Parents Want WCPS Employees Fired; School Board Passes Policy Update, Receives SRO Report 

The parents of a student enrolled in special education in Warren County Public Schools (WCPS) called for the dismissal of several employees and the division’s superintendent during the Wednesday, February 7, Warren County School Board meeting.

WCPS Superintendent Christopher Ballenger (at podium) announces school attendance awards during the Warren County School Board’s February 7 meeting. He came under fire later in the meeting.

The board unanimously took action to approve updated policy and several purchases, including new interactive boards for Leslie Fox Keyser Elementary School. School Board Chair Kristen Pence, Vice Chair Antoinette Funk, and board members Andrea Lo, Thomas McFadden Jr., and Melanie Salins were present for the meeting.

School Board members also received what will become a monthly report from School Resource Officers (SROs) detailing the number and type of specific infractions, among other items, that SROs are encountering in WCPS, with vapes being of particular concern. 

Parents’ request

During the community participation segment of Wednesday’s meeting, Melissa and Charlie House of Middletown, Va., whose son Dimitri, 17, attends Skyline High School, said they recently filed a formal complaint against their teen’s Pathways and Connections teacher for alleged mistreatment. 

A classroom aide reportedly told the Houses about the teacher’s conduct, according to the parents (pictured below).

“We’re not here to pull on your heartstrings because we have seen in the past eight months of testimony from parents, families, and caregivers it just doesn’t work,” Charlie House said. “We are here to address one thing, and that’s accountability.” 

When the Houses found out what was happening in their son’s special education classroom, he said, they started to wonder what else was going on, so they began attending and then reviewing past School Board meetings. 

“We also made a FOIA request for all formal and informal complaints against the County special education classrooms and [WCPS] Special Services over the past five years. What we found was appalling,” said Charlie House, who showed a slide with the results of their request for four years worth of complaints.

“There were 22 complaints during that time frame; 21 of them occurred since [WCPS Superintendent Christopher] Ballenger and [Skyline High School Principal Danelle] Sperling were appointed, and 20 since [WCPS Special Services Director/SBO Shamika] McDonald was transferred to her current positions,” he said. 

“As disturbing as this was, we then did our own investigation and verified an additional 18 complaints in the past 12 months in Skyline special education classrooms that were not provided,” added House. “That was a total of 40 complaints in one classroom. Here is where accountability comes into play. There are three levels of accountability — how you choose to move forward will dictate or will indicate to the residents what our next move will look like, starting from the bottom.”

The Houses said that the teacher, principal, Special Services director, and the superintendent — who were aware of all of these complaints — should be dismissed. 

The teacher should be an automatic dismissal and her teaching license revoked, according to the Houses, while the principal and Special Services director must be dismissed simply because they chose not to act. 

“They not only let our children and others be bullied, harassed, and sometimes traumatized like Dimitri, they condoned it,” said Charlie House.

He also pointed out that the School Board is responsible for holding the superintendent accountable for his deficiencies, noting that per Virginia Code, the board can fine, suspend, or terminate the superintendent, or that the superintendent can simply step down. 

“Board, that is your decision,” House said. “But I warn you, his two-and-a-half years of mishandling staff and parent complaints, your actions should be decisive and swift.” 

Another WCPS parent, Jackie Masella, suggested to the School Board that all teachers take crisis intervention training and sensitivity training.

Leslie Mathews, the guardian of two students attending Skyline Middle School, also voiced concerns.

“I stand here in deep frustration about the ongoing occurrences that take place in our schools on a daily basis,” Mathews said. “We have licensed professionals resigning, long-term substitutes, teacher behavioral issues, continuing policies not being enforced, athletic directors and coaches not instilling pride and respect in our student-athletes. 

“Where and what is the standard of quality in a WCPS education?” she asked. 

Stacey Wise of Bentonville, Va., whose nonverbal, wheelchair-bound daughter attends Skyline High School, told the board that, like the Houses, a classroom aide informed her about problems in her child’s special ed classroom.

While School Board policy is not to address community participant comments directly during a meeting, board members did hear parents’ concerns and responded when they provided their individual board reports.

“We always have areas to grow. We have places to do better,” said Board Vice Chair Funk. “I take that very seriously, and… we want to make sure that we are doing that.” 

“I’m getting pretty tired of sitting up here and having to hear about the child abuse that’s happening in our school system,” said Salins. 

“I think we’re starting to click as a board, starting to move forward, but there are, of course, bumps along the way,” McFadden said. “But our hope is to improve.”

Student incidents  

Warren County Sheriff’s Sgt. Kristin Hajduk, who is in charge of the school resource officers (SROs) for WCPS, provided the board with an SRO Report and Update.

Hajduk said that through the SROs, the Sheriff’s Office is working to build a bridge with all of the district’s schools in order to be as transparent as possible.

The reports for each school detail what SROs deal with daily, she said, though the reports don’t necessarily mean that a charge was generated for every single incident or that a student was arrested.

“In general, it’s just what was reported to us whether it ended up being a factual report or not; we still kept those numbers as genuine as possible so that you can see what we deal with on a day-to-day basis,” Hajduk told the board. 

For instance, for the month of January, there was: 

• One report of possession of a weapon on school property at Diversified Minds; 
• Skyline Middle School had one report for possession of a vape, one incident of possession of child pornography, two assault and batteries, and one threat of bodily harm;
• Three reports for possession of a vape, one selling of a vape, and six possessions of a THC vape on school grounds at Skyline High School; 
• Hilda J. Barbour Elementary School had one informational report, which can be anything, such as someone calling in with a suggestion for SROs to beware of something. Such reports don’t rise to the level of being a crime, Hajduk said; 
• Warren County High School had two possessions of a vape, one threat of bodily harm, one instance of stalking, and one informational report; and
• One possession of a vape, one possession of a weapon on school property, one report of the use of profane, threatening, or indecent language over airwaves (a.k.a. cyberbullying), and four informational requests were reported at Warren County Middle School.

The sergeant also said the SROs utilize a drug-sniffing canine named Ace to sweep through the secondary schools at least once per month and at the elementary schools’ playgrounds and parking lot areas “just because some kids go there, unfortunately, at night.”  

She also provided an overview with year-to-date figures, saying there have been a total of 261 incident reports for the time period of August 2023 through January of this year. 

“Vapes are our biggest issue,” Hajduk said, putting in a plug for more vape detectors at schools. “They are working at our high schools… and are helping to curb this vaping problem. 

“So, if we get more of them, maybe possibly at the middle school level, that would be great,” she added.

Board Chair Pence said she looks forward to hearing from the SROs at each meeting moving forward, “and hopefully at a future work session, really sitting down so that the public can also hear what our SRO duties are within the schools.”

“I think that’s going to be important for everyone to sort of sit together and discuss” these findings, she said.

Action items

During its Wednesday actions, the School Board unanimously approved several items, including an update to Policy JO: Student Records.

WCPS Assitant Superintendent of Administration George “Buck” Smith said the update will remove the special education director as the custodian of the student special education confidential file and add the school principal and director of technology as the custodian to the student cumulative file, which includes the special education confidential file. 

Policy JO also updates the location from individual schools to school administrative offices and electronic databases, such as Powerschool and VA IEP, and edits the student scholastic file to streamline information. 

The board (pictured above with the superintendent) also voted 5-0 to approve the $37,896 purchase of interactive boards for Leslie Fox Keyser Elementary School. Total cost for the purchase will be paid out of the technology portion of the LFK construction project. WCPS will purchase 12 interactive display boards, mobile stands, and on-board computers from CDW Government of Chicago.

The board also authorized the superintendent to request that the Warren County Board of Supervisors appropriates $288,200 from the capital reserves fund for the renovation costs to convert the existing auditorium at E. Wilson Elementary School into a multipurpose/gymnasium room.

Smith told board members that WCPS has completed the A&E, the RFP, and bid opening process. Two bids were received and the low bid of $288,200 was from Lantz Construction of Winchester.

“Our next step is to seek the Board of Supervisors approval to appropriate the funding from our Capital Reserve (Schools) fund prior to the contract approval process,” he said.

An expenditure totaling $51,875 also received board approval to pay Virtual Virginia for online instructional services for WCPS students enrolled for the Spring 2024 semester.

And the School Board unanimously approved a new 12-months, specialized programs coordinator position for the Special Services department to support the Pathways and Connections classrooms.

“We currently have a teacher supporting these specialized classrooms full time,” said Special Services Director McDonald. “This position is an integral part of the special education program.”

The new coordinator will support students with autism by: monitoring and offering support in alternative curriculum, transition, IEP development and implementation of instructional practices to include both academic and behavior, she said. 

Click here to watch the February 7 Warren County School Board Meeting.