Parents tell Calloway Co. board of concerns about handling of recent social media-spread rumor; superintendent: "mixed messages," desire to get facts delayed notice
Ledger & Times, Murray, Feb. 10, 2017
CCBOE recognizes North students for achievements, hears comments on school safety
By JORDAN FERGUSON
The Calloway County School District Board of Education recognized several North Calloway Elementary School students who performed well on last year’s K-PREP testing during the board’s meeting on Thursday.
Parents and students gathered in the NCES cafeteria for the meeting.
“I want to thank the board for being here, and as you can see we have lots of kids up here that we want to honor tonight,” said NCES Principal Melinda Hendley. “These students are those who scored all Distinguished in all the areas of the K-PREP test that they were given this past year.”
Following a brief award ceremony, Hendley then provided the board with a breakdown of how the school performed during last year’s testing.
“Overall, last year, we scored a 76.1, and as you can see, in 2015, we scored a 70.9, so we had a pretty good gain this past year in our scores, which made us very proud, but these students did all the work for us,” Hendley said.
This left the school with a classification of Distinguished/Progressing, as well as making North a school of distinction. Slides provided by Hendley showed the school’s achievement scores improved from 23.3 to 27.9, and although Gap improved from 16.7 to 18.5, growth dipped slightly from 24.7 to 22.6.
“We are really pleased that achievement and Gap went up this year,” Hendley said. “However, our achievement and Gap were so much higher this time that the growth didn’t affect us as much, and that is what led to our better scores (overall).”
Hendley listed North being No. 1 in the state in the area of social studies, and 10th out of 34 schools in the region in math as areas of strength for the school. Hendley also said that through maintaining high expectations, faculty and staff hope to continue addressing areas of need within the school, particularly in achievement in reading, writing and language mechanics.
Following Hendley’s presentation, the board moved forward into public comment. Some concerned parents came forward with questions pertaining to safety — particularly in reference to an instance involving the high school last Friday in which a student’s social media posts raised concerns among staff and many Calloway County parents.
“I have a few questions about the incident at the high school last Friday,” said Sherry Ledford, a parent of a student at CCHS. “There have been a lot of comments by concerned parents, and my first question would be why we weren’t informed about this?”
Superintendent Tres Settle said that first and foremost, the district wanted to have all facts in hand before sending out any information that might cause a panic.
“Early Friday morning, we had very limited information,” he said. “We were getting mixed signals and mixed messages from a variety of parents. We felt like, in order to put something out – which we typically would do – we needed to have accurate information. At that point, we did not.”
Settle said that putting out information, or potential misinformation, had the potential to cause a panic, much akin to yelling “fire” in a crowded theater or pulling a fire alarm. He said that before causing such a potential panic, the school wanted to be sure the concern was warranted.
Ledford brought up that fact that because of social media, a public panic presented itself regardless, and asked for further clarification on when parents should consider a threat valid. She wanted to know how the district would communicate that information to parents.
Settle responded that the role social media played in the panic was unfortunate, and offered an explanation to the steps the school went through to handle the ordeal.
“I met with local law enforcement. Sheriff (Sam) Steger actually talked with me very early in the morning,” Settle said. “He thought about putting something out from the sheriff’s department and decided against that. He was in the midst of an investigation as well, and for a variety of reasons felt like that could compromise his investigation.
“We talked about it and made a joint decision that until we had more information to share, we thought it would be best to provide additional security at the high school where the concerning posts seemed to be geared towards.”
Settle said among other issues are the means through which the school can communicate with parents. One apparatus is a text-messaging system which has a limited character count, much like Twitter, which Settle said was an inappropriate mechanism to try and convey this information.
The other service was a calling service which would attempt to reach each parent by phone. Settle said that a parent’s cell service, for example, could prevent them from receiving that message at all. This could also prompt many parents to call seeking information, tying up phone lines and keeping the school from effectively communicating with the outside world.
Another issue came when parents decided to keep 270 students from school that day, a figure Settle said had been embellished in other reports suggesting the count was near 400. These students who missed last Friday were hit with an unexcused absence for the day, which some parents felt was unfair.
“Another issue among parents are the unexcused absences,” Ledford said. “We were scared for our kids’ lives, plain and simple. They shouldn’t be punished because of a threat they had nothing to do with.”
Settle agreed, and given the circumstances, the school decided to allow any students who missed that day to make up their missed work — an opportunity not usually afforded to Calloway students with an unexcused absence.
“I agree, and that is why we made the decision (to allow students to make up their work),” Settle said. “Typically, an unexcused means you don’t get to make up work and it counts against you academically. We felt like, because of what you just said — it’s not the child or parents’ fault in this situation — we are allowing these students to make up their work.”
Settle said that communicating with the district is essential to helping the school keep their students safe. Had there been more concrete evidence, Settle said, their response would have been appropriate, but such responses need to be based on facts and not rumors.
“For everyone here, I think my administrators can vouch, it has been a learning experience for all of us,” he said. “We have debriefed twice already with the sheriff’s department; we will continue that process. This is a new animal for us in schools. We are dealing with something social-media related almost every day in our schools.”