Community members, including parents, staff, and former students from within the Gateway District have voiced significant concerns about the possibility that Caples might be hired, especially in a way that circumvents written board policies. Their specific concerns relate to Caples’ concerning work history in other school districts and inequitable remarks he’s made about Native students in public forums. Caples’ teaching and administrative credentials are also currently temporarily suspended with California Teacher Credentialing Commission.

Local media organizations received a copy of Henson’s January 17 email from a representative of the Gateway Citizen’s Committee, a  grassroots organization that has emerged in recent months in response to a series of irregular actions by a newly-seated Board majority. The Gateway District Office verbally confirmed the source of the email with Shasta Scout this morning.

The contract with Caples, which is shown as an attachment at the bottom of the email, was not released as part of the records response, likely because details of personnel employment are typically exempt from disclosure under public records law. But Henson’s email states that the terms of the contract do not appear to be in the best interest of the District.

Speaking via Executive Assistant to the Superintendent Debby Boontjer, Henson declined to provide comment on the email or any related matters. Boontjer confirmed for Shasta Scout that the District still lacks legal counsel after recently losing the services of legal firm Lozano Smith. 

The Gateway Citizen’s Committee has also requested the Board to to rescind a January 18 vote to “bypass” the District’s policy on how to recruit and select a superintendent via a January 23 letter from the Committee’s attorney, Adam Pressman. If the Board fails to voluntarily rescind its action, Pressman’s letter indicates, legal action may compel the Board to do so.

This is a developing story.