Incident classification and policy violations

An Echo investigation found Park’s administration may have miscatergorized an alleged incident of religious harassment or violence in violation of policies found in the student handbook and Section 400 of School Board policies.

Assistant principal Kari Schwietering said the incident and investigation occurred according to policy.

“From a school standpoint, we certainly follow through in the ways that we would anytime there’s an incident in our school,” Schwietering said. “So we pulled in students, we had multiple conversations. We pulled in staff and talked with staff. We looked to video and investigated the situation.”

Thompson said administrators classified the hijab incident as an “incident at the high school,” instead of a human rights violation. According to Section/File 413 such a violation would include religious, racial or sexual harassment or violence.

“It was investigated, as you know, but it wasn’t determined to have racial, religious motivated action,” Thompson said.

Section/File 413 describes religious violence as “a physical act of aggression or assault upon another group of individuals because of, or in a manner reasonably related to, religion.”

The freshman involved in the incident said she felt the incident was reasonably related to religion.

Hooper said incidences involving hijabs are religiously based.

“Generally (any altercation) that involves a headscarf or references to terrorists or things like that, I mean it’s pretty clear what the source of bias is. If those elements go into it, then of course (it’s religious),” Hooper said.

However, Thompson said the school did not categorize the incident before investigation.

Thompson later said the incident’s classification should occur before a formal investigation into any altercation.

“I believe (a classification of the incident) should have happened immediately at the start,” Thompson said. “It’s not a secondary investigation or a second step, in my understanding.”

Thompson said a human rights officer was excluded from the investigation after it was determined not to be a human rights violation.

“I don’t believe (the human rights officer was involved) because I believe that the investigation deemed that this wasn’t a human rights violation,” Thompson said.

Thompson, in a Dec. 2 interview, acknowledged the high school failed to adhere to this component of Section/File 413 “Harassment and Violence.”

“My understanding is that the name (of the human rights officer) is not posted as of right now, and so we need to do that,” Thompson said.

Thompson named district director of human resources Richard Kreyer as the human rights officer.

Echo will continue to investigate the recent incidents at Park, both alleged and confirmed, and will continue to follow events as more information becomes available.

All information reflected in this article was confirmed as of Dec. 7.