Two families complain to school board on treatment of students

Shawn Phenix, father of a six-year-old gifted and talented student at Savage Elementary, told the Van Buren Public Schools Board of Education on Monday about how his son was put on a bus they didn’t sign for on Sept. 5, dropped off at a location far from home, and left to fend for himself for two hours, until he found his own way home.
At Monday’s meeting Phenix and his wife Shelly stood before the board to tell them the story of what happened and how they feel the district is taking the situation lightly and offering no accountability.
Phenix said their son was placed on a bus without the parents signing the required form after his wife asked questions about the bus and what bus stop he would use.
They sent out an email to put him on the bus, Phenix said of transportation officials.
“There’s no room for error when you are dealing with precious cargo,” he said. “It’s disappointing that there has been no accountability… There’s no room for error… I feel no one is taking this seriously.”
Phenix said he has four text messages from last year sent to him about child predators in this area.
“A six-year-old child was abandoned on a corner,” he stressed, saying there should be professional training for those involved and changes in the school district policies.
“I will be contacting Dr. Rice, the state superintendent,” said Phenix. His wife said she works in human resources.
He said he was told that it was a systemic error and the person responsible for it investigated and cleared themselves.
“This is far from over,” Phenix said.
Shelly Phenix said this also happened to two other students and she doesn’t know if their experiences are on the books.
“Our son was able to walk back to our community and neighbors recognized him and brought him home,” she said. He made his own way back home, she stressed, noting, “We don’t want to be in a situation we can’t recover from.”
She said her son wants to get on the bus, but he screams when she goes around the corner in the grocery store out of sight. She said he had always been very confident.
“This needs to be taken seriously,” she said.
School board president Keith Johnston said they are taking it seriously and a procedure was put in place so this doesn’t happen again. He said he talked to her husband and he got upset and left.
“You didn’t announce to parents the changes,” he said.
“We don’t want any child abandoned,” Johnston insisted.
“For two hours he was left to his own devices and there’s no incident report,” Shawn Phenix said, noting Johnston probably doesn’t know what it’s like to fear for his child.
Johnston said, actually, he does. “A guy put a gun to my daughter’s head, so I have an idea. They caught him yesterday,” Johnston said, referring to a recent incident in Florida.
Board member Amy Pearce said steps have been taken at Savage and elsewhere and she asked, “You would like to see something tangible?”
Phenix said he would, like a robocall, email or however they can do it to announce the changes. Also, he said, someone needs to be held accountable and he was told no one is getting written up about his.
“What if he was injured or killed?” he said, adding he was part of the teaching community also.
“I feel when mistakes are made they should be investigated,” Pearce said, noting human relations information is extremely confidential. “If someone is disciplined, you may never know.”
“I will be contacting Supt. Rice and I’m sure he can get the information,” he said, noting school board members and the administration work together and, understandably, are partial. “We need impartiality… It could have resulted in our son not being there,” he said, adding he goes to work and then wonders if his son is safe.
“I don’t want to fire someone for a systems error,” Johnston said.
Then, Jacarra and Ricky Beasley spoke of their concerns on discipline in the district.
Jacarra said their daughter told them that at an assembly at BHS the students were told of extremely harsh disciplinary actions taking place in the district, which upset her.
Meanwhile, their son who is in seventh grade at McBride inserted himself into an altercation on the school bus and was given five days off the bus. She said the assistant principal told her he was lucky because he could have had to go in front of a judge and have a probation officer.
She said she is aware of “Pipeline to Prison” and doesn’t want her son to be taken that direction. She said she was told because he had no previous problems, he didn’t have to go to court. This involved a punch from another student, she said.
The district’s Human Resources Director Abdul Madyun said years ago at BHS they had a policy of giving disorderly conduct tickets where the students would have to go before Judge Oakley at 34th District Court, but there was no record.
“There was a lot of fighting at the high school,” Madyun recalls. “We’d give them days off and they would come back and fight again.”
“Parents were not notified of the disciplinary actions,” Jacarra Beasley said. “For a child to go before a judge is traumatic.”
Amon Madyun, a BHS student who is one of two students sitting on the school board, said the high school assembly on discipline happens every year.
Jacarra Beasley said she grew up in this district and has a business in the community. She said when she feels this discipline policy is harmful to her children, “I’m out of here.”
Amon said there are problems at the high school where there are harsher penalties for lower-performing students. She said the New Tech and those in the honor system are told they are better than the others and the lower kids get harsher punishment. She said they change the counselors often and students can’t form a relationship.
“We have a PBIS system, but it needs more student input,” said board member Pearce, referring to Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports.
“This situation for me was traumatic,” said Jacarra Beasley.
HR Director Madyun agreed that the PBIS needs to be something else in the high school.
School Supt. Pete Kudlak said he will find out more about this, but he assured the parents there is no probationer/court policy now.
In other business at Monday’s meeting, the board:
• Learned Transportation Supervisor Kim Searcy resigned on Friday and Elizabeth Banks, who has been with the transportation department for 28 years, was named new supervisor on Monday. The board approved the change;
• Approved the Cooperative Education Program Agreement between the Van Buren Public Schools and the Washtenaw Educational Options Consortium (WEOC) and Washtenaw Intermediate School District. This is the first year of VBPS partnership with Eastern Michigan University’s Early College Alliance which allows Van Buren to have an early college program for BHS students at EMU. Students who are freshman through seniors may choose this path, which could earn them 60 college credits without cost to their families. All of the state aid for each of these students goes to EMU, but they are considered Van Buren students, although they attend classes at EMU 100% of the time. Curriculum Director Jeff Moore said eight sophomores want to do this;
• Approved a request for about 225 sixth graders from Owen Intermediate to go to YMCA Camp Copneconic in Fenton on Nov. 12-15, with additional 10th, 11th, and 12th grade counselors. Cost to students is $200 and a fund raiser was available. Transportation is by VBPS buses;
• Approved hiring teachers Melisa Hiuser for Owen Intermediate as of Sept. 30 and Kelly Zmudczynski for Edgemont Elementary as of Oct. 7;
• Approved the resignations of non-instructional staff: Amanda Smith of Edgemont as of Sept. 25 for relocation after less than a year of service; and Kimberly Umphrey from Transportation as of Oct. 4 after less than a year of service, for a job offer;
• Approved hiring Deanna Schrecengost as a district paraprofessional as of Sept. 12; and George Tibu as a district IT specialist as of Oct. 7;
• Heard Linda Clayton thank the school for help with the recent alumni banquet. She said many more students than usual helped with this year’s event, including those who gave tours of the school, helped alumni with carrying trays, sang the National Anthem, and prepared the meal through their culinary class;
• Heard presentations by the principals and staff of Rawsonville and Tyler elementary schools and Owen Intermediate on new ways of going about improving education in their schools; and
• Went into closed-door session to discuss potential action on a student discipline reinstatement request for the 2019-20 school year. The student was expelled during the 2018-19 school year. When the board came back into open session it voted to reinstate student 18-19-011 with conditions.