SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, Feb. 24, 2017 (Gephardt Daily) — The State Charter School Board has scheduled a meeting Saturday for “discussion and possible action under UCA 53A-1a-510 as may relate to Franklin Discovery Academy,” a new charter school that recently has been the subject of several disturbing allegations.
The school, in Vineyard, Utah County, opened this past August after receiving its charter for the 2016-2017 school year.
The Daily Herald reported that the state board held an emergency session on Thursday in which a recording of that session indicated that the board had “significant concerns about student safety, including hearing that a parent educator was having ‘an inappropriate relationship and declaring his interest for a fifth-grader’ and was still employed. In another instance, the state board discussed that a third-grade student was left in an unattended classroom with five boys that wouldn’t let the student leave until the student was molested.”
The parent educator who was said to be inappropriately interested in a fifth-grader was fired, reportedly nine days after the school administration learned of the allegations. The director of the school subsequently resigned when it became known that nine days passed before the employee was let go.
According to the Daily Herald, Jennifer Price, chair of the school’s board of directors, said the molestation happened outside of the school, and she couldn’t discuss what disciplinary action had been taken without first consulting a lawyer.
Utah County Sheriff’s Sgt. Spencer Cannon told Gephardt Daily that his department has been aware of the investigation by the state board of education, but he said no criminal allegations have been brought to the sheriff’s office. Cannon said he doesn’t know how or when the state board was made aware of the allegations.
The state board met again Friday evening to discuss and possibly take action regarding the school, but because the meeting had not been announced 24 hours in advance, the board could not legally act on the issue.
A notice of the rescheduled meeting, at 7 p.m. Saturday in the Utah State Board of Education Offices Board Room, 250 E. 500 South, in Salt Lake City, was sent out Friday evening.
When Jennifer Price said that the incident happened outside of school grounds and she would have to consult a lawyer, she was referring to the incident with the 3rd grader allegedly molested by other students. The alleged incident was wildly exaggerated. It seems that what actually happened is that two boys were chasing a girl outside the school and grabbed at her shirt. While this should not have happened, it is very far from what was reported to have happened. I’m concerned about how these accusations have become so wildly exaggerated.
Sensationalist journalism at its best.