OLYMPIA, WA – When the longtime superintendent of the Washington State School for the Blind resigned this summer, he blamed harassment from a former employee.
An investigative report, obtained via public records request, concluded Scott McCallum himself sexually harassed a female colleague during his final years on the job.
The investigation, completed in mid-May, found McCallum hugged a female coworker and softly said in her ear twice that “you look good.” She reported feeling sick and losing sleep after the 2024 incident.
McCallum confirmed to investigators that he’d hugged the woman, saying he hardly recognized her because she’d lost weight. He said his comment about her looks was not sexual.
In an earlier incident, McCallum was accused of showing a woman a picture of his buttocks while flipping through his phone’s camera roll during a school award ceremony. McCallum said it was unintentional, calling the moment embarrassing. He said the photo was taken to show sores from his new rowing machine. It wasn’t clear from the report if this was the same woman from the hugging incident.
McCallum, who’d led the school since 2016, was also accused of running the school as a “dictatorship,” but the inquiry didn’t back that up.
He couldn’t be reached for comment.
In his Aug. 1 resignation letter to Gov. Bob Ferguson, McCallum described “continuous harassment from a former employee that has created significant disruption across the agency.”
“I remain hopeful that such disruption and threats may cease once I depart my role as superintendent,” he wrote. He added that he believed it was the right time for a shift in leadership at the school and said he would seek new professional opportunities.
Ferguson reappointed McCallum to the position in January.
McCallum has a national reputation in the education of students who are blind or visually impaired. He helped implement the country’s first online adaptive state assessment that is accessible to students who read Braille.
In 2022, the National Federation of the Blind awarded him the Distinguished Educator of Blind Students award.
Ferguson’s office declined to comment on McCallum’s departure. The governor appointed Pam Parker, the school’s outreach director, to serve as interim superintendent for the 2025-26 school year.
The school serves blind, visually-impaired and deaf-blind students. Fifty students were enrolled this past school year, according to state data. It has about 100 full-time equivalent employees and a state budget of around $29 million.
Before being recruited to come to Washington, McCallum worked in education in Oregon, including when the state closed its own school for blind students. He led Oregon’s implementation of increased state funding for support services for blind children that replaced the school, he said when accepting the award in 2022.
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