KPS Board of Trustees Votes to Appeal Glacier High Wrestling Lawsuit Decision
The decision to contest the Missoula jury’s verdict renews the question of whether the district retaliated against a father and son for reporting sexual assault in the school’s wrestling program in 2023
By Mariah Thomas
A month after a Missoula jury found Kalispell Public Schools had retaliated against a father and son who reported instances of sexual assault and harassment in Glacier High’s wrestling program, the KPS board of trustees voted to appeal the decision.
At a special board meeting on July 17, the board went into executive session to discuss “litigation strategy.” When it came out of executive session after more than two hours, all but two trustees backed a motion to ask for a review of the jury’s decision, based on the recommendation of the district’s lawyers. Trustee Jennifer Sevier voted no on the motion, and Ursula Wilde, another trustee, abstained from the vote.
“Kalispell Public Schools respects the judicial process and appreciates the time and services of the jury,” KPS superintendent Matt Jensen wrote in an emailed statement. “After careful consideration, the District has decided to appeal the Nance case to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. While the damages awarded were nominal, they also triggered a request for substantial attorney’s fees.
“This case was not about the underlying wrestling incident,” Jensen continued. “It was about decisions the District made regarding a parent’s access to school property and interactions with students. In this particular situation, we continue to believe our staff acted reasonably and appropriately while carrying out their responsibility to protect students and manage access to our schools.”
The lawsuit, first filed in January of 2025 by Kirk Nance and his son, Clifford, a homeschooled student who competed on Glacier High’s wrestling team in 2023, claimed that after Kirk reported the assault and harassment to the police and the school district, the district retaliated against them.
The Nances’ suit pointed to several actions as retaliatory on the part of the district. It claimed Kirk was banned from observing Clifford’s wrestling practices. It also referenced an incident at a Missoula hotel where Kirk had an altercation with coaching staff that resulted in his receiving a disorderly conduct charge. And on Clifford’s behalf, the suit claimed he was removed from certain activities and spaces; his amount and quality of coaching decreased; and that his request to transfer to Flathead High’s wrestling team the following year was denied by the school district.
The suit marked a continuing fallout over the early 2023 revelations about hazing on the wrestling team. The district took disciplinary action in February 2023 against three students on the team over the accusations. It has since faced several lawsuits over the wrestling team’s conduct during that time. Jensen said in April the students involved in the incidents are no longer at Kalispell Public Schools.
Throughout the past year and a half of legal proceedings in the Nance case, the district has maintained the stance that the Nances’ lawsuit constitutes a “parent issue, not a student issue.” Jensen told the Beacon when the suit was first filed that Kirk Nance had “tried to interfere with our investigation and the regular operations of schools and programs.” He added that coaches and administrators had the “responsibility and right” to hold both their students and Kirk Nance accountable for their actions.
Avery Field, a lawyer with Bliven Law Firm who has represented the Nances in the case, wrote in a statement Monday his clients would “continue to stand up for the student victims and those who had the courage to report what was happening behind closed doors.”
“Despite the District’s best efforts to frame the Glacier High School Wrestling cases as being about student and parent conduct, these cases are about the District’s failure to supervise students and celebrate indifference to the ‘pattern’ of harassment of students, as well as the way the District targeted and retaliated against Kirk and Clifford for reporting the harassment,” Field wrote. “We look forward to continuing to advocate for students and parents by responding to any appeal filed by the District.”
Field’s firm is also representing a former athlete who filed a lawsuit earlier this year alleging fellow wrestlers sexually assaulted and harassed him in a Billings hotel room during a wrestling trip in 2022. A preliminary pretrial conference in that case, which was originally slated for July 8, has been pushed back. It is currently set to take place Sept. 3 at 10:30 a.m. at the Russell Smith Courthouse in Missoula.