Mrs. Lucas was “summoned” to Henrico’s Central Office on Friday by Mr. Morton, Henrico’s Superintendent, in order to be presented with the “evidence” that Mr. Morton, Ms. Royal, Mr. Armstrong, Mr. Rokenbrod, and Ms. Ellis had “collected” within the past five months, out of Ms. Lucas’ nearly two year tenure at Henrico County, regarding the alleged pattern of “unprofessionalism” that Ms. Lucas demonstrated toward them.
It should be noted that all of the “documentation” was collected by said individuals under the horrific leadership of one principal, Ms. Dalton, that Mr. Morton forcefully reassigned in October 2007, due to mounting complaints by parents and educators regarding her poor leadership and refusal to address the safety, discipline, incompetency, and allegations of preferential treatment among the staff at John Rolfe Middle School.
The allegations by those that participated in the principal selection and interview process, indicating that Ms. Dalton’s application portfolio was presented to the committee illegally by Dr. Jepson in order to provide her with an unfair advantage in obtaining the role, has yet to be investigated by Henrico’s School Board. Chances are it will never be investigated as integrity and honoring legal processes and procedures does not seem to be a priority in Henrico.
It should also be noted that there have been numerous verified parental and educator complaints documenting that Ms. Royal, Mr. Armstrong, Mr. Rokenbrod, and Ms. Ellis have not only violated district, state, and federal guidelines repeatedly, but that they have also falsified information to parents and educators. Many of these concerns have been vocalized by parents and administrators during school board meetings for the past six months, but no actions have been taken by the school board regarding these issues.
So it stands to reason, are these the most credible individuals in the county? If these individuals with such enormous integrity, competency, and credibility issues are the best that Henrico’s got to speak against Ms. Lucas, Henrico is in serious trouble when this matter goes to court!
Will a court believe Mr. Armstrong and Mr. Rokenbrod regarding Ms. Lucas’ “unprofessionalism” when they have blatantly lied to Rolfe’s parents and educators repeatedly regarding matters of great importance, violated district, state, and federal guidelines, failed to return calls and emails to parents and educators, suspended students without providing written documentation as to why, and upheld others that do the same?
An even more disturbing question is why Henrico County Central Office deems the actions of these administrators “professional”, what the devil??!!!
Will a court consider Ms. Ellis a credible source when it is documented that she requested that another employee “have her back” and cover up for her regarding her skipping work when she was to be at school when a school-sponsored conference ended a day early? Ms. Ellis made this request of a follow Henrico County School employee during the conference, in front of representatives from other Virginia school districts and a conference facilitator from the Virginia Department of Education.
Her actions were reported to Henrico County administration. There are also issues regarding Ms. Ellis’ integrity and professionalism based on her inappropriate dress in revealing excessive cleavage, arriving to work tardy repeatedly, failing to report for duties, illegally having her instructional aide consistently teach the TWO classes she has (as opposed to the four classes that everyone else has) daily, applying make-up during parent meetings addressing the disability needs of students, assisting students in missing and skipping classes that they do not want to attend, permitting students to braid her hair in class, permitting student to take pictures of her with their cell phones, illegally having her instructional aide manage the middle school cheer leading team, while she managed the high school team and was paid for both, and permitting unauthorized individual, a male friend, into the school building.
Now, they say that Ms. Lucas is unprofessional, but then again, Ms. Lucas is a black woman and Ms. Ellis is a white woman, so the standard is clearly different for disciplinary and non-renewal of contract purposes in Henrico. One would have thought that Ms. Ellis would have been gone by now, but once again, in Henrico, “WHITE IS ALWAYS RIGHT AND BLACK IS ALWAYS IN THE BACK.”
The bottom line is that Henrico County Public Schools would be hard pressed to win a case proving that Stevie Wonder is blind with these types of witnesses with such enormous credibility, ethical, and character issues! Once again, we will ask, is this the best that Henrico has against Ms. Lucas? What the devil??!!!
Of course, Henrico’s central office deems them to be credible in spite of all of this because they are white leaders making accusations against an black educator and demanding that she and others violate district, state, and federal laws along with them, and when we refuse, we are labeled as “insubordinate” and “unprofessional.”
The question is whether the school board will uphold this obvious atrocity or will they send a message to these leaders that their actions are not welcome in Henrico? This has yet to be determined by the board during a vote on April 10, 2008.
The remaining “documentation” was collected under the leadership of Mr. Armstrong, another “appointed” first year administrator by Mr. Morton, who was said to have been rejected by another area middle school as principal, despite repeatedly efforts by Ms. Royal to convince the group to accept him. He was supposedly appointed to John Rolfe Middle School less than a week after being rejected by that team. The parents, educators, and community of John Rolfe Middle School had no say in his “appointment”, nor was the principalship advertised or reopened in order to select a candidate based on the selection and interview process that is common practice in Henrico.
Due to the extremely poor outcomes that have taken place as a result of the last two appointments by Mr. Morton, a full investigation request regarding the county’s selection and hiring process at John Rolfe Middle School within the past eighteen months has been submitted to county, state, and federal authorities. We, taxpayers and parents expect that Mr. Morton, central office staff, and the school board would act in the highest level of integrity and honor when handling such grave decisions as that of selecting the instructional leaders that are responsible for managing the educational experiences of our children that impact them and our communities for the rest of their lives.
Unfortunately, Mr. Morton, Central office, and the school board seem to hold this responsibility with less reverence than we do, and as a result, have no problem completely disregarding the district, state, and federal procedures that were established to ensure that the best candidate is selected for our children that promote their safety, success, and guarantee their education in an atmosphere of excellence.
We have to also question Dr. Jepson and Mr. Morton’s professional judgement and commitment to our children’s welfare and educator’s well-being in “appointing” two first-time principals that have left John Rolfe’s children, families, and educators in such a state of chaos, confusion, and danger.
Children obviously do not come first. Educators clearly are not the priority. Politics, power, and position are.
Now, back to Mrs. Lucas’ enlightening conversation with Dr. Jepson, in which he shared the instances of “unprofessionalism” that she is accused of. They are as follows:
1) In April of 2007, Ms. Royal documented that Ms. Lucas was demonstrating “unprofessional” behavior when she refused to admit a habitually verbally and physically aggressive student to her classroom after finding out the Dr. Bartolf, the former assistant principal that “resigned” due to complaints regarding her refusal to discipline students, refused to discipline this student after the student had stolen a push pin from Ms. Lucas’ bulletin board, placed it in his ear as an earring, then removed it to stab several students. When Ms. Royal demanded that Ms. Lucas permit the student to enter the classroom, Ms. Lucas advised her that she would not compromise the safety of the other students within her classroom by allowing the student into the class. Ms. Royal also indicated that there were guests in the school building and that the student needed to be in the classroom and out of the hall. It is unclear as to why Ms. Royal was more interested in clearing the halls for guests as opposed to protecting the students within the school. However, in this case, Ms. Lucas’ actions in taking the necessary actions to protect the students in her classroom were deemed “unprofessional” by Ms. Royal. Why Ms. Royal’s actions were considered appropriate by this county in demanding that this dangerous student be permitted in the class is unclear to the parents of the students within Ms. Lucas’ classroom as well as Ms. Lucas.
2) In November of 2007, less than thirty days after being “appointed” as a first time principal, Mr. Armstrong demanded that Ms. Lucas follow the directive of Mr. John Rockenbrod, Rolfe’s eighth grade principal that, at that time, had disciplinary referrals that were several months old. Mr. Rockenbrod and Mr. Armstrong demanded that Ms. Lucas permit three habitually verbally and physically male students back into her classroom after they had not only disrupted the classroom by rapping, getting out of the seats, throwing things, and bullying other students within the class, but had refused to follow any directions given to them by Ms. Lucas. She completed a disciplinary referral on the three students, however, due to Mr. Rockenbrod being months behind in referrals, the students were still permitted to roam the schools, harassing both, students and educators alike, without consequence. Ms. Lucas forwarded several emails requesting meetings with Mr. Armstrong, Mr. Rockenbrod, and Ms. Ellis regarding plans on dealing with the inappropriate behaviors of the three students, as did other educators that were subject to the dangers presented by these students, but the emails went unopened, unacknowledged, and unreturned. When Ms. Lucas refused to admit the students into her classroom, once again, in an effort to protect the educational opportunities and welfare of other students that the administration refused to protect, Mr. Rockenbrod walked to her room and yelled at her in front of the students, demanding that she let them in even though he had failed to address the referrals that were months and weeks old regarding these and other students. Ms. Lucas continued to refuse the directive that clearly endangered the welfare of her students and others, which legally and ethically, she was justified in doing, but was deemed “unprofessional” for doing so. When Ms. Lucas confronted Mr. Rockenbrod about yelling at her in front of her students, he stated that he was used to everyone just “doing what he told them to do”.
The last time I checked, John Rolfe was a middle school, not a plantation! As a result, Mr. Armstrong deemed Ms. Lucas’ actions in protecting her students from further disruption and bullying to be “insubordinate” and “unprofessional”.
When Ms. Lucas inquired as to why Mr. Rockenbrod was not being held accountable for failing to complete disciplinary referrals in a timely manner, she was advised that this was none of her concern and that she was just of follow the directives given to her by Mr. Armstrong and Mr. Rockenbrod. Ms. Lucas, as did all of the other eighth grade teachers, receive nearly all of the referrals that Mr. Rokenbrod had failed to complete since the beginning of the school year the next day in her mailbox.
Hmmmmmmm…..I wonder what prompted that!?
Could it have been Ms. Lucas’ comments to Mr. Armstrong and Dr. Jepson indicating that she would take the matter involving Mr. Rokenbrod’s refusal to discipline students to the public that prompted the completion of months worth of referrals in less than twenty-four hours? Hmmmm….. We could go on with the other fabricated reprimands submitted by Mr. Rokenbrod and Mr. Armstrong, but what is the point when their credibility is clearly non existent.
We will share that Dr. Jepson refused to include Ms. Lucas’ documentation and witness statements indicating that the reprimands were false. Hmmmmm…. I wonder why he would not present the emails, statements from parents and educators, and other data that directly contradicted the false statements to the school board? The reason is simple, because then the school board may have the truth as opposed to the partial truth, which is a lie.
It should be noted that Dr. Jepson became extremely upset when Ms. Lucas advising that he was lying by not presenting the entire truth of the matter regarding the reprimands presented against her. In fact, he instructed his assistant, Ms. Patrice Pruden, who also attended the meeting with Ms. Lucas, to “write down” that Ms. Lucas stated that he was lying. Well, the truth is the truth, and the truth is the best defense in any case as I was once advised by Senator McEachin.
I am curious as to why Dr. Jepson did not make sure that Ms. Pruden wrote down the fact that Ms. Lucas acted in the best interest of her students to protect them from administrators that not only failed to have their bests interests at heart, but also repeatedly violated district, state, and federal laws. I guess that Dr. Jepson did not want that noted because he, himself, is under investigation by the Office of Civil Rights for violating district, state, and county policies, as are Mr. Armstrong, Ms. Royal, Mr. Morton. Mr. Rokenbrod, and Ms. Ellis.
To date, there are over a dozen complaints that have been filed by parents and educators since November 2007, against these individuals and more are being filed on a regular basis as more and more people find that they were not the only ones mistreated by Henrico’s Central Office staff. Will Henrico County Public School’s Central Office staff and school administrators ever truly understand the concept of unprofessionalism is unclear to me. Will they stop confusing it with cronyism is even more unclear.
It is clear that the fact that they do not understand it or promote it has had horrifically negative impacts on the safety and quality of education for the children, families, and educators at John Rolfe Middle School. The fact that the individuals perpetuating these atrocities are white leaders and the victims of their actions are mostly black children, families, and educators is even more of a disgrace for this county in the year 2008. Once again, the ball is in Henrico County Public School’s new board member’s hands.
Will this board take the necessary actions to restore integrity, honor, competency, and ethics back into our school leadership and central office staff, or will they continue to condone it by taking no action and supporting the actions of these leaders to the detriment of our county’s children, parents, educators, and our community at large?
This past Thursday, our parents and educators spoke out for nearly an hour about the extremely poor quality of leadership at Rolfe and the nature of their unethical behaviors, but Mr. Morton and Dr. Jepson dismissed their real life experiences regarding this impact that John Rolfe’s leaders are having on their children and families. Dr. Jepson even dismissed the fact that Ms. Lucas received an impeccable performance evaluation on February 15, 2008 (which positively addressed the specific areas outline in Mr. Armstrong’s non-renewal letter), then received a letter, seven days later that contradicted the recommendation of a retired Instructional Coach that was hired by central office.
Will the board do the same? We will find out on April 10, 2008.
We would like to thank all of the many of parents, educators, community leaders, media representatives, and others that continue to spread the word regarding UGOTNERVE, and support us in our efforts to expose the extreme injustice that exists in Henrico County regarding our underserved populations at the hands of those whose responsibility it is to build our children and communities up, NOT tear them down.
We are proud of all of the parents and educators that spoke out Thursday. You have taken the torch, are spreading the word, and have promised to come back every month with even more of us until Rolfe is safe, just like us! KEEP UP THE NERVE!
