Washoe County School District’s Superintendent, Board members, and Reno High School Principal taught a master class last week. The topic: “How NOT to Handle Two High-Profile, Negative Events in One Week.”
The First Incident – May 20
It occurred before 7 a.m. and involved a strange man sitting in his car in the Reno High School parking lot. He had a car full of lethal and illegal weapons, both guns and knives, within arm’s reach.
Students and staff members were already on campus and more were arriving. The situation should have been declared an immediate Code Red but WCSD essentially did nothing … that is, they called the School Police.
Neither WCSD’s Superintendent nor the Board made ANY public comment about this first event.
• The Reno Principal sent a 2-sentence message to Reno parents, that combined misleading statements with outright lies, not even mentioning that guns were involved.
Local media lightly covered the details of this potentially lethal incident.
The Nevada Globe, to their credit, published a detailed and highly critical op/ed exposing WCSD’s downplaying of this serious incident, and misleading the public.
https://thenevadaglobe.com/articles/opinion-washoe-county-school-district-has-lost-control/
The Second Incident – May 22
It occurred late at night 2 days later. A group of Reno HS students broke into the school building and committed some typical school vandalism. It was “typical”, that is, for school districts like WCSD that are run by morally bankrupt leaders who have no control over their students.
The vandals broke some interior windows, spray-painted a few walls and floors, and damaged some electronic equipment and displays. The graffiti included one small swastika someone carved into the grass (labeled as “anti-semitic” hate), and one racial slur graffiti in the hallway. There was no report of any vandals being injured.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K26rZtlDMhw
Reno HS’s principal, WCSD’s Superintendent, and several School Board members reacted to this incident in a completely different manner from how they handled the guns incident described above.
WCSD’s administrators and Board members milked the vandalism incident to an absurd extent. They tried to out-do each other with over-hyped virtue signaling. Administrators’ comments attempted to portray the mindless vandalism of a handful of students as a life-endangering rampage fueled by crazed White racists.
Reno’s principal blew the issue further out of proportion when he said, “Our school was attacked!”; claiming that the graffiti was actually “hate slurs and symbols – acts of harm that carry the weight of history, discrimination, and pain.” ??
He added, “We want our students to feel safe!” (Safe from WHAT? Spray paint?)
The principal also shared that he was bringing in special counselors, for as many days as it took, to counsel students or staff who felt seriously traumatized (?) by this event. Last but not least, the District also set-up Secret Witness hotlines to report the vandals.
The WCSD’s unjustified over-reaction to the vandalism begs the question: How would this school leader and WCSD handle a REAL, potentially-loss-of-life emergency at a school with 1700 kids?
Oops, I forgot. With the first incident last week – the guns-in-the-parking lot situation – the Principal and Superintendent already demonstrated how they would handle a serious incident: They would say nothing at all about the situation and/or lie about it to parents whose kids could have been killed by their indifference.
A point of great concern is that neither the Superintendent, the Principal, nor the School Board have mentioned several odd and hypocritical items that need to be explained to the community.
1) Notwithstanding the administrative tough-talk about how seriously the vandals would be dealt with, the only student punishment reported by WCSD is that the vandals will be suspended for the last few days of school, will not participate in graduation, and possibly have to pay for some of the damage. That’s a real non-punishment when you’ve destroyed thousands of dollars of school property.
Why isn’t WCSD simply going to enforce NRS law?
Vandalism whose damage and cleanup costs exceed $5,000, is a Class E Felony that can result in 10 days in jail, probation, full restitution, and more for those convicted. The Superintendent has made NO mention of enforcing this law.
2) By far, the largest inconsistency that WCSD administrators need to explain is the hypocrisy of their “horrendous racial slurs” reaction towards the vandals.
This labeling must seem extremely puzzling, not only to the students involved, but also to the tens of thousands of other WCSD students at WCSD’s other high schools and middle schools.
Every day, ALL of WCSD’s high school administrators (including Reno’s Principal) do NOTHING when their students use the SAME racial slurs with each other in school – nonstop – every day – and play their music which uses these same “terrible racial slurs” that the vandals are being punished for.
Even more ironic is the fact that it’s a certainty that every single one of WCSD’s Senior Proms – including Reno’s – will feature LOTS of music that is drenched in these same racial slurs and vulgarity. Not one administrator will complain. Not one student will be punished.
3) An explanation is also needed for the WCSD administration’s harsh condemning of vandal graffiti that was allegedly anti-semitic. The implication was that WCSD doesn’t allow those beliefs to be promoted in their schools.
No?
Don’t doubt for a moment that Reno HS – like all WCSD high schools, has abundant classrooms where extremely harsh, anti-Israel/Jew-hating Palestinian philosophies are taught and advocated. No one ever gets punished for that.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg regarding what’s truly going on every day in WCSD’s schools.
THAT’S why the School Board and the Superintendent refuse to allow unscheduled visits to school campuses and classrooms.
THAT’S why the School Board has TWO different policies that threaten school employees – and even visitors who speak publicly about ANYTHING wrong they observe on school campuses.
This situation will continue – and worsen – until YOU speak up.
” We must always take sides.
Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.
Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”.
(Elie Wiesel)
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