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The Westhampton Beach High School. file photo
Parents in Westhampton Beach said they are concerned with the school district’s enforcement of, and the policies and procedures surrounding, disciplinary actions, alleging they are inconsistent and disproportionately affect minorities and students with disabilities. Community members also voiced during Monday night’s Board of Education meeting that they are concerned with what they say is a lack of supervision that leads to what they claim are damaging, harmful and, in some cases, violent incidents.
“Are we enforcing certain rules on certain students, or enforcing the same rules on all students?” parent Maeghan Mackie asked Westhampton Beach Board of Education members during the Monday, April 4, meeting. “Kids don’t feel they’re being treated the same, and they’re not, and I know they’re not based on certain instances. You’ve got to stop burying your heads and saying, ‘It doesn’t happen here,’ because it does.”
Superintendent of Schools Dr. Carolyn Probst said in a statement issued Tuesday that the district is committed to providing a safe environment for all students, staff and visitors.
“All students are held to the same code of conduct and are expected to conduct themselves in an appropriate and civil manner with proper regard for others,” she said. “Discipline, if/when warranted, is firm, fair and consistent.”
But Mackie, who said her son has been bullied since elementary school, claims one particular antagonist has repeatedly broken the school’s code of conduct and allegedly not received adequate punishment.
The mother, who herself attended Westhampton Beach schools, said one of the more serious incidents involved her son being videotaped. The video was recovered, and deleted, she said, and the assailant supposedly received one day of after-school detention.
“This child has a history of bad behavior. What does that do for a student who repeatedly misbehaves?” she said of the punishment for the code of conduct violation. “It does nothing, because guess what? He came back to school the next day and took a picture of a child with his pants down in the locker room and posted it on Snapchat.”
Mackie’s story received gasps from those in attendance Monday night.
“I got my hands on it, and sent it to the school,” she continued, regarding the photo. “He got three days of out-of-school suspension. But Friday night, that boy was at the football field having a grand old time. What did he learn? Nothing.”
Mackie alleged the principal told her she was bound by the code of conduct when handing out the punishment. The mother said when she spoke to former Superintendent Michael Radday about the initial incident involving her child, his alleged response was, “It wasn’t that bad.”
“The superintendent of this school district told me, ‘It wasn’t that bad.’ I’m telling you, it was that bad,” Mackie said.
The parent, then, referenced one particular event, in 2012, where Thomas Sheppard, a former middle school gym teacher, secretly filmed female students as they were changing their clothes in the girls locker room. Sheppard eventually pleaded guilty to all charges filed against him. She also brought up another incident, last fall, when several football players were purportedly involved in the beating of an Eastport-South Manor student after a game. She claims, though the district did not respond to the claims, due to its privacy policy, that of the five students reportedly involved in the incident, two were suspended and three, whom she claims are white, were back on the field the next day. Mackie alleged the students were allowed back due to a pending investigation, but said in a much more recent incident involving a Black student, he was supposedly suspended for 20 days for shooting a paintball gun out of and off school property, though he has yet to be adjudicated.
“What is that teaching these kids? Why does that instance differ from what happened in the fall with the football team, where they went to another school and inflicted severe bodily harm on another student?” Mackie asked. “The kids getting picked on are made to feel unsafe and the aggressors are made to feel like they’re empowered. Kids are afraid to speak up. They’re afraid to speak up because of retaliation.”
“I’m not telling you guys this for you to feel pity for me or my family, but I want to bring light to the fact that there’s a clear division between what’s written in your code of conduct and what’s being enforced and what rules people are cherry-picking,” Mackie said. “You don’t get clean slates in real life every time you commit a crime, and students should be told when they begin their journey in this district — at least, at the high school level, because you are preparing them for life — that when you do something wrong you have to be held accountable. We also need to teach them if you see something, say something.”
Mackie was referring to the district’s alleged “no touch” policy and the “clean slate” students are given prior to each semester.
“There is no official ‘no touch’ policy,” Probst said. “However, the district does have a zero-tolerance policy on physical violence.”
The policy is something 50-year Westhampton Beach resident, parent and coach Stephen Arrasate takes issue with.
He said his biracial son was recently involved in an incident inside the boys locker room, which he said is the result of another incident two weeks ago when his son asked an alleged aggressor — whom he said skipped class and entered the lunch room — to leave another student he was provoking alone.
“I saw full video,” Arrasate said. “My kid stood there with his arms dead at his side while this kid ran at him two or three times and slammed his shoulder into my kid and into the locker, then the kid took a swing at my kid, and my kid bent over and kind of brushed him by, and the kid fell over the bench in the locker room and that was the end of it. My son even offered to help him up.”
“My kid got five days of out-of-school suspension,” the father continued. “My kid was defending himself, didn’t want to fight, didn’t raise a hand and was still told he couldn’t come to school. Kids have to be able to defend themselves.”
He claims the district notified him of what he also referred to as its “no touch” policy, which is not detailed in its code of conduct, where any child who engages in a physical altercation or “fight-like” activity is subject to particular punishments.
The disciplinary code does state that a first violation for that type of incident leads to a referral to peer mediation and one-to-five days of out-of-school suspension; a second offense, three-to-five days; and out-of-school suspension and recommendation for a superintendent’s hearing on the third.
“A child is expected to sit there and take a beating until a staff member steps in,” Arrasate said, “because if another student steps in, they get suspended.”
The father said his child, whom he claims has never even had a phone call home prior to this year, was reprimanded three times since January, for answering a teacher’s cell phone and then allegedly hanging up on the caller and for writing on another student’s sweatshirt. He said his son was suspended three days for the first instance and five days for the second.
The father also said his son has been bullied, saying he’s called “white-washed” due to the color of his skin, and also alleges the district did not consider his son’s developmental disabilities prior to punishments being enforced. The child’s mother, Kaitlin, said her son has attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity.
“He has ADHD, which means he’s impulsive,” she said.
“The code of conduct also says the district will safeguard a student’s New York State and civil rights,” the father said. “Under Article 35 of New York State penal law, you have the right to defend yourself. Apparently, you’re not allowed to do that in Westhampton Beach.”
One community member stated that he hopes that the board, “after hearing everything you just heard,” considers baseball coach and local firefighter Dan Pulick’s request — at the start of a public comment session — that his assistant coach position be paid, citing the need for supervision, “a no-brainer.”
Arrasate, piggybacking off Mackie’s claim of bias when doling out disciplinary actions, said he knows of at least two incidents where Black and white students who both admit to wrongdoing were given different punishments. He alleges, in one case, a Black student received five days of suspension and was banned from athletics for 45 days, while the white student, who was initially given five days, had his reduced to in-school suspension, and was back on field the next day.
Mary Alyce Rogers, a parent of two biracial students who is also a community social worker, was brought to tears, as were others, during the Monday night meeting. Rogers, who has previously addressed the board on similar issues, said that if she knew then what she does now, she would have never raised her children in Westhampton Beach.
“I will have to live with, for the rest of my life, the fact that I harmed my children by raising them in this district,” she said. “I feel like I’ve been out here in the wind by myself for years, being bullied by this board, being spoken about, being disrespected and not heard. I did everything the proper way, and nothing. I’m grateful to these parents. It is so disturbing to hear these stories, but sadly, not surprising, at all.”
Rogers also provided recommendations to the board. The first, being for meetings to be live-streamed, and public comments to be accepted virtually. The room erupted with applause twice, during and after her statement.
“This will provide much-needed transparency, public access and participation,” she said, “as well as addressing the issue of meeting minutes not actually and accurately detailing what was discussed at the meetings.”
Mackie alleges numerous people will be throwing their hats into the ring for future board of education seats because, she claims, many parents are unhappy with the current state of and the direction the district is moving in.
“Sit here and say to yourselves, ‘How are we going to make this better? How are we going to make this district fair, equal, a little less biased? How do we make every student that comes through that door — if not 99 percent of them — feel safe here, and get a free, quality public education?” Mackie said. “Because what’s being provided to them right now is not.”
Rogers, calling for change, said her heart breaks for any student allegedly being treated differently by “these adults who are supposed to support and nurture their inner brilliance,” she said. “The harm that does to these kids cannot be undone.”
“Our children and community deserve better than board members who bully, harass, gaslight, pout, sigh heavily and mutter ‘Jesus Christ’ under their breath when parents bring these serious issues or questions to the board,” Rogers said. “You have been unable to provide leadership that supports the mission of the Westhampton Beach School District, which states as follows: The mission of the Westhampton Beach School District, in partnership with parents and the greater community, is to prepare students to be informed, caring and productive members of our ever-changing global society. We’re not doing it. We’re doing injustice to all of our kids, and you are the board that’s responsible for that.”
