Parents take concerns about Epstein document at Haines school to school board

The friendship pole sits outside of the Haines High School on April 7, 2026. (Lizzy Hahn/ Chilkat Valley News)

By Rashah McChesney

Chilkat Valley News

A group of parents are asking the Haines Borough school board to review the school administration’s response to an explicit document created by students depicting some of their classmates. 

Four parents testified about the document during the school board’s Nov. 3 meeting, describing the district’s response as inadequate, questioned why the school district did not involve local police in its investigation, and why parents of all involved students were not notified promptly about the document. 

Three of the parents who testified said they elevated their concerns  to the school board because they are unsatisfied with the response they’ve gotten from Haines School administrators regarding the incident, which was first reported to staff on Sept. 25.

Accounts of exactly what is in the document vary. School district administrators have consistently declined requests to view the document. But parents whose children were involved say that three students created a document depicting one of their classmates as convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. According to three parents whose children have seen the document and described it to them, it portrays one student committing sexual crimes against other students at the school. 

“If there’s going to be accountability, it’s probably the [school] board that’s going to do that,” said one parent after the meeting, who asked to remain anonymous to protect her child’s identity.

District and school board response

In a Nov. 6 email to parents, Boron said she could not share details due to student privacy laws but wanted to assure them that “we take all reports of harassment, bullying, and cyberbullying seriously.” 

Boron wrote that school administration would be updating the school’s health curriculum and conducting students sessions on bullying, harassment, and cyberbullying. 

According to Boron’s email, the school administration will review its curriculum, policies and practices and will “provide opportunities for families to share feedback.” 

School board president Shelly Sloper said the school board would be doing as well. 

“We’ll be meeting to discuss the policies and procedures in place to make sure that they are clear and actionable,” Sloper said. 

That meeting could be during its next regular school board meeting on Dec. 1, or during a workshop. She did not specify which policies would be reviewed and what exactly the goal of that review would be. 

School board members did not respond to the parent testimony during this month’s meeting. 

School board members Brian Clay, Jenn Walsh and Carlos Jimenez did not return calls and messages seeking their responses to the parents’ testimonies during the Tuesday meeting and their understanding of what actions the school board could take.  

Board member Kevin Shove said in a text message on Monday that the board’s policy is to leave commenting to the public to board president Shelly Sloper. He followed up saying that the board hasn’t really discussed the issue. 

“As for my thoughts: that’s an administration issue and a parental issue and they’re dealing with it, I believe,” he wrote. 

Sloper said the board does not generally handle disciplinary issues or personnel issues, adding that she trusts school administration to handle these situations. 

“Sometimes we’re not even fully filled in on those because of the confidentiality element,” she said. “For us, this boils down to mostly a policy issue. [Making] sure things are clear and … set up well for implementation.” 

She also said she understands that parents can feel unsettled, particularly when something like this involves their children. 

“You don’t want people to feel like their child is unsafe or they’re not taken care of at school,” she said. “I understand how it can feel challenging. I think that’s partially because we can’t share certain information. There’s misinformation going around about how things were handled and we can’t even correct that information.” 

She said parents who have information or feedback should go to Boron or principal Alex Van Wyhe first, before bringing those concerns to the board. 

Parents weigh-in

Jessica Plachta is the parent of a student who attends the Haines School. She was also among those who testified at the school board meeting. She said she wanted the school board to monitor and advise the school’s administration regarding its response to the Epstein document. 

“I would like to know whether the HBSD considers their investigation and response to be complete,” she told board members during the recent meeting. 

Plachta also talked about the Haines School’s history of hiding sexual abuse, a reference to the four Haines High School alumni who came forward in 2018 alleging sexual abuse by former school principal and superintendent Karl Ward. The men decided to speak out after another local man killed himself and left a video on his phone alleging that he had been fondled and later raped by Ward. Ward himself had died decades earlier. 

“Sexual harassment and young people is a challenging topic, but I encourage you to face it head on,” she said. 

Plachta described the school district’s response as “tepid” and said it seemed the school was more concerned with protecting its image than protecting its students and informing families. 

Plachta noted that other school districts that have been confronted with similar sexually explicit bullying behavior by students have responded differently. Specifically, she pointed to the response of school district officials and the school board to a 2026 incident at Timberline High School in Boise, Idaho, where student athletes were involved in a group chat in which they named a female student, and made threats of sexual violence and death. 

“Timberline’s school administration pursued a number of strategies. Among them, they notified families, involved law enforcement right away, followed Title IX procedures, and gave staff additional training. They did not hide content from the press,” Plachta said. “They also canceled the homecoming game and levied other meaningful consequences, including suspension or expulsion for the perpetrators. And the administration provided supportive counseling services to the entire student body.” 

Plachta said the Haines School has done none of those things. “…or if it has done so, it has done them very timidly, belatedly, and without proper accountability and followthrough.” 

Plachta’s partner, Nick Szatkowski, said he realized that many board members and people in the school community might not be aware of what the incident entailed. 

“That’s part of what is an inappropriate response by the school so far,” he said. “It’s important when issues like this happen that they’re identified and made very clear to the entire school community. There is no question, this in an incident of clear bullying and sexual harassment of students and [it] was happening on an ongoing basis.” 

Szatkowski said he has witnessed the same bullying behavior described in the document happening in person, among the same students. 

“So, clearly, this issue is not resolved and it’s going to be a long term process to figure out both how to respond to that incident directly, but also how to implement the proper techniques to … stop allowing this kind of thing to happen in the culture of the school,” he said. “Alaska has the worst statistics for domestic violence and sexual abuse in the country. We do not want to be cultivating that.”  

Two other parents submitted comments in writing to the board in addition to testifying. They said their experience with the school district has “highlighted some significant gaps in policy and procedure as well as enforcement of the school handbook,” which they wanted to bring to the school board’s attention. 

Specifically, they wrote, they were concerned that they had not been informed of their due process rights, and that the police department had not been contacted during the investigation to determine the severity of the incident. They said the contents of the document could be considered a hate crime. School board policy requires hate crimes to be reported to law enforcement. 

Both are career educators and said they were concerned that the district’s administration’s response creates the potential for other students to be harmed. 

They requested that the school board review the response of the administration to the incident “with the intent of clarifying policies and procedures, and work to fill any gaps in policy and procedures that may exist. 

In the letter, the parents ask that the school board establish oversight to ensure that school administration involves local police any time something of this nature occurs to help assist in the investigation and help administration understand the severity of the event. 

They also asked that the school administration offer professional mental health services to the entire school community “given the pervasive and destructive influence of rape culture which is perpetrated by this document.” 

School board response

After their testimony, two of the parents submitted a letter to school board members asking that it be included in the official records of the meeting, or the next meeting’s board packet. A third said she had intended to submit hers to be part of the public record of the board meeting. 

But board president Sloper said the school board would not be publishing the letter submitted during the meeting and would redact its own minutes. 

Sloper said Friday that the submitted testimony contains confidential information and names the superintendent who she said is “also a protected party.” 

“The board doesn’t have an obligation to post anything publicly,” she said. 

When asked to define that legal obligation and why letters submitted to the board by parents would not be considered public documents, Sloper said that question would best be addressed to superintendent Lilly Boron. 

 “Lilly [Boron] had a conversation with our legal team,” Sloper said. 

The board supervises Boron. . When asked if the its members would consult a legal team on its own, given that it is relying on legal advice relayed by Boron on whether to publish a  complaint about how her own administration responded to an incident, Sloper said that was a possibility.  

“We sometimes approach the legal team if the issue is in relation, or something related to Lilly [Boron]. But if it’s in relation to our own process, I have 100% trust in Lilly’s communication with our legal team,” she said. 

After learning that they would not be part of school board records, two of the parents who testified verbally submitted their written testimony to the Chilkat Valley News for publication on the condition that their identities be kept confidential. 

• This story originally appeared in the Chilkat Valley News.