Former Lyle School District Superintendent Sentenced
Photo Credit: North Beach School District Facebook page.
This article was originally published in Goldendale Sentinal on June 8th, 2022.
By Lou Marzeles
Former Lyle School District Superintendent Andrew Kelly was sentenced Wednesday in White Salmon on five-year-old DUI and Reckless Endangerment charges.
Kelly was most recently superintendent of the North Beach School District in Ocean Shores, Washington, until his suspension and subsequent resignation from the district earlier this year.
Kelly’s sentence included 60 months of supervised probation. He is required to undergo a substance use disorder evaluation within 60 days and must begin a treatment or education program within 90 days of sentencing. He was sentenced to 364 days of jail, 362 days of that term suspended. Kelly served 48 hours in Klickitat County jail, from Sunday 5 p.m. through yesterday 5 p.m. He was fined $5,000 with $4,000 of that suspended. He will also have random alcohol blood level testing and be required to have an ignition interlock device on his car for a period of time to be determined by the Department of Licensing. Kelly is prohibited from possessing or consuming any alcohol or non-prescribed drugs during his probation period. He is to attend a victims’ impact panel as directed by adult probation.
Kelly’s charges occurred in 2017 when he was the Lyle School District superintendent, but he was granted an Order of Deferred Prosecution, meaning he would not be prosecuted for the charges if he maintained certain conditions for a period of five years, which was to expire May 31. Among the conditions was a prohibition against consumption of alcohol during the five-year period. But in March Kelly made a statement to Ocean Shores police related to a sexual assault charge against him (subsequently not prosecuted); in the statement he admitted to drinking wine. City of Bingen Prosecutor Chris Lanz was informed of Kelly’s admission by an Ocean Shores parent and filed a motion to revoke Kelly’s Deferred Prosecution. On May 25, Kelly pled guilty by phone to violating the conditions of his Deferred Prosecution order, and sentencing was scheduled for June 1. For his sentencing Wednesday, Kelly was required to appear in person and drove the four hours from Ocean Shores to do so.
Klickitat County West District Court Judge Jeff Baker offered Kelly a chance to speak before sentencing. “I guess it’s important to me, Judge, to take full responsibility for my failure to follow through,” Kelly said. “I was very proud of the progress I’d made previously… I took my eyes off the prize, and I take full responsibility for that… I am connected with the sobriety community and my local community and maintaining active sobriety now. And my intention is to continue sobriety through the duration of this probation period and for the rest of my life, because that’s what’s in my best interest.”
Lanz spoke to the court about Kelly’s violation being brought to his attention by “a concerned citizen in the community where Kelly resides,” Lanz said. “As a public figure, Mr. Kelly upset this individual. I think that it’s appropriate for the court to review this as part of the reason [he’s here now], why I believe it’s important to bring it to the court’s attention. This would’ve gone right on by my attention, the court’s attention, probation’s attention, if not for the involvement of this particular individual to bring it to my attention, that Mr. Kelly was consuming alcohol. This was not something where he voluntarily stepped forward and said, ‘Oh, I’m in violation of the conditions of my probation.’ It would’ve gone by without any type of accountability, if not for this individual.” That person was Ocean Shores resident Shannon Rubin.
Lanz then presented a statement from Rubin to Baker and invited him to read it privately; it was not to be entered into the official court record. Baker did so. The statement, provided separately to The Sentinel, was as follows:
“As a parent who had a child in the district when Mr. Kelly was hired, we raised questions to the district as to his DUI background when we Google-searched him. Mr. Kelly himself assured the community similar to his recent blogpost, that he had hit a low point in his life, he was a changed man, and on top of that, he was going to be bringing a drug/alcohol program to North Beach. He mentioned being on probation and not drinking. He obviously got hired, so as a parent, I assumed the district did their due diligence in his background/legal issues and that they would know his terms and conditions and keep a watchful eye on him. I was appalled when I started hearing about alleged inappropriate behavior from intoxication to the point of being carried out of a district Christmas party to inappropriate text messages, to the most recent assault allegation.
“When our district put Mr. Kelly on paid administrative leave and began discussing settling with Mr. Kelly, I felt that sent a horrible message to students about accountability and privilege— I also felt it took away victims’ rights. I was the one who contacted the court for his deferred sentencing information, the one who asked our district if they had it, and the one who realized he violated your order based on the OSPD [Ocean Shores Police Department] assault order. Mr. Kelly needs to be held accountable for his actions to the fullest degree. He was entrusted in caring for the lives of hundreds of students within our district. He has throughout the years enlisted other educators, board members, and even his wife who is an elementary school principal, in being accessories to his behavior and alcoholism. He clearly did not take his program or his chance at redemption seriously. Not only did he endanger his own child’s life, but he endangered those within our district with his behavior. I strongly feel that unless you sentence him to the fullest extent possible, he will not learn from this incident. He almost got away with it, and he is not sitting in front of you on his own accord. He is sitting in front of you because citizens looked into his cases.”
Regarding the statement, Baker said, “That statement was from Shannon Rubin, and it’s dated May 31. It was sent to Mr. Lanz, and then you provided a copy to Mr. Sharp [Kelly’s defense attorney] as well... I have reviewed that statement, and certainly anytime people are engaged in our criminal justice system, I’m impressed with that, when they’re doing so willingly, as opposed to by compulsion. So I appreciate anyone taking the time to be interested in our system and how it works. That doesn’t mean to say that the system gets to work in the way that everyone wishes it would work. The system works, and those of us who are participants in the judicial system endeavor to do the best that we can to understand the circumstances of everyone who appears before us, regardless of their position in life or in society. We do the best that we can to make sure that we follow what we believe the rules of law requires of us, and common sense encourages us, to impose.”
