LOYAL. LOCAL. COMPLETE.
CHRISMAN—During a recent Chrisman Board of Education meeting on Nov. 18, a large group of parents voiced concerns about the safety and well-being of their children in classrooms and schools, particularly at Chrisman Elementary, in the first-grade environment.
They presented several frustrations regarding a recurring issue with a first-grade student. The issues have left several children feeling unsafe.
One mother shared her experience, emphasizing her daughter’s thoughts and fears about attending school. As a child who once used to love attending and learning, her daughter now struggles with anxiety and fear daily.
“Now, every day, it’s ‘what happens if this, and what happens if that?’ I’m like, ‘Well, you call mom. Call mom and we’ll take you out. It’s fine.’ And I have taken her. I picked her up twice now from the school, once before she was a victim of this incident,” she said.
The child was previously involved in an altercation at the school, which left her with a red mark, and although Chrisman Elementary claimed the situation was “unharmful,” it was enough to create lingering fears. The child’s parent now faces daily thoughts and questions about potential threats of further incidents.
A primary, underlying concern voiced by parents was the potential for a scenario with a more grave outcome.
“I think the biggest thing is we could continue going, but then what? What if a kid gets slammed to the ground with a traumatic brain injury? The kid gets their eye poked out? Then everybody’s got a lawsuit, and we know there’s a process for everything, but does the school want a lawsuit? Does the district want a lawsuit? We all care for our kids; that is why we’re all here,” one concerned parent said. “ We’re all feeling the same frustration. We get that, but we want to get to the point where something drastic isn’t what has happened. To make something happen, we don’t want a kid to be completely injured, that will affect them for the rest of their life just because nothing was addressed or it wasn’t deemed harmful, so then it wasn’t known to be documented.”
The parents in attendance stressed to the board that they understood there are processes that need to be followed, but after years of dealing with the same issues, they agree the time for action is now.
“We are now at the point of accountability. They (the school) have instructed us that you guys are aware, so we are just doing our due diligence to be sure that you are aware because we need some type of comfort in that. Right now, not a single one of us is comfortable sending our kids in the door. If my daughter were to get hurt, we’d pull both of our kids from the district and home school. We wouldn’t send them back ever,” another parent said. “It’s just very sad when all of our children love school and want to go to school, but we’re sending them to something that they’re too terrified to attend. What if they adopt this behavior on their own and think that this is good behavior because they’ve watched it happen?”
Several parents have noted that the issue extends past the first-grade level, where the disruptive student currently resides, to other grades and classrooms. Teachers at Chrisman Elementary have gone to extra lengths to protect their students and classrooms, including locking their doors, holding their doors shut, and installing Ring doorbell cameras outside the classrooms to monitor the hallways.
“I have a child who’s in fourth grade. She comes home to me, and this is not the first time, she has been told that if (they) approach her at the water fountain, to run down the hallway away from (them.) Today, (they) were outside their classroom door and banging on it. Students were late to PE because of this situation,” another parent said.
Some parents became emotional when they shared the impact the unfortunate situation had on their children, and several addressed their kids’ growing lack of interest in school.
“My heart breaks every day for my daughter, who loves school. She has all of her snow packets done, even though we haven’t had a snow day. She wants to come home and do work. That’s what she loves to do. And now, in the morning, it’s just a fight. She’s pushed out of her classroom, removed from the situation, but it’s interrupting her education. She then has a hard time staying focused when she comes back in because what if that happens again? They’re going to be removed again,” one parent said.
In a separate interview with a Prairie Press reporter, another Chrisman parent also expressed her concerns.
“How much can elementary-age children protect themselves from a situation that’s this severe? How far are they (the school) willing to go to not address this issue? You’re going to put all of our kids at risk, because it’s outside of just one classroom. I sit here and think, ‘how much is being swept under the rug that I’m not aware of? How is that affecting my child, her education and her ability to learn?’” she said.
Parents at the Chrisman BOE meeting made it clear they were not looking to punish any child but were advocating for more resources and support from board members, the school and the district.
“We don’t want just what’s best for our kids. We want the best for all kids, even the child in question. There’s no doubt that (they) deserve an education, but I 100 percent believe Chrisman School is not the people that are going to do that for him. They’re just not,” one parent said. “You don’t have the resources, you don’t have the hands, you don’t have the training, you don’t have any of that for (them) to actually sit and learn anything. All you’re going to end up doing is taking (them) out of the classroom, entertaining them by doing something else. But that doesn’t benefit (them) either. It benefits no one. It’s also very detrimental to the staff. You’re just putting a Band-Aid on a problem that needs more attention.”
In response to the parents’ plethora of concerns, school board members expressed empathy and assured them that their concerns were being heard.
“We hear you, and I want you to know that, because I know this is probably the last thing you guys wanted to do. But we definitely hear you. I know that we can’t tell you guys a lot, but you have been heard, and we will be definitely trying. I think that all of us completely empathize with you, just as parents, if anything else, not just the school board,” board member Christie Thevenin said.
Board Vice-President John Rogers also addressed the group of parents.
“We’re just as motivated about doing what we can to resolve this. We’ll have multiple conversations on this. I probably took 30 phone calls on this last week, when I was trying to work a job,” he said. “I want it resolved just as much as you guys do. My kids are older, but that doesn’t make it any less significant to me. I know a lot of you guys very well, some of you not so well. But like I said, your kids are our kids, and I want this taken care of.”
Darren Loschen, Superintendent of Edgar County CUSD #6, released a statement to The Prairie Press regarding the matter.
“Student and staff safety are always our top priority. We are working through some issues at Chrisman Elementary School. We are not at liberty to discuss specific student discipline or personnel matters,” he wrote.