The Corbett School Board‘s top elected official is facing calls to resign after he recently testified on behalf of a convicted sex offender and former high school soccer coach during a court hearing in which the offender’s victim, a former student, sought to bar her abuser from school grounds. Todd Mickalson, the board chair, took the stand in Multnomah County Circuit Court on April 16 for his longtime friend, 45-year-old Gabrielle Van Hee. Van Hee is a former Corbett High School assistant soccer coach who was convicted in 2023 on one count of second-degree sexual abuse involving a 16-year-old student a decade earlier when Van Hee was in her 30s. Both the former student and the former coach now have children in the Corbett School District. The allegations against the coach surfaced in recent years after the former student disclosed them to a therapist who reported them to authorities. In 2021, Van Hee was indicted on nine counts of second-degree sexual abuse. She pleaded no contest to one count in April 2023, the rest were dropped, and she was sentenced to two years’ probation and was required to register as a sex offender. Van Hee has said she pleaded no contest to avoid a trial that could have resulted in a worse outcome. Van Hee completed her probation early, and this year the former student, Simone Ballard, sought and temporarily received a protective order blocking Van Hee from visiting the school district campus that houses its elementary, middle and high schools. (The Oregonian/OregonLive generally does not identify victims of sex crimes; Ballard agreed to be named.) Van Hee then sought to have the order lifted so she could attend her child’s high school sports events. She requested a hearing and called on several witnesses, including Mickalson. Mickalson’s eight-minute testimony in the nearly two-hour hearing has sparked a backlash in the small community east of Troutdale since Ballard recently made his participation in the hearing public through posts on social media. “Todd Mickalson provided testimony and announced his status as Corbett’s School Board Chair and as a Corbett Football Coach. He testified on the sexual offender’s behalf,” Ballard wrote in a Facebook post Monday. “He did NOT delineate that his opinions were not that of the Corbett School Board or Corbett school.” Mickalson, in response to written questions from The Oregonian/OregonLive, said he had testified “under oath in open court as a fact witness and a private citizen.” At the hearing, Van Hee argued that she was attending high school games as a committed parent of a student-athlete, and that she had no interest in being anywhere near Ballard, now 28. She said she felt like she was being “harassed for things I’m not doing.” Van Hee also spells her last name as VanHee. “I just want to be able to go to his games, go to his graduation at the high school and be done,” Van Hee said at the hearing. “I don’t want to constantly live in fear that she’s going to keep bringing this back. I want to move on.” The judge dismissed Ballard’s protection order in full, finding she hadn’t proven that Van Hee was a threat or was intentionally trying to engage with Ballard or her children at the school. Ballard has been joined by several community members who have voiced concerns about Mickalson’s role in the hearing, including whether he leaned on his position as chair to lend Van Hee credibility. “By associating his official titles with such testimony, Mr. Mickalson has endangered student safety, jeopardized the credibility of the School Board, and severely damaged the reputation of Corbett schools,” Corbett School District parents Ashley and Jeff McCaslin wrote in an April 28 email to Superintendent Derek Fialkiewicz. “His continued presence in any leadership or coaching capacity is untenable.” Two Corbett school board members declined to comment about Mickalson’s testimony, and the other four did not return voicemails or text messages. Neither Mickalson nor the superintendent responded to an email Wednesday. Mickalson first won a board seat in 2009 and is now running for a fifth term. Ballots were mailed out last week, with May 20 the final day to cast a vote. At least three people who have learned about the case in recent weeks wrote to the school board or superintendent demanding that Mickalson resign or be investigated. Carrie Church, the Corbett School District teachers’ union co-president, urged the superintendent to take “swift and decisive action” regarding Mickalson, but she said she would wait to see what the district does before pushing anything specific. “There’s no room on our board, there’s no room in [the Corbett School District] for abusers and people who support abusers,” Church told The Oregonian/OregonLive. “Full stop.” At least two complaints filed against Mickalson with the board allege that by saying he was the board chair he had signaled that he was testifying in that capacity. In his testimony, Mickalson said that he was board chair and had been reelected to the position several times and was up for reelection in the current cycle. He did not clarify whether he was speaking in that role. Parents Ashley and Jeff McCaslin wrote in their April 28 email to the superintendent that Mickalson’s “actions are nothing short of appalling and represent an unacceptable breach of public trust” and that he must resign immediately. Allowing Mickalson to remain in his position would send the message “that the protection of children is not a top priority,” another parent, Bryan White, wrote in an email to the board on May 6. “That message is unacceptable.” The board’s vice chair, Leah Fredericks, followed up with the McCaslins to say they’ll be given an opportunity to talk about their complaint at the school board’s next meeting — May 21, the day after the election. — Fedor Zarkhin is a breaking news and enterprise reporter. Do you have a story? Reach him by phone or text at 971-373-2905 or by email at fzarkhin@oregonian.com. Our journalism needs your support. Subscribe today to OregonLive.com