Legally Speaking

A: If you are using a cell phone or computer, no matter if that phone or computer is owned by you or by the school district, to communicate about issues related to your official capacity as a principal—those communications qualify as being public records. Those public records in your phone or computer may be exempt from public inspection, but they still legally qualify as being public records. RCW 42.56.101(3) 

There are retention schedules that legally require school districts to retain their public records for specified periods of time. Your official capacity texts and emails are subject to those retention schedules. You should seek guidance from your school district as to how the district wants you to retain the public records that you create on your phone or computer. 

It is extremely important to avoid communications with students that are not within the scope of your official capacity as a principal. All districts have a policy that addresses staff/student boundaries in which a boundary invasion is defined as an act or pattern of behavior that does not have a bona fide health, safety or educational purpose. Your communications with or about students must adhere to these strict boundary requirements. 

(Posted October 22, 2026)

A: The answer to that question is yes, it can.

The statutory standard that is required before a certificated employee can be terminated, nonrenewed or adversely affected in contract status is sufficient cause. There are decades of case law that define what that sufficient cause standard involves, but that case law does not expressly state the specific type of conduct that is per se grounds for such serious disciplinary actions being imposed by a school district.

However, that case law is clear that if a certificated employee’s conduct outside the profession is the basis for such disciplinary action, that otherwise private conduct must have some nexus or relationship to that employee’s performance of duties as a certificated employee. 

And, except in cases in which a certificated employee has been found to have been flagrantly sexually exploitive or physically abusive of a student, certificated employees are entitled to efforts to remediate lesser forms of misconduct before the sufficient cause standard can be met.

Seemingly private conduct may negatively impact your certificated employment if that private conduct has a negative impact on your ability to effectively perform your assigned duties as a certificated employee.

(Posted October 22, 2026)