SEQUIM — Sequim High School principal Shawn Langston has been placed on leave pending the outcome of a complaint, school district officials said.
“Sequim High School will lean on the leadership of the Assistant Principal, Kristi Queen, with the support of the District Office, to keep Sequim High School moving forward on mission,” school district staff said in a press release issued late Monday after Langston was placed on leave Friday.
No details of the complaint were released.
The placement of Langston on leave is not connected with the placement of Sequim schools Superintendent Rob Clark on leave, said acting Superintendent Jane Pryne on Monday afternoon.
Clark was placed on leave one day prior. No details about the complaint against Clark have been released either.
Both complaint investigations are being handled internally through the district’s human resources department as well as risk management staff, Pryne said. Neither investigation involves law enforcement.
Clark and Langston are the second and third Sequim School District administrators this year to go on leave after Shelley Jefferson, Helen Haller Elementary assistant principal, was placed on leave this summer.
An investigation remains open with the Lummi Nation Police Department into allegations that she and her husband Francis allegedly abused an unnamed foster child.
There are no other staff members placed on leave, Pryne said.
“We will move forward and get through this stronger than when we went into this,” Pryne said.
Langston was hired in June 2002 to lead the high school, succeeding Brian Pendleton, who left Sequim for Walla Walla High School.
He accepted the job just a few weeks after his wife Shelley was hired as the school district’s special education director; she’s now the district’s executive director of Learning Support Services.
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Michael Dashiell is the editor of the Sequim Gazette of the Olympic Peninsula News Group, which also is composed of other Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News and Forks Forum. Reach him at editor@sequimgazette.com.
