Letter: After ignoring the students, Ridgefield School District outed them

Rob Anderson and a concerned Ridgefield parent allege Ridgefield School District repeatedly failed to redact student names in public records releases tied to a cheer coach investigation.

Rob Anderson and a concerned Ridgefield parent provide Part II of a two-part letter to the editor

Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are those of the author alone and may not reflect the editorial position of ClarkCountyToday.com

In Part One, I outlined how Ridgefield School District failed to protect students who reported emotional abuse by a Ridgefield High School cheer coach from a recent Reformcast episode (a video podcast focusing on Clark County issues). Students described intimidation, humiliation, and retaliation, and internal records confirmed misconduct. Yet for months, the District took no decisive corrective action. Instead, the coach was publicly praised and nominated for “Coach of the Year.” Only after public records requests exposed the situation did the District move to separate from her — raising serious concerns about accountability and institutional priorities.

For the students who reported abuse, being ignored was painful enough. Watching the coach praised while their complaints sat unresolved was worse.

What came next was unbelievable.

In responding to public records requests about the cheer coach investigation — the very requests that helped spur Ridgefield School District to confront the problem — district officials released documents that exposed the identities of multiple students who filed complaints or were listed as witnesses.

The records releases

The pattern was not isolated. It repeated. And it escalated.

On July 2, 2025, Ridgefield released the first of several versions of the public records response (PRR-2025-16). This release was provided only to the parent and contained three documents, two of which included unredacted four student names who had bravely submitted complaints.

On August 18, 2025, I received the response to my request submitted on June 4 (PRR-2025-17). That release totaled sixteen records, six of which contained unredacted student names, outing nine students by first and last name. One document was even titled with a student’s full name — not buried deep within pages where it might be overlooked, but displayed prominently as the title of the record. The failure was so glaring it appeared either intentional or gross negligence. Given that the primary duty in releasing records is to protect sensitive information, how could this have happened?

After notifying the District that it had failed to properly redact student information, the District issued a second release on October 17, 2025 (described as a “corrective” release). Shockingly, this release was worse than the last: twenty-one documents were released, and eight contained unredacted identifiers of nine students.

Across these releases, student identities were exposed forty-two times, involving nine students.

The student who most persistently sought accountability was exposed more than anyone else — accounting for nearly 43% of all disclosure events.

This was not a minor oversight. It was a serious breach of trust and a potential violation of state and federal student privacy protections. It raised a troubling question: Did the District fail to take student privacy seriously — or were the disclosures retaliatory?

Denial before admission

When concerns were first raised after the August release, the District’s Public Records Officer, Paula McCoy, minimized the issue and falsely claimed that only two documents were affected, only one student name appeared, and that the disclosure was made in “good faith,” suggesting no real harm had occurred.

Those representations were contradicted by the records themselves.

Even after being notified of the breach, the District’s October “corrective” release again exposed student identities — subjecting the same students to greater harm for a second time.

When Mrs. McCoy, one of the highest-paid administrators in Ridgefield (records from fiscal.wa.gov indicates $187,000 in 2025), was notified after the October release that the District had once again disclosed the identities of multiple students, she replied tersely:

“As previously communicated, we have responded in full to your public records request with updated files provided to you and closed the request effective October 17th. Thank you.”
— Paula McCoy

Surprisingly, this response conveyed no interest or concern of the seriousness of once again failing to protect student identities.

Only on December 12, 2025 — after continued documentation and scrutiny, and after learning that a story was being prepared for publication — did the District formally change its position. In a written response, Ridgefield admitted that its earlier claim was incorrect. Rather than one document and one name, five documents contained redaction failures, and student names were exposed seventeen times.

“In total, there were 5 documents with redaction errors. While all documents had some redactions, a combined total of 17 names were left unredacted in error. Combined, 7 students were identified by first and last name and one additional student was identified by first name only,” wrote Joe Vajgrt, a Ridgefield School District official.

Additionally, the District was notified on December 18, 2025, of evidence that several records were withheld from the final release, but it failed to respond within the 10 days provided and continues to ignore the request to release the remaining records.

No accountability — again

In the aftermath, the District produced an official summary reframing the complaints as primarily interpersonal conflict and suggesting the coach had taken accountability — despite internal records stating plainly: “I made the decision to part ways with Coach Campbell,” allowing the coach to resign and thereby short-circuiting potential future consequences from her misconduct.

And what happened to the coach? She moved on to a similar role in another Washington school district. Multiple sources indicate she is now judging competitive cheer competitions and has since taken a well-paid administrative position as an assistant principal in the Winlock School District. Was the Winlock School District aware of the problems that occurred in Ridgefield, as required by law? That may be difficult to determine.

And what happened to the students? The students who spoke up were mostly ignored or minimized. When action was finally taken, the District recklessly exposed their names in public records — not once, not twice, but three times.

Why this matters

What happened here was avoidable. It was foreseeable. And it harmed students twice—first by ignoring them, and then by failing to protect their identities.

This was not a clerical error quietly corrected. It was a systemic failure that revealed how institutions can work feverishly to protect themselves while recklessly leaving vulnerable students at risk.

Ridgefield School District owes these families accountability — not recycled statements labeling their actions as “good faith,” nor promises of retraining on procedures that appeared repeatedly ineffective. The community deserves transparency, not carefully worded admissions that come months too late.

Most of all, these students deserved protection.

They did not get it.

Rob Anderson and a concerned Ridgefield parent
Ridgefield