If CCN Cares About Kids, Why Aren’t They Talking About Joel McEntire?

 There is something deeply hypocritical about watching Cowlitz County News turn the protection of children into the centerpiece of its attack on Susan Donahue while apparently having nothing to say about documented school records involving Joel McEntire. If protecting children is truly the issue, then the standard should not change depending on who is being discussed. That is the problem that the general public should be aware of.

CCN Has Made Susan Donahue's Case About Protecting Children

Cowlitz County News has repeatedly highlighted its allegations against Susan Donahue, presenting the matter as a failure to protect children and a failure to follow mandatory reporting requirements. The material CCN has published focuses heavily on the February 5 timeline. According to the documents displayed by CCN, Donahue received an allegation involving students, forwarded the information internally to the board president and superintendent, and was not identified in the police chronology as having made or caused an external report to law enforcement before the victim's family contacted police.

There is an important distinction here. The records document what was received, forwarded and recorded. They do not, by themselves, establish that Donahue committed a crime. The recall charge is an allegation that remains subject to judicial review.

CCN is nevertheless treating the issue as a major question of accountability aka a witch hunt. Public officials should absolutely be scrutinized when allegations concern the welfare of children. The problem comes when that same standard mysteriously disappears elsewhere.

The Joel McEntire Records Are Not Internet Rumors

The records concerning Joel McEntire are school district records. They include correspondence from Wahkiakum School District and a 2019 written reprimand and evaluation concerning his conduct as a teacher at John C. Thomas Middle School. Those records describe specific incidents involving students, classroom management, discipline and communication with parents.

One document states that McEntire had specific rules in his classroom under which students could receive detention for breaking those rules. The evaluation describes occasions in which students were allowed to leave or create messes for students serving detention to clean up. It states that complaints were made and that a written reprimand was issued. The records also address inconsistency in notifying parents when students received detention.

Another portion of the evaluation describes a classroom incident in which students became angry over a decision concerning a moving-up ceremony. According to the evaluation, students became disruptive, made inappropriate comments and used abusive language. The document says students reported they would not have behaved that way in another teacher's classroom and describes the situation as concerning.

The evaluation also discusses McEntire's communication with students when redirecting them or administering consequences, stating that his communication had been perceived as demeaning and/or unprofessional. I'll just say it here. He bullied the kids that he put in detention. 

Those are not accusations I invented. Those are statements contained in the school district records.

No, These Things Are Not the Same

Let's get one thing out of the way before somebody deliberately misunderstands the point. I am not claiming these school records prove that Joel McEntire sexually abused a child. They don't. I am not claiming the records establish that he committed a crime. They don't. I am not saying the allegations involving Susan Donahue and the documented issues in McEntire's personnel records are legally equivalent. They aren't.

The point is consistency.

CCN has decided that questions concerning children, school personnel and reporting responsibilities deserve intense public scrutiny when the target is Susan Donahue. Why shouldn't documented school district records concerning another public figure receive scrutiny as well?

If the standard is that anything involving the treatment, safety or welfare of students deserves public examination, then that standard needs to apply across the board.

McEntire Is Now a State Representative

This isn't some ancient personnel dispute involving someone who disappeared from public life. Joel McEntire is now a Washington state representative for the 19th Legislative District, and his public biography emphasizes education and his interest in Washington's schools.

That makes his history in education a legitimate matter for public scrutiny. The point isn't to take an old school personnel evaluation and pretend it proves something it doesn't. The point is that these are documented records concerning someone who went from working in a public school to holding elected office.

The public is entitled to examine those records and decide for itself what significance, if any, they have.

That is exactly the kind of scrutiny CCN is demanding when it comes to Susan Donahue.

Where Is the Same Energy?

This is the part that bothers me.

When CCN wants to go after Susan Donahue, suddenly school policies matter. Reporting requirements matter. Timelines matter. Personnel classifications matter. Police chronologies matter. Internal emails matter. Every document becomes evidence to be dissected and displayed.

Yet when there are actual school district records concerning Joel McEntire's conduct as a teacher, the same apparent interest in children's experiences seems to vanish. Where is the deep dive into those records? Where is the examination of the written reprimand, the documented concerns over student discipline, the parent-notification issues and the district's concerns about his communication with students?

Where is that same demand for accountability from CCN?

Apparently, the microscope works perfectly well until somebody decides to put a different politician underneath it.

There Is Another Piece of This Story That Matters

There is also a political context surrounding the people promoting this particular narrative that readers should know about.

The Failed Leadership Facebook page is the page publishing the material attacking Susan Donahue. Sean Turpin is behind the Failed Leadership page and has been involved in the recall effort targeting Longview School Board members, including Donahue. The recall effort is an organized political effort seeking to remove elected school board members, so it is important for readers to understand the political context surrounding the material being circulated.

Then there is Scott Beck who commented under the Failed Leadership post. Beck isn't simply an uninvolved member of the public who happened to wander into the discussion. He ran against Susan Donahue for Longview School District Director Position 2 in 2025. Donahue defeated Beck in that election.

Beck's participation in the Failed Leadership discussion does not, by itself, prove what motivates his comments. It does not establish that he is coordinating with Sean Turpin or that CCN is coordinating with either of them. Those would be conclusions requiring additional evidence.

What it does establish is that someone who previously ran against Donahue is participating in a discussion on a page devoted to attacking the leadership of the school district and promoting the recall effort against members of that leadership.

That is relevant context for readers.

The distinction is important because CCN and Failed Leadership are not the same thing. CCN published its own material about Donahue, while Failed Leadership published the post where Beck's comment appears. Those are separate pieces of the larger political environment surrounding the recall effort, and they should not be represented as though they are one and the same.

That still leaves the larger question unanswered: Why is there so much energy being devoted to scrutinizing Susan Donahue while documented school district records concerning Joel McEntire receive nowhere near the same level of attention?

If the stated concern is protecting children, that question isn't unreasonable. In fact, it is exactly the kind of question a watchdog organization should be willing to answer.

What About the People Praising the Coverage?

The comments surrounding these posts are part of the story, too.

People have publicly praised CCN for what they describe as exposing the truth about Donahue and holding leadership accountable. One commenter specifically thanked CCN for its reporting and described it as excellent. I'm trying to figure out what reporting CCN actually did because when you get right down to the facts, it was Failed Leadership who published these things. 

There is nothing wrong with people supporting a particular news organization's reporting. There is also nothing wrong with examining who is participating in that discussion and what their relationship to the political fight might be.

That is especially relevant when the subject isn't an ordinary neighborhood disagreement. This is an organized effort involving elected officials, recall petitions, political opponents and a media organization actively publicizing allegations against one of those officials.

Readers deserve the complete picture and not just what CCN spoon feeds them.

Children Should Not Be Used as Political Ammunition

This is where I have the biggest problem with what CCN is doing.

If the real concern is protecting children, then protect children consistently. Investigate all the allegations regardless of the political affiliation of the person involved. Examine school records regardless of whether the person involved is politically useful. Ask difficult questions regardless of whether the answers help or hurt the preferred political narrative.

That is what actual accountability looks like.

I cannot prove what motivates CCN to cover one person and not another. Motive is something that requires evidence, not speculation. What I can say is that the disparity in attention raises a legitimate question about whether the stated concern is really child protection or whether children are being used as part of a broader political fight.

Those are two very different things.

This Isn't About Giving Anyone a Pass

Susan Donahue should be accountable for whatever the evidence ultimately establishes. Joel McEntire should be accountable for whatever the evidence establishes about his own record. Those two statements are not contradictory. In fact, that's the whole point. But, I will say that it is hypocritical of CCN to call one out and not the other.

Accountability that applies only to political opponents isn't accountability. It is selective accountability. Selective accountability is BS. 

If CCN believes Susan Donahue's handling of an allegation warrants extensive public scrutiny, that's its right. The public has every right to examine the evidence and make its own judgment about the recall effort.

The same principle applies to Joel McEntire.

If his school records contain documented concerns about how students were disciplined, how parents were notified and how students experienced his communication, those records shouldn't magically become irrelevant simply because he's now politically useful to a particular group.

If You Really Care About Kids, Prove It

Don't tell me you care about protecting children while selectively examining the records of the people you want to damage politically. Show it by applying the same standard to everybody. Read the school records. Publish the uncomfortable ones. Ask the same questions of your friends and your enemies. Let the documents speak for themselves.

That is what I expect from anyone claiming to be a watchdog.

I don't expect perfection. Humans are spectacularly bad at that particular hobby. I do expect consistency.

If Cowlitz County News wants to make protecting children the foundation of its coverage, then it needs to demonstrate that children matter more than politics.

Otherwise, people are perfectly justified in asking whether children are actually the subject of the reporting, or whether children are simply being used as ammunition in an effort to put CCN's preferred brand of politics into city and county government.

If the standard is truly “protect the kids,” then the question isn't which political team somebody belongs to. The question is whether the same standard applies when the records lead somewhere politically inconvenient.

If CCN cares about kids, why aren't they talking about Joel McEntire and how he bullied his students?