Rob O’Callahan:“Hi, I’m Rob O’Callahan, a single dad with two elementary school kids. My family is relatively new to Mercer Island, and we are currently living in an apartment. Like many new families here, we moved here for the schools. That’s why I care so deeply about the students of our schools and the district. My focus is and will always be on the students. The article that came out today was really hard to read, and it wasn’t what I had planned to talk about, so I’m speaking from the heart. I know some of our students don’t feel protected. I’ve spoken with many of your parents while door-knocking, and the student article, ‘We Wish We Had Known Sooner,’ hit me hard. But today’s story hit even harder. I want you to know that I didn’t just want your voices to be heard. I want them to lead the action. We need to understand what’s been done since the teacher accused of misconduct left in August. Many students, past or present, have been contacted or offered support. You deserve answers, and so do I. If I’m elected, I’ll work collaboratively with the superintendent, administrators and teachers, and most importantly with the students and parents who bring these concerns to us, not just the press, to make sure that nothing like this ever happens again. That means real transparency and accountability, real protocols for investigations and third-party oversight to avoid conflicts of interest, and timely communications with parents when misconduct is reported. It means also protecting teachers from false accusations, ensuring staff members receive solid boundary training and the discipline is consistent and fair. You deserve to feel safe and heard. That’s the foundation of education. In my work leading large teams at large tech companies and at startups, I’ve learned that transparency builds trust and collaboration delivers results. And as a parent, I’ve learned that real change begins with listening. I hope I can earn your trust and your vote to help make Mercer Island schools a place where every student can count on.”
Stephanie Burnett:
“My No. 1 priority right now is restoring trust in the schools and in the school board with our community. And that means with parents, families, and most of all, you guys, because you are the ones who have been so impacted by a lot of the allegations that have come out recently. And to have the other situation with Chris Trombley come out a few months ago and then the news that came out today is outrageous, and I am, as a mom, very angry and as a mom of a daughter who just went through this high school, very upset. And our community at this point, I think, has a lot to be upset about, and so we need to work as a school board because the school board is overseeing things and should bear responsibility for ultimately how things go, and they should be the ones to lead the change, working with the district. So that’s my biggest priority right now: How do we create safe schools for you all? How do we ensure that this kind of thing never happens again and that you all feel empowered to speak up and safe to seek help when you need it, and how we can make sure that the rules that we put in place going forward and how teachers can act and how things are investigated if it comes up again, that we put real solid plans in place that actually create real change and create a culture change at the high school, because it’s just not OK. And I want the community to feel good about it too.”
Julian Bradley: “Today’s revelation of another teacher abuser who was allowed to remain in his position for more than a decade is awful. We are as a community indebted to the brave former student who chose to come forward and share her story. I grew up in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and I had the honor of attending the McCallie School. And the core values of that school were honor, truth and duty. And those are the words that keep coming back to me during my campaign for the school board. I wanted to acknowledge that the district has taken important initial steps: investigating reports, immediately reporting all new victims to CPS and forming a committee to review training and protocols. These actions are necessary, but they are not sufficient. We live in a community of excellence, from the classroom to the sports field, but it is clear that in some ways, maintaining the outward appearance of excellence has done us a disservice. When people don’t feel empowered to speak up the moment they see something wrong, everyone is at risk. We still have hard questions to answer: What were the conditions that allowed these predators to thrive as popular and respected teachers? Where and why were choices made prioritizing adult interests over student safety? The real path to student safety lies in instilling a district culture of responsibility for the well-being of others. We must elevate truth and transparency over comfort and self-protection. We must honor our duty to protect the vulnerable and hold accountable the decision-makers responsible at the time of reporting. Students cannot learn if they do not believe in themselves, in the teachers whose job it is to support them and in the district whose job it is to keep them safe. If we don’t model what it means to do the right thing when it is hard, especially when it is hard, we have failed you, and you deserve better.”
What should be done in response?
Rob O’Callahan: “Well, I think first of all, we have to have the measures in place. There’s a ‘See Something, Say Something’ app. I think that we really need to encourage students to use that when they see things suspicious. I’ll give an example. I have a friend who actually went to this high school back when Trombley had his first year at the school. And already it was clear to him and all the boys and girls in the class that this teacher was treating certain girls differently from everyone else. And I think if there were a way to report this in any of those 25 years since then, we could have prevented a lot of victims from being abused. They have to know that they’re not risking retaliation and that they will get actual results, that there will be accountability for these reports that they make.”
Stephanie Burnett: “So, of course, you’ve got the Say Something app and that’s super important, but I think you’re good at using that. I think that, for me, we need to put some really clear rules in place for teacher-student interactions, and there just need to be some very clear boundaries for what they can and cannot do. So, for example, teachers should never be allowed to text a student without their parents’ on it, or with school emails, it’s a little different, but there needs to be really good communication rules. There needs to be clear rules about who can go into a room with a student and shut the door. I personally don’t think that a teacher should be allowed to do that anymore, because things have to change. And then we really need to create a culture change by making sure that everybody understands. So if kids know the rules, if kids know — I mean, you all generally have a sense of what’s right and wrong, of course — but if there are the 10 rules and things that teachers are never allowed to do, and everyone knows them, then everybody can help enforce them. And I think that right now, there have been too many gray areas, and so there have been too many situations when people feel pressure and they don’t know exactly how to respond. And I think if we have rules that everyone knows about, that’s the way to move forward and create change so that this kind of thing doesn’t happen. Also, really clear rules for how investigations happen. So if something anonymous is reported, we need to have it set already: Who knows? Is it just the principal? Is it the superintendent? Is it a member of the school board, too, so that there’s more accountability and they can’t just kill the investigation without anyone else knowing about it?”
Is this problem systemic?
Stephanie Burnett: “What I said was that I thought that when the district, which was the superintendent, decided not to disclose the Trombley incident to the community initially, that that decision was made in good faith because they were trying to protect the victims. They had good intentions. I personally feel that in the balance, they should have disclosed it to the community to ensure that you all knew that he was not a safe person to contact, that parents knew that they shouldn’t hire him to be a college counselor or anything else. And so, as far as going forward, I have a lot of concerns about how the schools handle it. There were clearly really bad decisions made by the principal at the time in 2011 and in 2016, potentially the superintendent at that time also. So for sure, some big mistakes were made at those times. Though from what I’ve heard, the school board was unaware, was not informed, and that’s one of the things that I think we need to change: to make sure that school board members and community members also have some oversight and knowledge of these kinds of things when they happen.”
Rob O’Callahan: “Well, for me, I think it’s strengthened my perception that it’s been sort of systemic. If you have a place called the ‘Man Cave’ in the school, I think that’s kind of a red flag.”
[O’Callahan had previously called for the resignation of the superintendent.]
Julian Bradley: “No, I don’t agree with how it’s been handled, obviously, and I’ll echo Stephanie’s points. 2011 was not handled well. 2015, 2016 were not handled well. I do agree that in 2023, when Trombley was immediately removed from the classroom on a verified report, that was the right decision. And then you get into questions of due process, people’s reputations, teacher union contracts, state law and federal law. The school board has to make hard choices between competing interests. I know several of the school board members personally. I know Fred Rundle well. I do trust that they tried to make the best decisions that they could at the time. I don’t agree with not telling the community. Rob mentioned the ‘We Wish We Had Known Sooner’ article before. That does a very good job of framing the debate on what we should do as a school board. The other thing that is helpful about that is that it kind of shows the community that you guys, as kids, are getting a good education. You guys are learning how to weigh some of these things. And also, when you learn about how the school board works, it gives our legislative representative, whose name is Christina Martinez, when they go down to Olympia to advocate for change, it gives them a concrete thing to show: This is what our students want. They want to know if there are credible reports against their teachers, and it gives them a stronger platform to advocate for. So that’s my view on it.”
