Prairie Grove Superintendent, Middle School Principal Step Down

FILE PHOTO
Pete Joenks has been named interim superintendent for Prairie Grove School District.
FILE PHOTO Pete Joenks has been named interim superintendent for Prairie Grove School District.

PRAIRIE GROVE -- About 15 parents and students stood on the sidewalk across from Prairie Grove Middle School early Monday morning holding signs to demonstrate their support for teachers after the showing of an active shooter video that upset many in the community.

In the wake of the video shown to middle school teachers last week, two school administrators, Reba Holmes, superintendent of schools, and Shayne Taylor, middle school principal, have taken leaves of absence effectively immediately.

The training video depicted actual photos of Prairie Grove Middle School teachers or their children who were killed in a future school shooting.

Prairie Grove School Board held a special meeting Dec. 2 and went into executive session to discuss leave requests from Holmes and Taylor.

The board came back into public session and approved three separate motions without any discussion, according to board President William Dick.

The board voted to allow Holmes to take a leave of absence with pay from accrued personal vacation and sick days until her retirement on June 30, 2023.

The board then voted to allow Taylor to take a leave of absence until June 30, 2023, with pay from accrued personal vacation and sick time.

Dick said Holmes and Taylor will not receive any of their salary during the leave of absence.

The third motion approved, Dick said, was to name Assistant Superintendent Pete Joenks as interim superintendent, effective immediately. Joenks has been with Prairie Grove schools since July 2018. He previously was principal at Springdale High School.

Many teachers and parents attended the special board meeting voicing concerns and anger about the video shown to teachers during their professional development time on Nov. 30.

Dick said the board in its special meeting was not acting on the video. The board was only considering personnel matters. He said he received the leave requests from Holmes and Taylor on Friday morning, Dec. 2.

Holmes on Saturday declined to comment about the situation. She provided an email sent out to all staff Friday announcing her leave of absence and retirement. She said she was thankful for being a part of the school district for the past 30 years.

Taylor could not be reached for comment.

Dick on Saturday (Dec. 3) said he had received "tons" of emails from teachers and others upset about the video.

Middle school teacher Aubrey Crain explained what happened at the teachers' collaborative learning time that afternoon in her email to the school board.

She said Taylor informed teachers their last activity would be "gripping" and that all buildings in the district were showing similar videos.

She said the video played somber music and was more of a memorial. The scenario in the video was that on "Dec. 14, 2022, a gunman entered Prairie Grove Middle School. 28 people were injured. 36 lost their lives. Among the fatalities..."

Then without warning, Crain said, the video went into slides of pictures of faculty members' children and their names faded on and off the screen.

The pictures were taken from personal Facebook accounts without permission or a warning, Crain said.

"The manner this was delivered was disgusting. I left the meeting shaking and nauseous. Teachers screamed and sobbed."

Crain said an email from Holmes the next day apologized to those parents whose children's pictures were used "in an unannounced manner" and that the video was shown to get everyone's attention.

Crain took issue with Holmes' apology.

"This implies that she is essentially only apologizing for not giving more of a 'heads-up' about the video. This is not apologizing for creating and subjecting us to the video," Crain said.

Holmes knew the video "would shockingly overwhelm her faculty. She knew it would hurt us, and she chose to do it anyway," Crain said.

She also said, "How dare she insinuate that the teachers do not take the possibility of a school shooting seriously. She works behind the safety of the central administration office while every one of her teachers would be willing to sacrifice their lives for their students every single day. We do not have the luxury of not taking it seriously."

Another middle school teacher, Ralanda Mongold, last week said the photos of her two children were in the video.

"By the time I saw my children's photos, I was walking out," Mongold said.

She said she yelled during the meeting as she was leaving the room and others followed her. She didn't know what happened after she left.

"I've never felt anything like that," Mongold said. "It felt real...I cried all the way home."

Mongold, like Crain, recognized Dec. 14 as the date of the tragic Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012 in which 20 school children and six teachers were murdered.

Mongold said she told her husband about the video that night and then they talked to their children about it. She and her children did not go to school the next day because of the trauma she was still feeling from the video.

"They did not ask for our permission to get pictures for this video. I never would have thought in a million years that my administrators would do something so sickening," she said.

Taylor also sent out an apology in an email to his staff the next day. In this email, Taylor said the teachers' anger, frustration and disgust were justified and the video was in poor taste.

"We regret not taking a firmer stance against the video leading up to today, and we promise to advocate for you more deeply in the future," Taylor wrote. He did not elaborate on any details that led to the reason for showing the video.

Middle school teachers received an email sent out Dec. 1 from Luke Humphreys, assistant principal. Humphreys said the school counselor would be available and the school would have an all-staff meeting on the situation at the proper time. He ensured teachers the school would take "action steps to make this situation right."

Kim Weaver was one of the parents standing out Monday morning with a sign in support of the teachers.

"I can't imagine having my kids' pictures shown and them being dead," Weaver said. "I feel for all the teachers here and we're all here to support them and back them up. We have wonderful, wonderful teachers."

Weaver said she has years of childhood education experience with preschool age children and using a video that would hurt people is not the way to train or teach.

"It was just a bad decision by all involved," Weaver said.

Weaver said she believes many people will sign up to speak about the video at the board's next regular meeting, which is scheduled for 6:30 p.m., Dec. 20 in the administration building.

In addition, Weaver said she does not plan to send her children to school on Dec. 14, (the date from the video), not because of fear for her children but more to make a stand against the video.

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  photo  Taylor
 
 
  photo  LYNN KUTTER ENTERPRISE-LEADER Kim Weaver of Prairie Grove displays one of the signs used Monday morning to show support to Prairie Grove Middle School teachers. About 15 parents and students stood on the sidewalk with the signs as teachers came to school.