Jacob Dimond / jake@yelmonline.com
Yelm citizen E. Wyatt Mendel has presented during the public comments portion of Yelm Community Schools (YCS) board meetings numerous times throughout the last several months, and took to the podium once again on Thursday, Sept. 10, to place the school board and administration on “formal notice.”
He said this notice regarded alleged “documented statutory violations, criminal non-compliance with mandatory reporting laws and bad-faith public records obstruction,” in an email sent to the Nisqually Valley News on Friday, Sept. 11.
Mendel claimed that the evidentiary record, obtained through statutory demands, establishes “three undeniable facts” regarding former YCS bus driver James Ruiz, who was arrested on Tuesday, April 21, 2026, by the collaboration of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Yelm Police Department (YPD).
Ruiz faced charges of first-degree child molestation, first-degree rape of a child and first-degree possession of depictions of a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
The first of three “undeniable facts,” according to Mendel, was that the district took “zero corrective action” after reports claimed that Ruiz allegedly smelled of alcohol, swerved and operated with disabled bus cameras on Jan. 25, 2024.
“The district took zero corrective action, leaving a documented hazard behind the wheel of a school bus for nearly three months,” Mendel wrote.
The second of three “undeniable facts” relates to criminal non-compliance.
“When specific child abuse allegations were reported on April 18, 2024, district staff and administrators bypassed law enforcement, conducted amateur, untrained student interviews that contaminated evidence and waited six days to notify Yelm Police (Department) and seven days to notify CPS,” Mendel wrote. “RCW 26.44.030 mandates reporting within 48 hours. Bypassing that deadline is not an administrative oversight; under RCW 26.44.080, it is a gross misdemeanor.”
The final “undeniable fact” that Mendel wrote about related to systemic liability management. He claimed YCS relied on an internal risk-management review organization to clear Ruiz and restore his access to children until his eventual arrest by the FBI and YPD.
Ruiz was a former employee of YCS, but he officially resigned before the 2025-26 school year began. His resignation was made official during a YCS Board of Directors meeting on Thursday, Aug. 14.
“To cover this up, the district has repeatedly engaged in bad-faith delays under RCW 42.56, withholding paid public records until served with formal legal demands,” Mendel wrote. “Let me be clear: the era of hiding behind internal insurance reviews and unlawful records delays is over.”
He demanded an immediate release of public records currently being withheld; an independent, external criminal and administrative review into the failure to report and the contamination of evidence; verification that all communications video logs and metadata are under a strict litigation hold; and finally, an immediate license revocation and termination proceedings for every administrator who violated RCW 26.44.030.
RCW 26.44.030 is Washington State law that requires professional and official personnel, as well as any permitting person, to report suspected child abuse or neglect to law enforcement of the Washington State Department of Children, Youth and Families.
“You prioritized shielding this district from financial liability over protecting children,” Mendel wrote. “The paper trail is complete, the statutes are clear, and accountability is coming.”
