[EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is a Letter to the Editor, written and submitted by a verified resident. It represents the opinion of the author, and does not necessarily reflect the views of South King Media or its staff.]
Just days after a parent and student mobilization successfully forced Highline Public Schools to reverse its top-down plan to displace the leadership at North Hill Elementary, a parallel crisis has emerged at one of our region’s flagship campuses.
The district has officially confirmed that Therese Tipton, the long-standing and highly respected principal of Raisbeck Aviation High School (RAHS), has been abruptly placed on an “approved leave of absence” and replaced by a guest administrator mid-semester.
When parents seek basic transparency regarding these sudden leadership gaps, the central office’s response is bureaucratic stonewalling. When I filed a highly targeted Public Records Act request for a mere 21-day window of cabinet-level emails regarding this transition, the district’s records department responded with an extravagant timeline, claiming they would not produce the final files until April 2027.
Demanding nearly a full year to pull basic keyword email logs for six cabinet members is a severe circumvention of public accountability. It signals an intentional administrative strategy to run out the clock until public scrutiny cools. Because of this bad-faith scheduling, a formal non-compliance appeal has been filed with the Washington State Attorney General’s Open Government Ombuds.
Our community is tired of a recurring pattern where veteran building leaders are quietly sidelined while the executive cabinet operates behind closed doors. Highline’s families, students, and educators are legally and ethically owed transparency.
If you are a Highline staff member, student, or family member with direct knowledge of the administrative actions surrounding the leadership changes at RAHS or the wider central office culture, please know you are not alone and your identity can be entirely protected.
A secure, encrypted off-district channel has been established by a coalition of advocates to receive confidential documentation and feedback at: protecthighlineeducators@protonmail.com.
It is time to make accountability, not secrecy, the standard for Highline Public Schools.
Sincerely,
Kristen Price
Highline School District Parent
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I have read this LTE a couple times! I wonder why it’s anyone’s business that Mrs. Tipton is on an APPROVED leave of absence! There are many reasons adults, including educators, take leave of absence. But, it is up to that person whether they want to share that information publicly! I am unsure why the person who wrote this believes there is something nefarious going on!