Posted on 04/12/2016 3:23:21 PM PDT by Lorianne
MAGNOLIA - Pick your child up from school and you could be charged with trespassing. That's the threat against parents at Bear Branch Elementary School in Magnolia ISD. This is the school's tactic to keep parents who live close to the school from walking on school grounds.
Bear Branch is losing students over this pick up policy, that's been in place since the beginning of this school year. The principal has decided that no matter how close the student lives to the school, the student must either take the bus, or the parent must wait in a long car pickup line. Try to walk your student off the campus and you could face criminal charges.
"She's threatening to arrest people," says Wendy Jarman about principal, Holly Ray. Jarman pulled her children out of the school Monday and placed them in private school. She lives in the neighborhood behind the school. Her kids were walkers, and she escorted them, but they can't do that anymore.
Ray won't allow it. Ray has gotten Montgomery County Constables to be her enforcers.
"This has happened to many parents," Jarman says. "They have been cited. They have been threatened, if they step one foot on school property, they will be arrested and charged with who knows what."
Frank Young has one of those warnings. He also lives close to the school and he also pulled his children out of it. Young says no effort to negotiate a better policy or even hundreds of signatures on a petition got the district to change the policy or bully tactics.
"Mrs. Ray's policy is implying that a parent doesn't have the ability or capabiity to decide what is safest for her children and that the school district does," Young says. "I disagree."
The school district responded to our request for comment with a statement fully supporting Principal Ray, saying the goal is a safe dismissal process.
But parents who have been coming to the school for years say there was nothing unsafe about the old pickup and drop off procedures. They say this is simply a principal overstepping her boundaries.
Young says some parents are just going along with the principal to keep peace, but he says not speaking up allows a poisonous environment to fester.
"The most toxic thing we can do for our kids is not fight for truth and justice," Young says.
Fox26 knows of 2 other parents who were just threatened with arrest. They are not ready to speak about it publicly yet. But other parents told us the principal's "my way or else" tactics go deeper than the dismissal process. Parents say not only are students leaving because of it, but teachers and staff are leaving the school, too.
And if the child is caught walking without an adult the parents will be arrested and charged with neglect. If you woke up this morning you broke some law.
No one is allowed to see past the gates of the concentration camp.
Why anyone would put their children in one of these reeducation camps is beyond me.
Madness personified. It could only have originated in a faculty lounge.
The policy is stupid, ridiculous, and punitive towards kids who happen to live within walking distance of the school.
I think they just don’t want parents to maybe see something the school is trying to keep from them.
What if the parents walk the kids to the outside door of the school, but never actually set foot on school grounds.
The school has no authority on public streets.
A note was just sent home in my school district regarding the elementary. Ridiculous.
Superintendent:
Todd Stephens tstephens@magnoliaisd.org
Amazing that FOX would write the article without fact checking it.
Amazing people take a story at face value without fact checking ...
“The policy is stupid, ridiculous, and punitive towards kids who happen to live within walking distance of the school. I think they just don’t want parents to maybe see something the school is trying to keep from them.”
I think it is stupid and ridiculous for someone to comment without knowing the facts.
FACT: Parents ARE allowed to walk-off their kids.
The only issue with the no trespassing is against a parent that came onto the campus and made personal threats against the staff.
I think they need to take a look at this school to see if they have a pedophile running it. the only reason you would keep parents away is if you were trying to hide something.
I have no children myself but if I did I would never allow them to go to a school that does not want surprise visits by parents. the hall mark of an abuser is trying to control everything that is going on. The only reason for a blanket policy like this is to hide and obfuscate what ever is happening on campus.
Gvot trolls are really becoming unbearable. Tells you everything wrong with government schools today.
If you love your kids do not sntrust them to these govt hacks for one second. Many teachers care about their kids but they do not go against the school administrtors who make and enforce these idiot policies.
Get out of the govt zero-think, zero-tolerance, zero common sense schools.
You’re amazing!
And the constables think they’re God. I can’t stand them.
The solution is to run for the school board and take it over. Then fire her ass.
In the mean time, go picket in front of her house. Stay on the public street and don’t break the law. And make sure everything is video taped.
“You’re amazing!”
Thank you.
It’s amazing that you thought that was a compliment.
“The solution is to run for the school board and take it over. Then fire her ass.”
Perhaps you should consider her innocent until proven guilty and try the facts instead of lynching her without a trial ...
Then who are the parents who have been threatened? Are you related to the principal?
“It’s amazing that you thought that was a compliment.”
LOL! You are not a mind reader. Quit the act.
I think you are on to something. There is something terribly wrong with this person. There is nothing worse than a power hungry public school tyrant . . .er I mean administrator. I’d have my child out of that school in a NY minute.
High time that parents took back their schools. Parents are the bosses. Parents are the tax payers. Parents need to start showing up at the board meetings and remind the members they rule only because parents allow them to. Parents vote on board members and can just as easily vote them out. Nothing stopping those upset parents to run for school board and fire the principal and the superintendent who is backing this out of control Nazi principal.
Unless you’re a registered sex offender, what law is there that prevents the public from walking across public property? None that I know of. Time to also vote out whomever hired the police chief and/or force him out of office.
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