15. Emergency School Board Mtg
Chapter fifteen
Emergency School Board Mtg
KARA
Even a week after the incident with Sadie, Fitz and the other boys, my anger fizzes inside me as I take in the familiar setting.
St. Patrick's large library in the main convent building is where PTA meetings and fundraiser committee meetings are held.
Except for two tables pushed together to create one long one for the board members to sit behind, the study tables for the students have been removed.
The chairs that usually sit around the missing tables have been arranged auditorium style.
Board meetings are usually held in the gymnasium. But since this one was called at the last minute, the board must not have expected a lot of parents to show up.
Oops.
Mick and I take two empty seats in the front row, next to where áine and Wraith are already sitting. His arm is over the back of her chair and he's giving off don't-come-near-my-wife vibes. I recognize them from Mick's repertoire.
Most of the other chairs in the room are occupied.
I'm not surprised by the full house. I contacted the parents of all of the children impacted by my investigation into the broken and inadequate protocols for handling things like what happened to Sadie Gallagher.
Board members drift into their seats one by one. To their left is the 72" monitor on a stand I arranged for earlier.
Principal Bentley walks in last. His expression carries practiced sympathy. Professional concern. The face of a man expecting difficult parents.
He smiles when he sees me. "Thank you for making the time to be here, Kara."
I don't return his unctuous greeting or smile. This meeting wasn't his idea. In fact, if it were up to him, it wouldn't be happening at all.
His smile drops from his face. "Yes. Well." He sits between JoAnn Young, the Vice Principal and Alice Bryant, the school secretary.
The board chair clears his throat. "Thank you all for being here on such short notice.
" He sounds anything but grateful so many parents have shown up.
"Mrs. Fitzgerald requested this emergency session regarding recent events involving her son at St. Patrick's Preparatory Academy as evidence of a broader concern regarding student safety. "
I nod.
One of the other board members looks between me, the principal and then áine before saying, "We understand your family has concerns regarding what happened to Sadie Gallagher."
I shake my head. "No."
Several brows lift.
"My family has concerns regarding what has been happening to children in your care for years," I correct.
A buzz of conversation starts around me and the chairman of the board has to raise his voice to be heard. "Please, save discussion amongst yourselves for the appropriate time."
The chatter dies down.
Mark gives me an earnest look. "I understand that what happened last week upset you Mrs. Fitzgerald, and it's possible we acted without as much forethought as we should have taken, but let me assure you and all the parents here that the administration and staff at St. Patrick's take student safety very seriously. "
"No, you don't."
His mouth opens.
I keep talking. "If you did, we wouldn't be here."
I touch the screen on my iPad and the presentation monitor's screen lights up.
The first slide appears.
White background.
Black lettering.
STUDENT INCIDENT REPORTSLAST FIVE YEARS
"When JoAnn Young attempted to get me incident reports from both teachers and students that concerned her, they had mysteriously disappeared from the school's digital archives.
" She made the mistake of waiting to look for them until the following day.
I give Mark a disparaging glance. "I am very good at retrieving deleted data. "
I tap my tablet and the next slide replaces the first. It has a single number. 37.
"This is the number of complaints JoAnn was able to provide me from the archives for the last seven years.
" I switch to the next slide. No surprise over 80% of them were classified as resolved without parental participation.
Not so the deleted records. "This is the number of complaints I unearthed from the deleted data. "
The number on the screen is 148.
"Forty-three involving repeated offenders, twenty-six involving sexual language directed toward classmates, seventeen involving physical intimidation, and three involving violence. None of which were followed up on according to school protocols."
The room has become very quiet.
One of the board members leans forward. "Principal Bentley has always assured us that bullying is so minimal as to be nonexistent at the school."
The look I give Mark is withering.
He tugs at his shirt collar. "You're making more—"
"No." I cut him off. "You were aware of the problem and you ignored it."
He puffs up. "I assure you, I did not ignore our students' safety."
"No?" I ask
"No."
I enlarge a screenshot.
"I recovered the metadata."
Highlighted lines appear.
USER: MBENTLEY
EDIT HISTORY
2:55 PM 06/17/2—
DELETE INCIDENT REPORT
DELETE INCIDENT REPORT
DELETE INCIDENT REPORT
His face drains.
"It doesn't prove—"
"It proves those files existed."
I zoom farther.
"It proves they were manually removed."
Another board member adjusts his glasses.
"When?"
"You can read the date and time stamp as well as I can," I shoot back, no patience for whatever is prompting him to ask the question whose answer is on the screen for everyone to see.
Which is about thirty minutes after we left Mark Bentley’s office the week before.
Bentley straightens.
"There are often duplicate reports."
I don’t even dignify that ridiculous attempt at an excuse for his behavior with a response.
Instead I tap on the next slide. It’s a map of the campus overlaid with colored dots denoting where the incidents occurred.
I look directly at Bentley. "You knew where the problems were."
"We have staffing shortages." He looks appealingly at the board. "You know I’ve asked for an increase in the staffing budget for the last two years."
"Don’t you dare try to make this about resources." I tap my tablet again. "This pie chart is an accurate breakdown of budget allocation by department after a trained accountant shifted several costs that had been assigned to the wrong budget umbrella."
I flash the next slide. "This is a list of items that were assigned the wrong budget designation, inflating the budget subsections for teaching staff, ongoing training, curriculum and classroom supplies."
Administrative office remodel.
Administrative conference attendance.
Administrative training.
Technology upgrades to administrative office computers and equipment.
Administrative clerical staff.
"As a parent who believed the teacher/aid-to-student ratio was significantly lower than it actually is, I would like to know why all but one of the office clerical assistants have been designated as teacher’s aids when they do not in fact work in the classroom."
I look around the room. "Tonight is not about the budget, but it’s clear we need to address these issues before the next fiscal year.
My point with this is to show the issue is not financial resources, but their allocation.
And that allocation does nothing to address the lack of adequate adult supervision in problematic areas on the campus. "
I glare at Mark Bentley. "It does not account in any way for the dismissal of complaints by students and teachers of behavior that should have been addressed with disciplinary action."
"That is an administrative call," Mark says repressively.
"No. Behavioral guidelines are clear and they are not being adhered to."
"That’s a simplified ver—"
I put my hand up. "It is a simple situation. You had written guidelines approved by the school board to follow and you did not adhere to them. When you were tasked with that lack of adherence, you attempted to hide the evidence of your mistakes."
Bentley clears his throat. "This is becoming unfair. It feels very much like I’m on trial here. I thought this was a meeting to discuss the unfortunate incident last week and how best to avoid it happening again."
"The solution to that is evident," my husband says in a tone that makes Mark blanche.
I shake my head in disbelief. "Unfair? You know what unfair is?
" I don't wait for an answer. "It’s a twelve-year-old girl afraid to go to school. It’s my son forced into a violent confrontation to protect her because a group of boys who were mentioned in several unresolved complaints by other students had not been held accountable before their behavior escalated to the reprehensible. "
For the first time since the meeting began, JoAnn Young speaks. "After documenting escalating concerns, I recommended intervention. Mark said he spoke to their parents personally and it was handled."
"There is no record of that interaction," I say.
Mark avoids making eye contact with Mick while trying to give me an earnest look. "It didn’t happen at the school."
"That is not school policy," JoAnn says, her voice clear and steady.
"I have found that—"
"Your opinion is of very little interest to me," I say, cutting him off. "Your experiences even less so. A young girl was assaulted because of your negligence."
"I think we're losing perspective."
I stare at him. That’s his defense? "I don't."
"This is a very emotional situation."
"It should be."
He spreads his hands. "Children make mistakes."
"So do principals. Those boys should have been held accountable before now. Before their behavior had deteriorated to the level of criminality."
Which I am aware is funny distinction for me to make, but the school is not the mob and most of the parents here understand the term in a different way than we do.
"When children tell adults they're scared, adults are supposed to do something," Aine’s voice rings with conviction.
"I hand my child over every morning and trust the staff at St. Patrick’s to keep him safe." Which is not exactly true.