Vancouver resident Angie Bunda pens an open letter to Superintendent Dr. Christine Moloney and the Evergreen School District’s Board of Directors
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
An open letter to Dr. Christine Moloney and the School Board Directors – Jackie Weatherspoon, Rob Perkins, Gary Wilson, Julie Bocanegra, and Ginny Gronwoldt:
Dear Dr. Moloney and School Board Directors:
Today (Wed., Aug. 20) we learned who the Evergreen Public Schools district values and protects. And it is not our children.
Per COO and lead district negotiator Jenae Gomes, you all would rather keep kids out of school, force parents to scramble to find childcare, and use as much of the taxpayers’ money as it takes in order to not pay the student facing staff a fair wage.
You have already spent half a million dollars in six months (Jan.-June 2025) on attorney fees to creatively defend your willful ignorance and refusal to address a multitude of concerns and issues.
You have made sure to give pay raises to those at the top at the expense of the children they are supposed to serve. All the while preaching of the financial issues this district faces and asking for staff to be fiscally responsible.
The current financial state of our district is due to the decision makers who continue to get paid more, and also due to your refusal to demand accountability of those who are abusing their power.
If the PSE Union votes to strike, we will stand by them. And we will find more people than you could ever imagine to join us and support them in demanding better.
We will not buy into the narrative that will soon come from the district about the PSE Union being greedy. We will not buy into the statements you have made of valuing the staff and wanting to see fair bargaining, or your sadness that our children are not in school.
We will not fall for this because we have seen your choices and we know that you are the ones who created this situation. We have seen who you choose to protect, and their actions that you are trying to bury.
But these stories will not go away. This spark of advocacy will not fade. And the parents and community members of EPS have only just begun their quest for transparency, communication, accountability, and trust.
We want to work with you. We want to make our schools safer, stronger and kinder for students, staff, and families. We want to expand the opportunities and resources that will give our kids positive educational experiences and help them succeed. And we need district leaders who have that same vision.
Please do what is best for our children, and not what will cover up the transgressions of those around you. Please honor your oaths and your roles as leaders. We will keep asking and keep trying, because we owe that to our children. And we will keep hoping that you choose to value and protect them with us.
Angie Bunda
Vancouver
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The author and readers may benefit from some additional facts:
1) School district budgets consume 80-85% of every dollar for personnel costs
2) Washington State teachers are among the highest paid in the nation
3) Test scores are in the trash can
4) Student population is declining. Evergreen has seen a 12% fall in recent years
5) Data for 2023-2924 on salaries can be seen here: https://fiscal.wa.gov/K12/K12Salaries
Personnel cost are unsustainable. The only solution is to allow competition. As long as Unions have a monopoly and donate millions of dollars to political campaigns nothing will change. The path Evergreen and other districts are on leads to state takeover because of poor fiscal management. Saying they just need more money fails the children
Please understand that the PSE Union is for school support staff, not certificated teachers. Paraeducators, bus drivers, etc. who work directly with students are not being paid a livable wage. These are skilled professionals who are dedicated to the students but make less than $2,000 a month. Yes there will always be a tight budget, but the money is there… it is just not being allocated to the hard working, child-facing employees. You can’t “value” your classified staff if you don’t pay them enough to survive.
Let’s be real. These employees don’t work a full 8 hour day, nights, weekends, holidays or the summer. I submit these jobs aren’t meant to raise a family on. These are part time jobs at best. There are fewer students in the district, test scores are terrible and the district has budget problems. We are sick of this branch of public workers deciding that the best time to strike is first day of school. They aren’t dedicated to the students, that is patently obvious.
The money needs to come from the teachers union sharing in their bounty. Taxpayers are tapped out.
If you really want lots of data about Evergreen give this link a look: https://schooldataproject.com/evergreen%20school%20district%20(clark)