NEWARK – A March incident at Snow Hill High School remains a source of concern among community members nearly two months later.
A letter calling for the removal of three top school system officials and a closed session meeting this week are both tied to the school system’s response after students reported a racially charged social media post at Snow Hill High School.
“Anytime something like this arises, our board takes these incidents seriously,” said Todd Ferrante, president of the Worcester County Board of Education.
In early April, Superintendent Lou Taylor, Chief Safety and Operating Officer for Grades 9-12 Annette Wallace and Snow Hill High School Principal Kim Purvis joined a representative of the Tri-County Mediation Center at a church in Snow Hill for a discussion regarding a social media post made in March by members of the high school’s baseball team. Purvis suspended three players — the one who created the post and the two who shared it — for a game. When Taylor became aware of the incident, however, he recommended the use of restorative circles, a technique that involves individuals talking openly and honestly together, and instructed Dwayne Abt, chief operations and human resources officer, to visit the school.
Purvis said that after Abt’s visit she felt she had to use restorative circles rather than suspension.
Just keep slapping their wrist, and let the prison system sort them out.
Restorative circles? What kind of crap is that? I would have flat out booted the kids off the team and told Abt to go jump in a lake.
Lou Taylor had a long history at SDHS of letting athletes off the hook whenever they broke the rules or even broke the law.
When I attended SDHS, a group of students drove around Ocean Pines shooting out windows of houses with BB guns, but got off without any punishment because they were on the lacrosse team and in contention for the playoffs. Punishing them would have meant missing games so they got off scott free.