Following a heated public meeting Tuesday, Hollister School
Board members revealed an investigation of allegations of abuse by
a yard duty and racism at Gabilan Hills Elementary School has been
under way for weeks.
Following a heated public meeting Tuesday, Hollister School Board members revealed an investigation of allegations of abuse by a yard duty and racism at Gabilan Hills Elementary School has been under way for weeks.
Parents aired the charges in public for the first time Tuesday and demanded Board members take action. But Board President Dee Brown said the meeting wasn’t the first time parents have spoken up about their concerns.
“They have called numerous board members wanting to get on the agenda and we have explained there’s a process called the uniform complaint procedure to handle situations like this,” she said. “We have even offered to meet with them, but they didn’t want to.”
Gabilan Hills Parent Cecilia Duran said the parents haven’t filed a uniformed complaint yet, but if they have to, that will be their next step.
“We didn’t make a report because we are good people and we didn’t want to do it,” she said. “But if we have to, we will get the parents together, get signatures and report it.”
Brown said the board takes the allegations very seriously and will do what they can to protect the students and the staff involved.
“It’s hard because there is a lot of rumors, a lot of stories and it has gotten to be such a big thing it’s hard to know what really happened anymore,” she said. “I’m a mother and I’ve been a principal, and I know when someone’s child is involved it can be a very emotional thing.”
The abuse charges stem from an incident which took place March 17. Parents said they witnessed the yard duty pick up a young girl and shake her by the arm. The following day, they took their concerns to Principal Diane Campbell and they all sat down and talked for more than five hours. In her notes from the meeting, Campbell said, there was never any mention of physical contact, and the parents were only complaining about the yard duty yelling at the children.
“The young girl was taken to the classroom, her parents were called and the situation was handled. Her parents told me they spoke with her and everything was fine, and there was never any report of physical abuse,” she said. “Since the day I spoke with the parents, I moved the yard duty out of the lunch area and I watch the tables now.”
Duran, who was included in the meeting, said the parents did complain about physical abuse.
“We told her the yard duty was shaking them by the arms,” she said.
Suzie Gallegos said she took her sons out of Gabilan Hills in November because of the same yard duty.
“She was always accusing my kids of doing things and saying they were gang members just because they’re Mexican,” she said. “I didn’t see them hassling the white kids who wear red to school. Moving the yard duty to the yard isn’t changing anything. She is still there.”
Her son, 10-year-old Daniel Gallegos, now attends Sunnyslope School and said the yard duty grabbed him by the arm and put him back on the bench when he complained about having to go to the bathroom. When asked why he didn’t talk to his teacher or the principal about the incident, he said “I didn’t think it was that big of a deal.”
“One of the things we always tell our students here is if they have a problem with the yard duties or they’re not listening to them because they’re helping someone else, they should come straight to their teacher or the principal,” Campbell said.
Up until March 24, parents were allowed on campus during lunch time. Many parents believe the recent ban is because of their presence and complaints about the yard duty, but Campbell said it has to do with an attempted kidnapping that happened one week prior to the yard duty conflict.
“I think there is a lot of miscommunication going on because of the poor timing of the two incidents,” she said. “We had to close campus because we needed to do what was necessary to protect our students, not because of the parents,” she said.
In early March, kindergarten classes were dismissed at 11:25 a.m. and a strange woman came to the bus turnaround at the back of the school and attempted to abduct a young girl, according to Campbell. That same day, Campbell sent home a notice to parents in Spanish and English explaining the circumstances, and two weeks later on March 24, a newsletter went home explaining the new campus security measures.
“Everything we send home here is written in English and Spanish,” she said. “Everything.”
Duran isn’t convinced security is the reason parents are being kept off campus.
“They tell us it’s about security and the kidnapping and la la la, but it’s really about the parents.”
The school board will continue its investigation, and Brown said it’s too early to determine what the outcome of the investigation will be or the effect it will have on the yard duty’s job.
“If anything has happened where a child has been hurt, the situation will be handled,” she said. “But we have to look at all the facts before we make any conclusions as to what’s happening there. Any parent who thinks their child is being shaken should report it to Child Protective Services and it’ll conduct its own investigation.
