Comments made by former school administrator Luke Augsburger at the Sweet Home School Board meeting on Monday, May 11, prompted an extended two-part discussion of “transparency” and what happens during public comment.
Augsburger, who resigned as a Sweet Home High School vice principal in February to take a job at his alma mater, Western Governors University, has been a regular attendee at board meetings in succeeding months.
On May 11 he reminded board members of conduct standards in their policy manual.
Those included respecting other board members’ differing opinions and ideas, making decisions only after facts have been presented and discussed, respecting the public’s right to attend and observe board meetings, and the right of the public to be informed that they are legally entitled to know about what’s happening in the school district, and being open, fair and honest – “no hidden agendas.”
“Transparency has been disregarded,” Augsburger said. “For the past two months we have had opportunities to correct the issue that have gone undone.”
He noted that meeting minutes approved by the board from the previous two months lacked “direct quotes” of comments made by board members, and suggested that the board “look into that.”
Also, he said, some members of the public lack access to YouTube recordings of meetings “or the recordings are a little bit muddy.”
He noted that the standards of conduct have been approved by previous boards, as well as the current members.
He also challenged the board “to return to a focus on students and we need to measure what is important – literacy rates, grad rates, those types of measurements.”
Board Member Mary Speck said she has had a “real challenging” time finding YouTube recordings of school board meetings.
“It would be wonderful if we could have easy access from our home page,” she said. “When I tried to access it from our home page, it took me to one from about 10 years ago. And it doesn’t list the current ones.
“I hear that,” Chair Mike Adams said. “This last one, I had a hard time finding. I finally found it. Most of them are on the Sweet Home School District page with YouTube, if you search hard enough.”
“But it doesn’t put them in the right order,” Board Member Rachel Maynard said,” to which Adams agreed.
Later in the meeting, Speck raised concerns about “transparency” in the meeting minutes, as board members readied to vote on a motion to approve the consent agenda, which typically include the minutes from the last meeting.
“The words that are coming into my mind when it comes to the minutes are that we have nothing to fear even though we have to be accountable for our actions,” Speck said. “If anyone from the public makes a comment that might be something that causes us to think about our performance, that should not be hidden.
She referenced public comments made by Robert Egner at the April board meeting that challenged the board.
She noted that the minutes being presented for approval on May 11 did not include a response from Maynard regarding Egner’s comments.
(Both Egner’s and Maynard’s comments were difficult to hear from where a reporter sat in the audience section of the room, and were unintelligible in the YouTube recording of the meeting, which the reporter checked later. The reporter privately communicated concerns about that to school officials. The sound quality was significantly improved at the May meeting.)
Speck also noted that comments from Adams criticizing public comments and board members’ comments were not included in the minutes.
Speck said she didn’t feel she could approve the consent agenda with the minutes lacking those details.
Adams suggested that she could pull the minutes off the consent agenda and deal with it separately.
Speck made that motion, which was seconded by Maynard.
Board Member Dustin Nichol asked if the minutes should be “word for word” what was said in the meeting or simply an “abbreviation” of comments made.
Board Clerk Julie Emmert, who prepares the minutes, said that they are not legally required to be such but should summarize what was said, though motions and actions taken by the board must be accurately worded.
“I try to transcribe,” she said, adding that if people planning to speak were to give her a summary of their points ahead of time, “That would be super helpful to me.”
She also said that board members are welcome to let her know if “something isn’t right” when the agenda packet is given to them ahead of time.
“I would love for you to tell me that,” she said.
Board members acknowledged that Maynard’s and Egner’s comments at the April meeting were, as Maynard and Adams both put it, “hard to hear.”
Speck acknowledged that “I don’t think I’ve really read (the minutes) with the eye that I should.”
She suggested that people making public comments could give Emmert a copy of their statement when they are finished.
“I think that’s a really, really good idea,” Emmert said.
Board members voted 7-2 against pulling the minutes off, with Maynard and Speck dissenting. Jenna Northern and Amanda Carter participated remotely.
They then voted 8-1, with Maynard the “no” vote, to approve the minutes.
Graduation Rate Report
Board members heard a report from Sweet Home High School Principal Ralph Brown on the school’s graduation rates, which prompted comments about how CTE programs at the school have led to students graduating who otherwise might not.
Brown prefaced his remarks with a report on the school’s Unified CTE Day, held May 7, which included special-needs students from several area high schools.
“A lot of these schools don’t have those programs,” Brown said.
He said that Sweet Home High School has a tradition of accommodating needy students, citing an example that occurred before his arrival at SHHS in 2015, when Nichol, now a board member, taught woodshop at the high school and had a student with a disability involving his hands that prevented him from participating in woodshop.
“They made him some special gloves and tools so he could participate in woodshop,” Brown said. “So the stuff that we’re doing now is nothing new. It’s stuff that people did in the past.”
The Unified CTE Day was special nonetheless, he said, adding that visiting students made toolboxes in the woodshop, created flower hangers in the metal shop, got to try axe throwing in the forestry team’s practice facility, and more.
Getting down to the graduation rates, Brown noted that a decade ago graduation rates at the high school hovered around 70%.
He credited “our great team, great staff” at the high school for improving those numbers to 88% last year, three points over the state average. That was up from 80.98% in 2024 and 78.0% in 2023, both slightly below the state average.
“With graduation rates, there’s always some ebb and flow,” Brown said.
He reported that when last year’s graduating class were ninth-graders at the high school, 85% of them were on track to graduate on time.
“The reason why Ninth Grade on Track is so important is it’s a clear indicator,” he said, adding that students who complete their freshman year with the correct number of credits (six or more) have a much higher chance of graduating in four years.
He noted that for the Class of 2024, who were freshmen during the COVID year of 2020, only 68% were on track as ninth-graders. For the Class of 2023, 74% were on track.
Sweet Home’s graduation rate for students categorized as living in poverty, 84% in 2025, was far above the state’s overall poverty graduation rate of 71%.
Brown said he is “really proud” of the 79% graduation rate last year for students who were homeless, who lack “a steady place to live.”
Responding to questions from board members, Brown said that the school matches struggling students with “champions” who can offer peer support, and that his staff watches ninth- and 10th-graders’ progress closely to identify those who need help.
“Every year is a battle, though,” he said, adding that he currently has seniors who are “going crazy” and whom the staff is just trying to help to the finish line.
“The social, emotional struggles that our kids have are real, and our counselors are dealing with that right now,” Brown said. “There’s kids that I haven’t had problems with in four years and there’s some issues now. There’s a lot of struggles, but I have the best team in the entire world.”
In response to a board question he said he wasn’t sure what the exact numbers are for this year’s graduation rate, but that the school has had 26 early grads thus far, some of which would otherwise be part of this year’s junior class, whose ninth-grade classmates will graduate next year.
“Some (schools) won’t let their students finish early because of a number of reasons,” Brown said. “But if we put the brakes on those kids, we may lose them. We hate losing kids. Every kid in my career that I’ve lost, those are the ones that I remember.”
He said the school also gets transfer and fifth-year students.
“They come from somewhere else and they’ve been unsuccessful,” he said. “My team is able to get them through.”
Nichol spoke up, recalling that when he was a teacher “85 to 90 percent of the students participating in the CTE programs graduated.”
“With Ralph doing this thing for the special-needs kids, and at one time our district kept woods and metals and auto when everybody else got rid of it. They’ve added FFA and forestry the last seven or eight years.
“So when other people were cutting, this district and this board saw the need for a CTE program to keep our knuckle-draggers in school. I think it’s a tribute to the administration,” he added, gesturing toward Supt. Terry Martin.
Brown noted that Nichol founded what became the current forestry program, with then-Supt. Tom Yahres, right about the time Brown arrived.
“He won’t say this about himself, but him taking the lead on getting that forestry teacher was huge,” Brown said.
In other action the board:
- Following an executive session, voted unanimously, with Northern and Amanda Carter not present, to not pursue a complaint made against Martin due to “unsubstantiated facts.”
- Approved the hiring of Tomas Rosa as athletic director at Sweet Home High School, effective Aug. 31.
- Approved the hiring of Stephanie Rabago as assistant principal at SHHS, effective Aug. 1.
- Approved the hiring of Kai Schlegelmann as elementary teacher at Hawthorne Elementary effective Aug. 31.
- Approved the hiring of Megan Taylor as fifth grade teacher at Foster Elementary, effective Aug. 31.
- Approved the hiring of Ashely Duffitt as second grade teacher at Foster, effective Aug. 31. Approved the hiring of Jessalynn Weigant as first-second grade blend teacher at Foster, effective Aug. 31.
- Approved the hiring of Elias Stuckart as science teacher at SHHS.
- Accepted the resignation of Sommer Edmonds, third grade teacher at Oak Heights Elementary, effective June 30.
- Accepted the resignation of Deanna Neuschwander, first grade teacher at Foster, effective June 30.
- Accepted the resignation of Gillian Coplin, second grade teacher at Oak Heights, effective June 30.
- Accepted the retirement of Cathy Brands-Hawken, special education teacher at Sweet Home Junior High School, effective July 1.
- Accepted the resignation of Laura McCaffrey, first grade teacher at Hawthorne, effective June 30.
- Approved an out-of-state trip by the Josai Club to Tokyo, Japan, June 12-25.
- Approved out-of-state trip by SHHS FFA members to Indianapolis, Ind., Oct. 23-31, 2027.
