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View Winners → Monrovia Student Suspended After Warning Peers of School Threat on Social Media
Monrovia Weekly Oct 30, 2019
- Photo by Terry Miller
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Parents say their son was wrongfullysuspended from Monrovia High School after he warned others about a possible schoolshooting threat on social media in September.
Wayne Perry believes thepunishment for his son, who does not wish for his name to be published, waspartially motivated by race and a result of a rushed investigation byauthorities.
“They rushed to judgementand just assumed my son created this whole mess, and because of it, they triedto expel him from the school,” Perry said. “They realized after our attorneypointed it out to them that they had violated a lot of rules in the process.”
His son was one amongseveral other students who reported school shooting threats to administration andtook to the social media app Snapchat to warn peers afterward. His postsincluded identifying information of a student who made several public threatsin school to shoot people in September.
According to Perry, onlyhis son seems to have been questioned by police officers and received asuspension notice stating he “disrupted school activities” and “intentionallyharassed, threatened, or intimidated, creating a hostile educationenvironment.”
Perry believes his son wassingled out because he is Black, among other reasons.
“The school jumped toconclusions, and they did not do a thorough investigation,” Perry said. “Hadthey done so; they would have realized that my son was not the only one who waswarning people about the threat,” Perry said. “Unfortunately, in our society,in public schools, Black kids are suspended and potentially expelled and at analarming rate, way more than white students.”
Perry also believes theschool was looking for a target to blame when students didn’t show up to schoolout of fear.
“It seems like they’retrying to make an example out of my son, because they lost money, when a bunchof school kids didn’t show, because they were scared that they would get shotup,” Perry said.
Perry is now demanding forthe suspension to be removed from his son’s record.
Monrovia High School Principle KirkMcGuiness disputes claims that the school singled out any students.
“We take safety seriously. We act onany and all tip info promptly and thoroughly. We do not take chances with thoseincidents. There is no retribution for reporting, but there can be consequencesif that reporting is false or incomplete or unfairly impact the safety of staffor students,” McGuiness said. According to McGuiness, follow-up for eachstudent involved in an investigation will vary based on that individual.
When threats were reported,the school sent out an automated phone call to parents saying the threat wasnot credible. Perry believes this was not enough. He criticizes schooladministration for having a lack of communication with parents in responding toviolent threats.
“What we’ve learned in thisprocess is that there is no process. They need to come up with a communicationplan where they effectively notify the parents and don’t try to downplay it,”Perry said.
McGuiness said there is no penalty for studentsspeaking up; however, he cautioned against hasty usage of social media, whichhe said can cause the rapid proliferation of inaccurate information.
“We have a comprehensive safety plan wehave in place that is reviewed annually. We have standard practices andprocedures, and when a statement is made, we bring the student into the officeand conduct an appropriate investigation,” McGuiness said. “It’s our recommendationthat we do not resort to social media. Instead, come speak to us so that we canconduct an adequate investigation.”
“I think he was right in doing what he did. Any responsible person would do the same thing,” Perry said.
Perry’s son has fallen behindin his courses after being out of school for 12 days. He is currently sufferinganxiety as a result of the incident.
“He’s not eating well; he’s not sleeping well. He feels as if the school doesn’t want him there,” Perry said.
As a high school junior, heis currently preparing for college admissions, and the family worries this willaffect the student’s opportunities to be admitted to college. Perry said hisson wants to go to Stanford or University of California, Berkeley.
According to California Departmentof Education, African Americans students made up 17% of total suspensions inthe state in 2017 and 2018, despite being only 6% of the total studentpopulation.
A ban on suspending students for “willful defiance,” a catchall term for disruptive behavior critics see as disproportionately applied to minority students, in grades K-12, was signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sept. 9 and will go into effect on July 1.
