SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. – The final Lake Tahoe Unified School Board District (LTUSD) meeting of the year took place Thursday night, where the board addressed nominations to the board, celebrated Elevate and Mt. Tallac students and cellphone policy, among other items.

President Lauri Kemper and Clerk Jon Hetherton’s terms were set to expire, but both were unanimously re-elected to their positions. Hetherton was not present for the open session of the board meeting, as he was feeling unwell. All board member representatives were also retained in their positions.

Board member Valerie Mansfield received special recognition and thank you for being a choir teacher at Sierra House, which was presented by Superintendent Todd Cutler.

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Kemper highlighted that Sierra House School received the Golden Bell Award from the California School Board’s Association for transforming math instruction.

Public comment

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Among recent controversy for the firing of cheer captain Dawn Caskey, some public comment concerned athletic director Kevin Hennessee and cheer captain Izzy Preston. Some comments were in support of the two and their impact on the athletic program. Two cheerleaders said they were grateful for Preston and Hennessee’s support for the cheer team, especially for the varsity team.

Kathy Haven said that she felt that Hennessee was “the strongest athletic director” they’d had and that she “saw much less bullying” in the program with his support.

Others said that the school found Preston at fault for “incidents of intimidation and retaliation.”

Dawn Caskey said that she received internal investigations back from the school that said they substantiated that Preston had violations and threats against the junior varsity squad, and that the school had a “boys’ club mentality” protecting the behavior. Caskey cited multiple legal violations she said had taken place.

Brandon Caskey noted that their daughter, who is on the cheer team, was also retaliated against. He said she was singled out, was talked to about a social media post that Preston alleged that Dawn had made and was intimidated by her. He highlighted the negative effects that bullying can have on students and the responsibility that districts have to protect them.

Jeff Miner and Tiffany Chetta also spoke during public comment to urge the board to test and mitigate for radon in the classrooms. Tahoe is known to have high amounts of radon, but Chetta pointed out that the last time that the school had tested for radon was in 2008.

Student celebration

Mt. Tallac had two students speak on the impact of the program on their life, one graduating in January and the other graduating in June. A student named Jennifer said she had initially resisted going to the school, but realized how much it changed her life. “Adults who truly listen make a big difference,” she said.

Elevate, an online schooling program through the district, had several students speak on its impact, as well as one parent. One student said it helped him spend time with his baby sister who was just born, while another said she was able to focus on art as well as her favorite class, financial literacy. All of them said they loved the flexibility that the classes gave them, especially Dominic, who blends Elevate and in-person classes.

Jan Ramon-Gonzalez said that her son, Dominic, was diagnosed with several disorders at a young age. “They wanted me to institutionalize my son. My son is a brilliant child… he just needs an opportunity to learn. You put (this program) in place for him and for that, I thank you very much.”

Partnership updates

Karen Goldberg at the Family Resource Center (FRC) presented on the school partnership and how they’re meeting the needs in the community. Overall, they have seen great success in connecting schools and families, especially among the English Language Advisory committee and language development.

Local families have also had increased needs—in October last year, there were 558 basic needs contacts, while this year, there were 902. But Goldberg says they community has rallied to meet the needs and is “responding beautifully.”

The FRC plans to ramp up food distribution, start new sessions of English classes for parents and community members, parter with other agencies, initiate tutoring opportunities and get a college planning forum on site.

CALPADS Update and Graduation Requirements

CALPADS or the California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System is what is used to maintain data on student demographics, course data, discipline, assessments, staff assignments and other data for state and federal reporting. That data also helps maintain a dashboard that helps understand how districts and schools shape up on a state level.

Overall, LTUSD is “in the orange” compared to the rest of California, meaning it is performing slightly behind the average. It’s tending to do better in science and in getting kids to the college and career path, but tends to lag in absenteeism, English/Language Arts and Math.

Kemper questioned if the district was “seeing high enough expectations” across the board for improvements.

Justin Zunino, Principal at South Tahoe High, also presented an informational item on graduation requirements, which added an ethnic studies requirement and financial literacy requirement. It also reflects state requirements and local requirements. South Tahoe High School requires 250 credits to graduate, Elevated requires 205 and Mt. Tallac requires 140.

2025’s graduation rate was 89%. The incoming 2025-2026 class are in a program to develop a 4-year plan for every high school student. They are also trying to increase A-G rates, dual credit opportunities and CTE completion rates.

Transportation and facilities

The district is entering into the final phase of electrifying the bus fleet. Liberty Utilities is adding some infrastructure that will allow the district to have 15 electric buses running. In January, the bus routes drop-off times will change. Lastly, they are in the interview process for a bus mechanic.

Vail will be able to use the front parking lot for their Kirkwood shuttles, providing $1,000 per day of revenue to LTUSD. Facilities also repainted the South Tahoe Middle School snack shack, replaced an ADA ramp at Al Tahoe, provided new shot clocks at the Gold and Blue gym and got a new snow machine at the high school.

Finances for the district

The board approved a motion to authorize an equipment lease purchase agreement with Bank of America for energy conservation measures, including boiler replacement, LED light retrofits and solar panels. The estimated cost is $21.1 million.

Chief business officer Kelly Buttery presented on developer fees to hopefully use on key projects like libraries at Bijou and the middle school, pilot classrooms at the high school and Sierra House and supporting bond projects.

She also presented the first interim financial report, which shows the district at 58% socioeconomically disadvantaged and enrollment down roughly 165. However, the district does have a 3% reserve within the multi-year projection and is self-certifying as positive within this cost-cutting phase.

Board policy and cellphones

The board approved the second reading of the September board policy update.

Superintendent Cutler also brought the more stringent cellphone policy for review, which was previously seen in May. There will be a community conversation on January 20 and Cutler intends to have a superintendent’s advisory group as well to advise on the policy.

Board member Ellen Camacho said that she’s passionate about this and that bullying has gone down with phone usage being limited. Student board member Miri Lucksinger noted that she was raised essentially with a phone and that it might be useful to integrate phone usage rather than push them out entirely.

Several parents advocated for bell-to-bell bans of smart devices during school hours, including Emily Guess, Dr. Christina Restaino and Nadia Tase. Tase highlighted the fear of being cyberbullied and filmed, which has been an issue at schools in the district. She also noted that other schools have implemented these kinds of policies already.

The next school board meetings will take place next year. The first will be on January 22, 2026.

Editor’s note: The Tribune is investigating the cheer captain allegations and will be following up with an in-depth article.

Eli Ramos is a reporter for Tahoe Daily Tribune. They are part of the 2024–26 cohort of California Local News Fellows through UC Berkeley. Learn more at https://fellowships.journalism.berkeley.edu/cafellows/.