St. Helens school board swears in new members; releases investigative report to board

Published 5:41 pm Thursday, July 17, 2025

The St. Helens school board looks a little different heading into the 2025-26 school year.

Three new school board members were sworn in at a July 16 meeting. Reed Hjort, Rochelle Russell and Christine Smith-Reed are replacing outgoing school board members Trinity Monahan, Kellie Jo Smith and Mathieu Douglass. In the meeting, Hjort was elected by the board to serve as its chair, and Smith-Reed will act as the vice chair.

The school board shake up comes after a tumultuous school year following the November arrests of two former St. Helens High School teachers — Eric Stearns and Mark Collins — on allegations they sexually abused students. Former SHHS Principal Katy Wagner was subsequently arrested for allegedly abdicating her duty as a mandatory reporter.

Community members called for the school board to resign amid suspicion that they had also failed to report student abuse to the authorities.

Following the arrests, the St. Helens School District brought on consultant and retired Dallas School District Superintendent Dave Novotney to investigate compliance with mandatory reporting policies. Former Acting Superintendent Steve Webb said the district would release the final investigative report when the investigation concluded, but walked back on that in March after receiving notice of potential litigation related to the allegations against Stearns.

The unreleased report has been a flashpoint for community members concerned about transparency from the school district.

Toward the end of the board meeting, Russell added an item to the agenda to unseal the report for the new board members to view, which passed unanimously.

“…So that we know things are taken care of accurately, we know what things have been dealt with related to allegations of staff misconduct involving 19 student victims,” Russell said.

The report will still be unavailable to the public, but the new board members will be able to view it.

Multnomah County District Attorney Adam Gibbs is currently reviewing two appeals of the school board’s denial to release the report publicly.

“I have two petitions pending in front of me from different individuals who sought the report from the school district and were denied,” Gibbs said. “If I order the school district to release the report to them, then the school district will either comply with that order or go to court if they want to challenge the ruling.”

Columbia County Spotlight reporter Fox Perez contributed to this report.