An Onalaska High School counselor who took in a homeless student says she was forced to resign effective at the end of the school year over her action. However, she was escorted from campus several months early after being involved in a protest over “suspensions” leveled on the teen.
On Friday, March 30 the students and the counselor parked their cars off campus to protest what they considered the unjust suspension of homeless senior John Wells.
After Wells, now 18, became homeless last September, he began living with former Onalaska High School counselor Cheryl Myers.
“She offered to take me in,” Wells said.
Myers told the high school principal, Dracy McCoy, about the situation the day after Wells first stayed at her home in September, but Myers said in early November the principal asked her to stop providing housing for Wells. Myers refused.
“That night (that Wells became homeless) he had nowhere to go, so I’m like ‘bring him by the house,’” Myers said. “My son was talking to his friend that had gone and picked him up and I was like ‘yeah, he can stay at our house.’ The next morning, literally, I went in and told my principal that he had stayed with me, so she knew right away. I didn’t want it to be a secret or anything. She seemed okay with it, but maybe about a month later is when she called me into her office and basically told me I needed to kick him out.”
McCoy did not respond to request for comment.
Myers emailed a letter of resignation to Superintendent Jeff Davis on March 9, after Davis told her the district was talking to an attorney about their options to terminate her employment. The Board approved her resignation at the end of the 2017–2018 school year at their March 26 meeting.
“I’m literally out of a job because I helped a kid out,” Myers said. “I’m the third counselor in five years that they have gotten rid of. The last three counselors have either been fired or forced to resign.”
Davis would not comment, but wrote in an email to The Chronicle that reads in part, “...due to confidentiality issues, I cannot comment on personnel issues nor can I comment on student discipline issues…”
Wells said he began receiving suspensions in January. He received a 13-day suspension that month — five days for parking in a staff member parking spot, three for an empty bottle of vape juice the principal saw in his car and five days for disrespect.
Davis would not comment on the suspension, but wrote in the same email, “Confidentiality issues won’t allow me to speak about students.”
Wells said part of his suspension was that he was banned from parking on campus. After the suspension was lifted, he said he continued parking off campus for the next two months or so. On March 29, he received another suspension for 10 school days for “Defiance/Failure to comply.”
Wells said his failure to comply was that he parked his car off school grounds. The high school’s student handbook says, “Vehicles must be parked in back of the gym in the designated student parking area. Vehicles are to enter and leave via the south exit. Students abusing their driving privilege, driving or parking in an unsafe or unorthodox manner, may lose the right to drive to school.”
The handbook says the first offense is a warning, the second offense is for the student’s driving privileges to be revoked for five days and the third offense is for driving privileges to be revoked for 10 days. The handbook says nothing about suspensions related to parking.
Although Davis told The Chronicle last week that about five students parked off campus in protest, senior Luke Richardson said it was more like 10 or 11.
“About six people park off campus every single day of the year,” Richardson said. “On Thursday, about third period, probably fourth, John got suspended for 10 days because he parked off campus and the principal didn’t tell anybody what happened. She went to the district office right away after she suspended him and then on Friday we all decided we were going to have a little protest and park our cars off campus. Because it’s off campus — it’s not their business if we park off campus or on campus. So we did and then (the principal) called everybody into the office.”
Myers was escorted off the property on Friday, March 30 after she parked her car off campus with the students.
“Thursday students were very upset, his classmates,” Myers said. “A few of them came in to talk to me because they were upset and they talked about basically how upset they were and they felt like John was being singled out and harassed. Later that afternoon a couple students mentioned to me what they were planning — to park off campus the next morning to support him. So Friday morning I drove to school and I parked off campus and I walked. It’s just right next to the school, basically, and walked right into the parking lot to my office.”
Myers said she expected the district to be upset, but not to be escorted off the premises.
“I thought that they wouldn’t like it and there might be some trouble, but really what am I doing that’s violating my contract?” Myers said. “The students who parked off campus were all called into the principal’s office and got talked to and I went into my office. I really didn’t expect they were going to take it that hard. I had a couple (students) come in after and tell me that she (the principal) had told them that they would be in jeopardy of not graduating, stuff like that, and then I thought ‘that’s kind of harsh.’ A few minutes after that, the superintendent came into my office, told me to hand over my keys. He said ‘don’t collect any personal items, give me your keys. You can grab your coat and I will escort you off the property.’”
The Chronicle spoke to Davis the day of the protest, but he would not comment on if an educator was escorted off school grounds.
McCoy sent a letter to Wells, also on March 30, as official notice of his suspension. The letter stated he was suspended from March 29 until April 18 for “Defiance/Failure to comply.”
Wells said as far as he knows, he will still be able to graduate this year and make up all of his classes. He has already been accepted to Central Washington University.
The district sent a letter dated March 30 to parents about Myers. The letter said Myers “will be working on some assigned projects from her home for the remainder of the school year.”
Myers said she has no knowledge of these projects and no one from the district has contacted her since she was escorted off school grounds. The letter also said Davis and McCoy will assist students with transcript evaluations, letters of recommendation, college applications, scholarship applications and other counseling tasks.
The letter stated, “Most likely, there will be rumors and innuendos about this situation. Like all personnel issues, we are not allowed to comment on the reason for this change. All I can say is that the school district acted in the best interest of the students, the school, and the school district when making this decision.”
