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The U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights (OCR) has launched an investigation into numerous complaints against Henrico County Public Schools, specifically addressing alleged civil rights violations committed by the administrators of John Rolfe Middle School.

Fred Morton, Superintendent; Marilyn Royal, Director of Middle Schools; Philip Jepson, Director of Human Resources; Andy Armstrong, Principal of Rolfe; John Rokenbrod, Assistant Principal; and Courtney Ellis, Department Chair for special education were all named in the complaints.

Investigators and attorneys from OCR are scheduled to arrive in Henrico County, Virginia in early April in order to conduct extensive interviews with school officials regarding the civil rights violations that are being alleged by parents, present employees, and a former employee.

The civil rights violations to be investigated range from failure of the school's central office officials to investigate a threat made against an employee that exposed illegal activity within John Rolfe Middle School to violation of the civil rights of an African-American male student with disabilities.

For the past six months, an increasing number of parents, educators, and community leaders have taken to speaking out at monthly school board meetings when they have found that attempting to resolve their concerns regarding safety, quality of education, and discipline of students was unproductive at the building and central office levels.

Within the last four months, parents have repeatedly voiced their frustrations regarding Rolfe's newly appointed, first time principal, Andy Armstrong's, refusal to return their telephone calls regarding concerns.In addition, it was also stated that when the issues were escalated to the district's central office, Ms. Marilyn Royal, Henrico's Director of Middle Schools, failed to return calls to parents as well.

As recently as last Thursday evening, Henrico County Public School officials deny that any real problem exists at John Rolfe Middle School, and dismisses the concerns of student stampedes, failing to discipline verbally and physically aggressive students, and incompetent school leaders as the complaints of a minority group.

Fred Morton. Henrico's superintendent, states that his staff conducted a survey with John Rolfe's staff in January 2008, where it was determined that 70% of the staff "feel safe" within the school. Morton also went on to say that "improvements" are being made at Rolfe, and for the most part, the staff is happy. He reiterated this percentage during last week's school board meeting following a plea by an educator for the board to intervene at Rolfe due to the crisis state that exist.

A grandmother of a student also shared an incident in which her student was choked by a male student, and that nothing effective was taken to prevent it from happening again by school administrators.She stated that the incident was not even documented properly.

Parents responded to Morton's comments of "all is well" at Rolfe by asking why his staff had failed to survey parents and students about their perspectives of the school.They also pointed out that he was focusing on what had been done over two months ago with Rolfe's staff, while completely side skirting the violence and safety issues that have escalated in the past four weeks at the school.

Within the past month, parents, educators, and administrators have reported increased instances of disruption, disrespect, and defiance by students.One parent became extremely upset when she arrived to school one morning, and there were five Henrico County Police cars parked in the front of the school.She later found out that a habitual offender, that the administration refuses to deal with properly, had incited a physical confrontation as the students were leaving the bus to enter the school.

A veteran educator of John Rolfe Middle School shared that during the past month, the educator had written more disciplinary referrals than had been written during their entire career with Henrico County Public Schools.It was also stated that since students have realized that cameras have been installed throughout the school, the inappropriate hallway behaviors have increased as students "perform" for the cameras knowing that a majority of the administrators will take no disciplinary action against them.

There were other reports of a female educator and administrator having to restrain an out of control male student as other male educators stood by and watched.The male educators did not assist until they were asked to.

Students fighting in the bathrooms, being bullied without intervention by administrators, violation of special education laws, as well as, district, state, and federal laws is also common among Rolfe administrators and central office personnel.

Dr. Patrick Kinlaw, Henrico's Assistant Superintendent, and Mychael Dickerson, the district's spokesperson, have repeatedly stated that claims by concerned parents and educators are "exaggerated" and "common in a typical middle school."They also reiterated that it is just a small group of complainers that are making these comments.

One educator shared that others are fearful of speaking out about what is really going on at Rolfe for fear of retaliation by Rolfe's administrators and central office staff, as was the case with Ms. Lucas, a special educator that spoke out and documented the pattern of violations, mistreatment, and noncompliance.Administrators fabricated reprimands against her over a four month period, illegally recommended her for nonrenewal, then forcefully reassigned her to another school in an effort to silence her as a whistleblower.Many have confirmed that Mr. Armstrong and Mr. Morton took these illegal actions in order to prevent other educators from coming forward.

The Virginia Department of Education (VADOE) has documented significant increases in safety violations within John Rolfe Middle School over the past eighteen months.It was reported that as of December 2007, the number of discipline violations had reached the level that had been attained at the end of the previous school year, supporting the claims of parents and educators that the conditions are becoming worse.

The VADOE reported that:

1) Discipline offenses committed against staff members have more than tripled since the previous year. (from 8 to 18) 

2) Discipline offenses involving weapons have tripled from the previous year. (from 5 to 15) 

3) Discipline offenses committed against a person have increased nearly 100% since the previous year. (134 to 325) 

4) Discipline offenses related to behavior disruptions throughout the school have increased over 100% since the previous year. (6 to 466) 

5) Discipline offenses involving technology have increased 100% since the previous year. (0 to 14) 

School safety offenses have experienced significant increases in all eight reporting categories, excluding one, that are required by the Safe Schools Informational Resource (SSIR).Based on the on this report, the 2007-2008 school year is the third year in which Rolfe Middle School has had a school improvement plan. The school continues to be accredited with warning.

*Retrieved from: https://p1pe.doe.virginia.gov/reportcard/report.do?division=43&schoolName=1162

In response to school administrator assertions that the incidents that are going on at Rolfe are "typical for a middle school", parents, educators, and community leaders have disagreed. When asked what is the typical behavior and conditions that they would expect at John Rolfe Middle School, the response were as follows:

As one parent stated, '"typical" is what I would expect to happen at my child's middle school on a regular basis.It is typical for my student to learn reading, math, english, and science.It is typical for my student to eat lunch in the cafeteria and socialize with friends while at school, it is typical for my student's teachers to be able to teach him without any disruptions, it is typical for my student to be able to walk down the halls without being trampled.Those are the typical things that should be going on at Rolfe, but are not.'

Another parent supported her statements and said that "..it is not typical for my child to come home with bruises on her body because she was trampled in the halls while switching classes.It is not typical for children to be afraid to come to school because they are being choked when they go to the bathroom.It is not typical for teachers not to be able to teach because of students disrupting their class by running through the halls and pounding on the classroom doors or yelling profanity at students and teachers while they are in class.It is not typical for students to vandalize teacher's classrooms either."

An educator at Rolfe also stated that,"it is not typical for administrators to refuse to discipline aggressive students.It is not typical for an assistant principal to force teachers to allow violent and abusive students into their classrooms with innocent students.It is not typical for principals to make false statements to parents and educators. It is not typical for thirty percent of a school's staff to feel unsafe within their workplace.It is not typical for a teacher to receive a handwritten threat in their mailbox within a school envelope, and human resources refuse to investigate it. It is not typical for gang members to photograph themselves making their gang signs within a classroom, then print the pictures out on the printers in the school's library printers so that they can distribute them throughout the school as a means of recruiting and intimidating other students."

A case manager and first year special educator at Rolfe stated "it is not typical for an administrator to tell a parent to finish a conference quickly so that they can take care of their personal business.It is not typical for an administrator to take over a month to complete a discipline referral that should have been completed within forty-eight hours.It is not typical for a technology teacher to spend their contract time completing a college internship instead of carrying out the duties for which the county is paying her."

Other comments included that "it is not typical for a principal to make a recommendation to nonrenew an educator's contract when he has never entered the educator's classroom and the educator has never received a negative evaluation or classroom observation.It is not typical for administrators to help a student break the district's trespassing law for suspended students by ignoring it when a suspended student comes to school instead of staying home.It is not typical for students with special needs to be out of compliance with the federal guidelines.It is not typical for school staff to consistently violate a dress code by wearing revealing clothes and flip flops to school when students cannot, especially when they are department heads and educators that work with students with special needs. That creates a safety issue, but nothing is done by Mr. Armstrong because these are white teachers breaking the rules."

Another educator shared that, "it is not typical for an educator to advise a student to blatantly disobey the directions of another educator, admit that he was unprofessional in doing it, and be permitted to remain on staff with no consequence.It is not typical for students to roam the halls instead of going to class.It is not typical for students to assault teachers.It is not typical for an assistant principal to help students cheat on a test. It is not typical for instructional aides to falsify passes and assist students in skipping classes that they do not want to attend. Nor is it typical for Mr. Armstrong, Mr. Jordan, Mr. Rokenbrod, Mr. Morton, and Dr. Jepson to treat African-American parents, educators, and students differently than their white counterparts.Or is it typical in Henrico County Public Schools to have a double standard based on race, location, and economic status?They have a lot of work to do to make things equal between the West End and East End schools, and the first thing that they need to do is stop taking money from our schools and giving it to the richer white, upper class schools.We are the ones with no heat, hot water, broken bathrooms, outdated schools, and few books.Perhaps if our school board representative's child went to Rolfe instead of another school, he would take more drastic actions and not consider these conditions "typical" because they would impact his child.These things are not typical, and if these officials think that they are, perhaps they should find another job that does not allow them to destroy the lives of our children like they presently are."

Sources state that it is this type of reckless disregard, gross negligence, and depraved indifference against students, families, and educators that has resulted in the filing of multiple OCR complaints within the past four months.It is clear that additional complaints are to follow in the event that Henrico County Public School's board does not take drastic and immediate action to rectify the conditions at Rolfe, and stop the civil rights violations that are initiated by the district's leaders against parents, students, and educators.

Published March 17, 2008

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