BUFFALO (WBEN - Brendan Keany) - The parents of a former Tapestry Charter student are calling for an investigation after they allege that their daughter was assaulted and then expelled without a fair disciplinary process.
Parents of a student at Tapestry Charter School are calling for an investigation into the school following an assault incident that occurred in early March. The parents are questioning the legality of the appeals process and the handling of the actual incident by staff. pic.twitter.com/3M3wz3Aswi
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Christina Clark-Conerly and Kelcey Conerly are the parents of the expelled student, and they're requesting that the New York State Education Commissioner and State Charter School Officials step in and lead the investigation.
"At this point, we've written letters to the board of trustees at charter where we're asking them, of course, to look into a full investigation," said Attorney Shaqurah Zachery, who represents the parents. "Because we're not really confident in the school's ability to be impartial in the process, we've asked for the commissioner of New York State as well as the charter school board to to look into this and do an investigation as well."
Zachery outlined how they understand and interpreted the incident:
The clients' daughter was in an unsupervised hallway with three other female students, and one of those students had a poor history with the expelled student. That student went up to the clients' daughter and smacked her in the face, and then an altercation ensued in which the clients' daughter defended herself. She then went back into the classroom, grabbed her belongings, ran back out of the classroom, went to the other building where she came into contact with staff members. The staff members had no knowledge that the altercation had taken place, and the student who she had fought, ran around the building to come back and try to attack her again. Staff tried to separate the girls, and the principal put the clients' daughter in a bear hug, dragged her across the floor, and effective practices weren't used as the situation continued to escalate. The nurse then tried to put her into a full nelson or some sort of a hold and the situation calmed down.
Both of the students then received a five-day suspension, to which they believed that was going to be their punishment and they were going to move forward. However, a formal disciplinary hearing was called, and the school's attorney was present and was presiding over the hearing process.
"We said that's not okay," said Zachery. "That's a conflict of interest; you represent the school, and we were told that there was another impartial hearing officer. He told us he didn't care and that they were going to proceed regardless of those objections."
After the hearing, the principal made a recommendation for expulsion. The attorney for the school said that he agreed and that he found that she was guilty of the three charges that she was facing.
"I told him that this was just absurd," continued Zachery. "This is a young lady who has no disciplinary record to speak of - nothing serious. She's never been expelled, she's never been suspended or gotten into a fight. This happened with a student that [the school> should have known that there was a history with. They should have never been in the hallway unsupervised - there in lies the beginning of the issue - and the principal didn't do due diligence. When I asked him if he was aware of the fact that there was a history between these girls, did he utilize that in his investigation in terms of his position, he said he had no idea."
Education activist Sam Radford was at the press conference, and he said the entire process, from the time the students were allowed to be in the hallway together unsupervised, to the moment that the principal and school's lawyer found her guilty of the charges was a shoddy process at best.
"You think that somebody who doesn't have a record of fighting is fighting for no reason?" asked Radford. "And then you're going to try to expel her? That's absolutely unacceptable."
A camera captured the entire incident, and Zachery says it confirms their side of the story.
"Absolutely the video showed that," she said. "It showed the initial assault, it showed the children in the hall way by themselves, it showed the ongoing assault by the staff members, and that was really hard for [her parents> to watch, seeing her being manhandled like that."
And the parents want the footage released.
"I want the video to be released," said Clark-Conerly. "I ask that the video be released to the public because after the way the administration and the staff in the building handled the situation, and in my approach and my outlook of it, you created this situation."
Right now, the expelled student was accepted into another charter school to finish up the year after Tapestry only offered her one week of offsite instruction.
