EVERETT, Wash. — An Everett teacher is accused of using high school students at a cross country practice last Wednesday to canvass for his political campaign.
Mike Wilson, a long-time teacher at Cascade High School who is running for the state legislature, is now under investigation by the Everett School District for what it calls an inappropriate request.
Superintendent Gary Cohn launched the investigation after receiving an email from a parent of two of the runners.
That parent told KIRO 7 by phone that he didn’t believe his kids until they showed him flyers and lists of addresses the Wilson campaign gave them.
“This is an abuse of influence of students,” Everett School District spokesperson Mary Waggoner said of the incident at McCollum Park. “We have supervisory responsibilities for these kids—they’re easily influenced. It would be very hard for a student to say no to someone that they admire and respect.”
Instead of cross country practice, coaches asked kids from Cascade and Jackson high schools to go door -to-door for Wilson.
“We know as public employees, we’re not allowed to use public resources for influencing the outcome of an election,” Waggoner said.
KIRO 7 obtained the email sent by a parent to the district.
He wrote that his kids “were asked to volunteer, however, my kids did not volunteer but were handed two packets, which included a neighborhood map, directions, specific addresses with personal information, and a script to use at each house.
He said they were “visibly upset” when he picked them up.
“The cross country coaches said that they had volunteers that wanted to work on my campaign,” Wilson said.
He said he didn’t organize the event, but simply wanted to get kids involved.
KIRO 7 asked if he saw some students leaving.
“I saw students leaving, yeah,” he said.
“Did that concern you, that they may have thought this was a practice?” KIRO 7 asked.
“It did not concern me because I was not involved in that process,” Wilson said, adding that students conferred with coaches, not him, before walking away.
The district is investigating exactly what the coaches told students before and during the practice.
Some Cascade parents said there's plenty of time for politics outside of school activities.
“I would call that a misuse of their role, really,” Mike Dumas said. “They don't have any business doing that.”
In a separate investigation, the school district is also looking into whether Wilson used his computer at Cascade High School for campaign purposes.