Richland School Board member says she deleted text messages with other board members

Richland School Board member Audra Byrd intentionally deleted four months of text messages she sent and received between herself and fellow board members in an apparent violation of state law.

She said it was because of phone storage issues.

And she plans on continuing to delete messages until the district gives her a new phone.

“I have to delete my texts and even apps on a regular basis because I just don’t have enough phone storage,” Byrd told the Herald in a Thursday voice message.

The missing messages became apparent this week after the Tri-City Herald received hundreds of texts requested from board member Kari Williams.

The Herald asked to see the Richland board members’ email and text messages after the board reversed course last month and voted to immediately make masks optional in schools in defiance of state requirements.

The Tri-City Herald is anticipating more messages from the district in response to the records request.

Text and email messages — whether on their own devices or the school district’s — are considered public documents under the Washington State Public Records Act.

Williams provided 38 pages of text messages for that time period. The texts were messages she exchanged separately with fellow board members Rick Jansons, Semi Bird, Jill Oldson and Byrd.

The texting exchanges showed:

• Byrd’s desire to fire the district’s superintendent and “deal with the chaos of the teachers union” rather than return kids to school with masks.

• Byrd stating she planned to delete her message exchange with Williams.

• A statement from Byrd that the board needs to find a way to have direct power to discipline district employees and to be able to more tightly control the superintendent’s hiring choices.

• Efforts by Semi Bird to lobby Michael Connors, president of the Kennewick School Board, into voting with board members Micah Valentine and Gabe Galbraith to defy the state’s masking mandate, mirroring Richland’s actions.

Byrd turned over five screenshots of text messages to the school district to comply with the Herald’s request. Texts with other board members were not included, though others provided conversations with her.

Deleting those messages could be a violation of state law.

Judges have interpreted state law to include records produced on personal cellphones and devices when they’re being used to do the work of public governance.

New school board members are required to undergo Open Public Meetings Act training shortly after taking office.

On Thursday, Byrd, who was elected in November 2021, told the Herald she took the OPMA training and also was trained on retaining public records.

“There’s a lot that I’m learning. I’m new on the board, and I’ve never been in office before,” she told the Herald.

She also said she was already in contact with her cellphone provider to try to retrieve her deleted messages. She’s spoken with district counsel Galt Pettett about getting dedicated phones for board members to use so that conversations can be more easily managed.

Until then, she doesn’t plan on retaining her messages on her personal phone.

Richland School Board President Jill Oldson told the Herald the board and other board members are not responsible for the actions of any individuals member — even in retaining records.

“That’s their own personal individual choice that they make themselves,” Oldson said.

Already, Audra Byrd, Semi Bird, Williams and the school district have been named in a lawsuit filed by an Olympia-based activist that argues the board violated the state Open Public Meetings Act when they failed to list on their Feb. 15 agenda plans to vote on making masks optional.

Byrd also had been called on the carpet by state Superintendent of Public Instruction Chris Reykdal for using her public school district email account to leverage what he deemed a political attack. Reykdal said he felt the statement against him was a violation of ethics.

Leadership change

Shortly after Superintendent Shelley Redinger ordered schools be canceled in the wake of the board’s vote, Byrd vented her frustration to Williams, writing in text that she was worried they had “lost control over the education of our children to the far progressive agenda.”

She also accused Oldson of being “on a witch hunt,” and asked what was going to stop the union from “strong arming” the superintendent into teaching sex education, critical race theory and “anything else that they want to push.”

“If it comes down to it, I would rather fire Shelley and stand up for what is right and deal with the chaos of the teachers union rather than send our kids back to school in masks and giving that power to evil that we would never be able to recover from,” said Byrd’s text.

“And I think a lot of teachers would still show up to school, despite the union ... And I am deleting all of this now [smiley face emoji],” her texts continued.

This week, Byrd told the Herald she’s “no longer interested” in firing Redinger, and that the board and administration is working to come together.

In another text message exchange, Byrd also urged Williams to write a board policy requiring the superintendent to submit reports on new hires, as well as new disciplinary procedures, “in an effort to dissuade any staff striking.”

“I think we need to have a way to discipline staff. Staff is out of control right now and I think we need to get this in place ASAP and especially before March 21 (end of the statewide indoor mask mandates) comes in case staff decide they don’t want to stop the mandate and do whatever they want,” said Byrd’s text message.

Lobbying another board

Board member Semi Bird was texting Williams about trying to get the head of the Kennewick School Board to vote to make masks optional, similar to what Richland tried.

Richland was one of a few Eastern Washington school boards in February that chose to go against the state’s mask mandate and later walk back their decisions.

“Mike Connors will be calling me in a few minutes. Gabe and Micah are ready. We just need Mike,” said Semi Bird’s text in an undated message. “I think he will follow us.”

This week, Connors didn’t return multiple email requests from the Herald.

But Kennewick board member Micah Valentine told the Herald that they were considering a similar vote.

“Semi’s right in that Mike was strongly considering it. But ultimately he didn’t and he wouldn’t,” Valentine said.

Retaining messages

Violation of the Public Records Act can be often very costly for state and local government officials, though they’re regularly trained on best practices and the importance of retaining communications and documents. There can also come with some severe civil penalties.

Members on the same board can legally exchange texts or have conversations outside of public meetings, as long as any documentation of that conversation is retained and there isn’t a quorum.

George Erb, with the Washington Coalition for Open Government, an independent nonpartisan organization that advocates for open government laws, said Washington is one of the few states that has a statute to criminally prosecute violations that fall under the Public Records Act.

But that doesn’t mean these cases are often pursued.

“The reality is that these prosecutions are rare,” he said.

It may be because public prosecutors just don’t see them as a good use of public time and resources, Erb said.

“I would think that if there was a high-profile instance where a public official did destroy records, and the public was aware of it and concerned about it, that might be enough political motivation for a prosecutor to file a charge,” he said.

A couple high-profile cases come to mind for Erb.

Kevin Hulten, the one-time aide to disgraced Snohomish County Executive Aaron Reardon, who resigned in 2013 in the wake of an extramarital affair with an employee and allegations of using county resources for campaigning, received a $1,500 fine and a few days on a work crew for installing a data-wiping program on his boss’ laptop.

The software deleted hundreds of records from Reardon’s laptop related to a then-ongoing criminal investigation.

A former Skamania County auditor was sentenced to 168 hours of community service and to pay $62,000 in restitution after he pleaded guilty to destroying records showing 2003 and 2004 expenditures.