Our School Board is the Cruelest Court

[XLFD]

In a grand jury hearing, the prosecution presents evidence in a relaxed setting to a grand jury, who decide whether there is enough evidence to charge (indict) someone with a crime. Since, traditionally, the defense doesn’t get any say, indictments usually are granted if the prosecutor markets it well.  You may have heard the famous statement by NY Judge Sol Wachtler that a grand jury would "indict a ham sandwich", if that's what a prosecutor wanted.

While it wasn't a grand jury hearing, a special meeting of the Ludington School Board on November 18th at 5 PM for a disciplinary hearing gave off similar vibes.  Typically, the parents are told it would be in their best interest to have such a hearing be held in closed session; to their credit, the parents wanted this to take place in open session. 

In such instances, one would be inclined to think that the parents believed that their child is not guilty of what is charged and/or deserving of the punishment scheduled to be administered.  After witnessing what happened at that hearing, we believe that board policy and statutory law was misapplied, and that the student should have been reinstated immediately with a clean record.  Furthermore, the failure of administrators to provide the student and his parents with the entirety of the investigative records violated their due process rights and their ability to defend themselves, a serious infraction on their part.  But we're getting ahead of ourselves, let's look at the facts, the witness statements, the assumptions, the presumptions, and the legal authorities that apply.

As one investigation called the minor boy on trial "student B" and the other called him "D2", we will call him "Brad".  It is not disputed that around 2 PM on November 7th, Brad was driving his truck out to West Shore Community College (WSCC) with two passengers: a fellow student "Clyde" (aka student C) and an adult we'll call "Ian" (aka 'adult individual').  Brad was going there for at least the purpose of picking up "Adam" (aka student A) at the end of a "career technical education" (CTE) class, as he admittedly has done before. 

Much of what happens hereafter is in dispute by the multiple parties involved and at the hearing there wasn't a lot of fact-trying to get to the truth, nor was there any video of what happened.  Adam had notified Brad that a student from another district, "Zeke" was continuing to talk bad about him, it was rumored that Brad offered to meet Zeke at the beach over the weekend to settle their differences through a fight, but no evidence was offered of that.  Adam would leave the class and arrive back at the truck; he would leave the truck about 15 minutes out in an effort to get Zeke to come out.  According to Brad's statement to police, he never planned for it to be anything more than a warning or verbal argument to be issued at that point to get Zeke to stop.

Zeke and a group of about ten others, including "Yul" would come out to the truck, with Yul taking the point.  Clyde and Yul would exchange words and then one pushes the other (each side's proponents claim their guy was pushed first).  Yul decidedly gets the upper hand, landing several punches in before Ian produces a tire iron and strikes Yul with it on the back and on each arm.  Ian then retreated into the truck when Yul turned his attention towards him.  Brad tries to drive off, but by this time other adults with the CTE program had taken notice, appeared on scene, and prevented him from driving away. 

Chief Katrina Skinner of the Scottville PD and CTE staff conducted an investigation into the incident, this is seen in this packet.  Remarkably, when the disciplinary hearing was held, the CTE investigation, which makes several conclusions without doing as much investigation work done by Skinner, was never provided to the defendant or his parents.  This omission was crucial, as several board members would reference this investigation and its conclusions without Brad or his parents knowing what was on it.  

The meeting would start on topic with LHS Principal Forsberg laying out the case against Brad, while Assistant Principal Marietta (who handled most of the school's 'investigation') sat at his side.  The parents, who only received the unedited SPD incident report, were there along with Clyde and his parents; they would dispute most of the conclusions brought forth during the tribunal, but only after they were told that there would be two possible outcomes of the hearing process.

While one might think that those two outcomes would be guilty or not guilty of the allegations, they were told explicitly that Brad would be either 1) expelled for the rest of the year and able to come back next year, or 2) expelled as above, and required to apply for reinstatement for the next school year.  That was a great indication that the whole process was rigged against Brad.  He would be expelled regardless of any evidence contrary to his guilt for what was being called an offense meeting the high threshold of expulsion. 

But as I sat there and listened to the accounts of what happened, I honestly couldn't figure out why we were all there.  Brad drove to pick a friend up from a CTE class at WSCC, he drove with two other passengers (Clyde and Ian), I have since learned they had all dropped by a store before they went to the college and goofed around while catching themselves on video. 

Brad was told by Adam that Zeke was talking smack about him, so Adam went back to get Zeke to talk it over.  Zeke went out with a pack of friends from his school (MCC), and Yul provoked and likely initiated a fight with Clyde.  Ian whipped out a tire iron and hit Yul multiple times, stopping the brawl and preventing further strife in the process (whether that was his intention or not-- none of the investigators ever question him). 

During that time, Brad was on the driver's side of the car, and while Zeke claims that he was reaching into the truck at some point in order to get another tire iron that came with his truck, a consent search by Chief Skinner that afternoon determined that the tire irons (typical irons for a Ford F-150 are pictured above) were all under the back of the passenger's seat, ready for a flat tire, not a fight.  He had no access to the only weapon found in the truck.  It is likely he was only getting in the vehicle to leave because things were getting out of hand, and all his companions were also getting in at that point.  

But the fix was in at this 'courtroom'.  The board did not care if Yul started the fight, did not care that the only person with him that would have culpability (Ian) for having a weapon was not being disciplined (Yul was not pressing charges, Ian was not an LASD student), did not care that Brad was a straight-A student with no past record, and that Brad seemed to be the most guiltless of all three LASD students involved.  They would expel him for the rest of the year and require him to apply for reinstatement for the next school year.  

It was very confusing for me because school officials never would explicitly indicate what school policy or state law was violated by Brad that led to his expulsion.  After the meeting, I requested through FOIA the CTE investigation (already shared above) and the policy/law that stood as the basis for expulsion.

For the latter, Superintendent Kyle Corlett provided me policy 5610 which provided under the section on weapons in relevant part:  "The District shall expel any student who possesses a dangerous weapon, other than a firearm, in the District’s weapon-free school zone... a “dangerous weapon” is defined by law as a... iron bar".

Two problems exist for this case.  First, Brad was not in a "weapon-free school zone" as defined in MCL 750.237a:  "school property and a vehicle used by a school to transport students to or from school property."  If you wonder whether a WSCC parking lot is "school property", that term is also defined:   "School property" means a building, playing field, or property used for school purposes to impart instruction to children or used for functions and events sponsored by a school, except a building used primarily for college extension courses (emphasis added).  Brad was not in the district's weapon-free school zone.  

More importantly, he did not possess a weapon in the first place.  That same school policy (5610) explicitly says:  

The District need not expel a student for possession of a dangerous weapon, including a firearm, if the student can establish in a clear and convincing manner the following mitigating factor(s) to the satisfaction of the Board the: 

1. object or instrument was not possessed for use as a weapon, or for direct (or indirect) delivery to another person for use as a weapon; or
    
2. weapon was not knowingly possessed; or
    
3. student did not know (or have reason to know) that the object or instrument in his/her possession constituted a dangerous weapon.

Ian, who was sitting on the seat above the tire irons, was the only one who brandished one and used it as a weapon in the incident.  Brad by his position outside his door throughout, never had access to this standard equipment for his truck that day, and one would think he never thought of using it as a weapon that day since he didn't have it readily at hand.  One could make a case for all of the three mitigating factors in this case-- that is, if their ultimate goal was to give Brad a fair and just hearing.  Indirectly, Brad's parents made the case that these were not dangerous weapons, but tools never used by Brad on the afternoon of November 7th.  The policy states further:

"There is a rebuttable presumption that expulsion for possessing the weapon is not justified if the Board determines in writing that the student has established that s/he fits under one (1) of the exceptions above by clear and convincing evidence, and that the student has no previous history of suspension or expulsion."

So says that policy, and it lists seven factors that the board is supposed to consider when determining whether to suspend/expel a student or consider a less stringent punishment, which includes the student's disciplinary history, whether restorative practices will be used to address the violation or behavior, and whether a lesser intervention would properly address the violation or behavior.  

These were never addressed at all; remember, the board was only given two choices, both of which would require expulsion for the rest of the year, nothing less.  This punishment was given to him for essentially driving out to WSCC to pick up a friend, seeing one of his friends get beat up, and his new truck get damaged.  And what did he do?  He tried to deescalate the situation by driving off after not taking part in any fight (by any account) or possessing/handling any dangerous weapon.  

Additionally, Dr. Corlett had identified both MCL 380.1311 and MCL 380.1313 as other legal authorities that helped lead the board to decide on expulsion, but they are primarily the basis behind LASD policy.  It also explains that such expulsions for dangerous weapons go on the student's permanent record, and by extension, this straight-A student with no discipline in his previous history may just have had his promising career ruined by an apathetic and quite pathetic effort by the LASD School Board in denying him a fair hearing all around.  

Two school board incumbents who lost their reelection bid earlier this month played a major part in this travesty of justice, reminiscent of other recent actions by this board that denied due process and basic civil rights to students, parents, and even teachers.  Policies are there to be followed, all parts of the law need to be applied.