Documenting accountability in Evergreen Public Schools
through public records and primary source documents.
These projects reconstruct events from public records, police investigations, audited financial reports, interviews, and official filings. We do not advocate for any party — we let the evidence tell the story. Every factual claim is linked to its primary source.
Following the money inside Evergreen Public Schools.
An independent review of EPS budget documents, state audit reports, and financial disclosures — examining how public funds are allocated, how the district reports those decisions, and where the official record diverges from public claims made by district leadership.
View Reports →Meeting minutes, agendas, and official board records.
A curated collection of Evergreen Public Schools board meeting documents, including agendas, approved minutes, and supporting materials — organized for public reference and research.
View Documents →Levy-funded building projects and the routine post-completion process — who was involved, and how did the district manage it?
New construction of this scale routinely involves post-completion adjustments and remediation work. We're reviewing the original contracts, contractor relationships, and how the district managed that process on levy-funded facilities — as part of a broader look at how capital funds were spent and how those decisions were documented and reported to the public.
In Development →The state auditor found what the police report left open — raising new questions about representations made to investigators.
In September 2023, EPS issued $31,104 in supplemental contracts to bargaining team members during an active teachers' strike. VPD found no criminal basis to charge the target. Then the SAO's May 2026 Management Letter found the district lacked documentation showing the contracts were approved before work began — and cited the Washington State Constitution's prohibition on extra compensation after services are rendered. We're examining whether that finding contradicts statements made to Det. Alie during the closed VPD investigation.
View Summary →How a coordinated complaint campaign against a school district administrator ended with its organizers referred for felony prosecution review.
In September 2025, a group of self-described parent advocates filed a criminal complaint against Evergreen Public Schools' Chief Operations Officer during an active teacher strike. Vancouver Police Department's investigation found no basis for criminal charges against the target — and instead referred the complainants themselves to the Clark County Prosecutor's Office for felony prosecution review under RCW 9.62.010.1, with their legal counsel subsequently the subject of a complaint filed with the Washington State Bar Association.
Read the Investigation →A $4.5 million claim and what it reveals about the complainants' strategy.
In June 2025, Kendall Thiemann — named as a suspect in the VPD's felony malicious prosecution referral — filed a $4.5 million tort claim against Evergreen School District. The 113-page filing presents Thiemann's own account of events, including allegations of retaliation and a separate thread involving an ESD principal's pre-hire history in Arizona. We present the claim in full, with context the author does not provide.
Read the Filing →The same individuals referred for felony prosecution review in Investigation No. 2 keep citing this federal case — but the court's actual findings may tell a different story.
The complainants at the center of Investigation No. 2 have repeatedly invoked this 2019 case as part of their broader campaign. In it, a teacher filed a federal lawsuit against Principal Caroline Garrett, HR Officer Janae Gomes, and the district after being told he could not bring a MAGA hat to staff-only training. The Ninth Circuit's 2022 ruling was split: it found that Garrett had violated the teacher's First Amendment rights, while explicitly clearing both Gomes and the district of any wrongdoing. We're examining how this ruling is being cited — and whether those citations hold up against what the court actually wrote.
View Analysis →The EPS Transparency Project builds each investigation from the ground up using primary source documents obtained through Washington State public records law (RCW 42.56). We do not accept anonymous tips as evidence, and we do not characterize events beyond what the documents establish.
Where official investigations have reached documented conclusions — such as the VPD's findings in Case 2025-017448 — we treat those conclusions as the authoritative factual record and state them as such. Where the record is incomplete or contested, we say so explicitly.