John Parks, the ex-Lake Oswego track coach who objected to transgender athletes participating in girls meets, was arrested Thursday for allegedly trespassing at Lake Oswego High School.
Parks, whom police said had previously been ordered not to enter district property, was attending a sporting event Thursday at the high school when district officials asked him to leave.
Police said they arrived and arrested him on a charge of second-degree criminal trespass. He was booked at the Clackamas County Jail, police said.
In June 2024, Parks sued Lake Oswego School District in federal court, claiming the district retaliated against him after he spoke out against transgender female athletes competing in Oregon high school events in the girls division. He requested that an investigation and his subsequent termination be excised from his employment record and personnel file, and that he be rehired as a special education teacher.
In a letter to the Oregon School Activities Association in spring 2024, Parks protested a transgender girl’s participation and told the OSAA it should form what he called an “open” division for transgender athletes to compete separately.
His contract with Lake Oswego was not renewed at the end of that academic year. He said in a previous interview an investigation into him by the district was prompted by Portland Public Schools athletic director Marshall Haskins, an OSAA board member who had complained to the Lake Oswego district.
In December 2024, U.S. District Judge Michael H. Simon declined to order the district to rehire Parks, but wrote he could succeed in showing the district violated his protected free speech by initiating the investigation of him that was partly motivated by his letter objecting to transgender athletes competing in girls’ track meets.
In February of this year, the Lake Oswego district filed a motion for summary judgment in which it argued that Parks’ firing was justified by his conduct while working for the district and his “poor overall performance as a coach.”
A parent of a student athlete from another school competing in the 400 meter said they heard Parks make derogatory comments about a transgender student athlete during an event, according to the motion. Parks denied making the comments.
The lawsuit is ongoing in U.S. District Court in Portland.
Nik Streng and Maxine Bernstein contributed to this report.
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