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By PAMELA GOULD
As a retired Marine major, Donald Holmes understands the need for discipline and high standards. But he also believes in giving people a fair hearing and not punishing the innocent.
That's why Holmes, a member of the Spotsylvania County School Board, spent the past three months pressing for a sports participation policy that addresses those issues.
Monday night, he was the lone board member to vote against the policy brought forth by the school administration.
"It's a cookie-cutter approach, and I think there's going to be victims," Holmes said in an interview this week.
The Spotsylvania School Board began crafting a policy outlining eligibility for sports participation this spring in response to a beating incident involving nine teens, two of whom were on Courtland High School's track and field team.
The situation came to light in February after the two athletes helped Courtland win the Battlefield District track and field title.
The athletes were allowed to compete after they and the other seven teens were charged with malicious wounding by mob as a result of a Jan. 11 attack that left two other teens hospitalized.
The attack, which was videotaped on a cell phone, occurred on a weekend off school grounds.
Malicious wounding by mob is a class 3 felony, punishable by up to 20 years in prison and a $100,000 fine.
Eight of the teens either already have pleaded guilty or are expected to plead to the lesser charge of unlawful wounding as part of an agreement with prosecutors.
The ninth teen has asked for a full trial.
NO RIGHT TO BE HEARD
From the start, Holmes has urged his colleagues not to rush to judgment as a result of one incident.
In fact, the board delayed its originally scheduled vote--to the chagrin of board member Ray Lora--to do further research and make revisions from the first proposal school staff provided.
Holmes pressed for the policy to be expanded to apply to all students in any extracurricular activity, not just sports.
He succeeded. That suggestion was incorporated into the policy that received preliminary approval at Monday night's board meeting.
Holmes opposed the initial wording that denied school administrators any say in decisions about how to handle students who get into trouble.
His voice was heard there too. A revision to the Student Code of Conduct that received unanimous approval in a preliminary vote Monday calls for creation of a committee to review incidents in which students are accused of violent crimes.
That committee would include two central office administrators and one administrator from the student's school, providing the input Holmes thought was essential in treating students individually.
Bringing a principal or his designee into the conversation provides some information on the student's behalf but doesn't go far enough, Holmes said.
Students still have no opportunity to explain their actions or even proclaim their innocence as administrators discuss their educational futures.
That opportunity would arise only if a student appealed the committee's decision.
If a student is charged with a violent or drug-related crime--the state has a list of crimes that require police notification to superintendents--he or she is automatically banned from extracurricular activities under the new policy.
That applies to charges stemming from any incident, even those off campus and unrelated to school. Previously, the code of conduct dealt only with school-related incidents.
The committee established under the code of conduct deals solely with where to continue a student's education: in the regular classroom, at the alternative education center, or through an online program off school property.
That is because safety of other students and staff is critical to the school setting, Superintendent Jerry Hill said.
Had those changes been in place in the 2008-2009 school year, Hill said, the Courtland students charged in the beating wouldn't have participated in the district meet because they probably wouldn't have been attending their school.
"Very likely, we would have placed those kids someplace else, but they certainly would have been taken out of sports," he said.
INDEFINITE SUSPENSION
Under the new policy outlining eligibility for extracurricular activities, students would be barred from participation as soon as the school division learned from law enforcement of their charges or arrests.
That suspension from activities would continue until the charges were resolved in court.
Holmes objected to an indefinite suspension after learning from school safety coordinator Brett Schlegel that 40 percent of juveniles charged during the past school year weren't convicted of any crime.
"I'm not willing to ignore those numbers," said Holmes, who works as an analyst.
He suggested an alternative to his board colleagues before Monday night's meeting but got no support.
He recommended banning a student from participation for 30 calendar days after the charge. During that time, the school principal would investigate the circumstances and then decide whether to reinstate the student on the condition of good behavior, or deem him or her ineligible to participate until the charge was resolved.
Holmes made a motion to amend the proposed activities policy with that wording Monday night, but it died for the lack of a second.
The board then gave the activities policy preliminary approval in a 6-1 vote. A final vote is expected at the board's next meeting, July 20.
Hill said the new policy and code of conduct changes achieve two things.
They increase safety in the schools and serve notice to students that participation in sports and other activities is a privilege and that the school division demands a "higher standard" of behavior for those representing it.
Hill offered to provide quarterly reports to the board to keep them abreast of how the policy is working as it gets implemented in the coming school year.
"Anything as new as this is deserves a careful look as we move through it," Hill said.
Given the high percentage of students found not guilty over the past school year, Holmes expects that the board will get complaints and will need to revisit the policy.
"There's at least a 40 percent chance we will," he said.
Pamela Gould: 540/735-1972
Email: pgould@freelancestar.com
