Park City Board of Education President Andrew Caplan has dropped his bid for reelection, leaving candidates Eileen Gallagher or Dave McFawn to the race for District 2.
“After careful consideration I have made the decision to remove my name from the ballot for the school board election this fall,” Caplan said Tuesday. “When I first made the decision to run again, it was the Friday prior to the new filing deadline, and at the time no one had registered. Fortunately, prior to the deadline two more qualified candidates filed, and I believe it is time for new ideas and new enthusiasm for the role.”
“The race has changed so the voters and, more importantly, our students in District 2 have the chance for a fresh, new leaders, and a brighter future in the Park City School District,” Gallagher said in a written statement.
Caplan joined the board in January 2017, and was reelected for a second term in November 2020. During his years on the school board, the district was widely criticized for an erroneous decision 2017 to unearth soil contaminated with lead and arsenic, and pile it on the grounds of Treasure Mountain Junior High School as well as over a report released by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights that showed the district failed to properly address numerous cases of harassment among students in several schools in 2021-22 and 2022-23.
The dirt
Caplan said district leaders often face a conundrum with administrative decisions.
“We want our administrators supporting our educators, and so when you get into something like soil and soil mitigation … we trust the people who give us advice whether that’s an environmental consultant or the state,” he said. “We can have an army of administrators, including a soil expert or an environmental expert, but the moment we hire that person, people are going to come out and criticize us for spending more money on administrators versus teachers. So we’re caught in this catch-22 always about how do we allocate our resources.”
Until accidentally violating a covenant with the Environmental Protection Agency, Caplan said the district assumed they were OK as long as they capped the ground the soil disturbed.
“Maybe a mistake was made. That’s fine,” he said. “In the conversations that I have and that I recall, we were told to cap in place and that’s what we did. And that seems normal because there’s a lot of capped soil in that area.”
As for the district’s reaction to losing records that indicated digging up the soil would violate an EPA agreement, Caplan said updated policy necessitates an environmental assessment be completed before any construction.
“It’s a lesson learned,” he said. “Where is the failure? It’s a collective one.”
The civil rights report
The recent civil rights report and onus on the district to make big improvements weighs heaviest.
“The board accepts responsibility for being too soft,” he said concerning lax disciplinary measures taken when students harass one another. “The administration accepts responsibility for not having a system of books and records that was consistent across schools.”
At the same time, he stressed that “there isn’t one administrator or one educator who doesn’t care deeply about the students and doesn’t want every student to feel safe.”
While he said the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act prevented the district from sharing disciplinary actions with students and parents who have wanted to know what punishments harassers have faced, he explained board members are working to make district policies around discipline for harassment more clear.
“One of the things that happens, whether there’s a fight or a bullying or an issue or racism or antisemitism, is that oftentimes the victim feels like there was nothing done to the aggressor, and that’s just not the case,” he said.
As for how the district can help past victims of harassment now, he said the answer is much less straightforward, given how each situation is different.
The other side of the situation, he said, is putting better support systems for victims in place.
“That’s a really hard one,” he said. “I’ve been a victim myself of bullying and antisemitism. Do you ever get over that? No. I still remember it very vividly.”
Still, he said the district should review each case of harassment to see what can be done, a process it has begun.
“Can people be angry? Absolutely. Should people be angry that kids speak to other kids in this way? Absolutely,” he said. “But that is a collective responsibility — from schools, from parents, from families, from community organizations to educate their kids that this type of behavior and speech is inappropriate and not acceptable anywhere.”
One doesn’t have to look far to find harassment today, he said. It only takes a quick scan of current events or a glance at social media.
Moments of pride, too
Caplan said he’s also been proud to have been a part of the school district’s accomplishments in his time on the board, steps that have helped move the district in the right direction for students, teachers and the community.
“I am blessed to have served eight years as a representative of the community, and in that time we have accomplished a great deal,” he said. “First and foremost, we brought in an incredible administration led by Dr. Gildea who have built a bench of talent and guided the district back to a top ranking statewide and nationally. Second, we persevered during Covid and kept the schools open, allowing our district to service all students during a diffcult time for families and the community. Third, we prioritized putting dollars in the classrooms by ensuring that our educators continued to set the standard by being paid at the highest levels in the state.”
He also expressed pride in the board’s ability to fund a roughly $150 million bond to fund myriad construction and expansion projects that will expand education opportunities for students.
“It’s easy for the community to focus on soil mitigation or to focus on OCR. It’s a lot harder to focus on the successes that we have,” he said. “I think everyone has to just acknowledge that we’re never going to be perfect in education. We’re striving to do the best we can.”
He said he is not currently ready to offer an endorsement to either of the candidates running for his board seat, though that could change as the election draws nearer.
“It has truly been a pleasure to serve on this board with my colleagues and I thank you all for the opportunity,” he said.