The Sheridan School District met in its regularly scheduled board meeting Monday, June 9 at 7 p.m.
On May 19 Glenn Strong Sr., community activist and grandfather of Sheridan students, led a petition for a special called meeting concerning vapes on campus. During the special called meeting an open discussion revealed that Superintendent Chad Pitts had only gathered statistical numbers reflecting nicotine-based vapes. (Watch the May 19 meeting here.)
A slide show revealed that during the 2021-22 school year 115 students were involved in vaping incidents with a first-offense reprimand of three days of in-school suspension.
In the 2022-23 school year 123 students were involved in an incident concerning a vape with a reprimand of 10 days of out of school suspension.
During the 2023-24 school year the numbers declined to 73 incidents resulting in out-of-school suspension. In this year's school year 2024-25, the numbers dropped to 51 incidents with a clear change in school discipline from 10 days out-of-school suspension to five days in-school suspension with a required support system.
Parents at the May 19th meeting requested that Pitts produce the number of vaping incidents that had occurred containing controlled substances such as THC. Pitts was unable to produce those numbers during the special called meeting.
School Board President Jeff Lisenbey, who is also president of the Arkansas School Board Association, told parents that the numbers for drug-related incidents would be placed on the June 9 regular school board agenda. Lisenbey also said the topic would be open for discussion.
During the June 9 meeting Pitts provided the data concerning 35 incidents of drugs found on campus for 2021-22; 22 incidents for the 2022-23; 32 incidents for 2023-24 and 33 for the 2024-25 school year. The discipline for these offenses was 10 days out of school suspension and a recommendation of expulsion unless a student entered the school's Second Chance program.
During the back and forth exchange between the board and Strong, concerns were raised about some students not feeling comfortable using the bathroom because of vaping and drugs being used in them.
School board member Wade Crosswhite, who represents Zone 3, told the community members:
"From my perspective we have got a huge huge problem and its called homeschool and its way bigger than this and you look at this, uh, we are having kids go homeschool as our community is growing, the district is shrinking I don't know if everyone realizes that and it's a financial impact the these kids are losing out on education. Our school just increased from a 2.0 to 3.0 we got great teachers we got a great program and these kids are not going to college they are not going to trade schools and it's life impacting and [inaudible] that's a big big big problem. This i,s you know, we've got multiple bathrooms these kids can go to other bathrooms the numbers are getting better going from 145 in 2021/22 to 62 is a huge improvement I think that's a great job and I think we've got bigger things to stress about I think we can put in some bathroom monitors but we don't have a horrible problem here."
Strong responded, "You don't think the bathrooms are an issue"
Crosswhite responded, "I don't think it's a horrible problem."
The conversation continued between board members and patrons.
Another noteworthy comment was made by Sheridan parent Chad Smith who told the board: "I can tell you why the reason that we are having an uprise in homeschooling is because of all the trash over the last four years that has been brought into these school districts the absolute trash policies that has been brought in and it's not just here its everywhere, it's happening all over the country and people are tired of their kids being taught trash and crap morals. There's no other way to put it these leftist's morals are not the way real parents want their children raised that's just the bottom line and that's why real good parents are taking their kids out of actually decent schools because of these trash policies that's just the bottom line and its sad."
Watch the video here:
Since homeschool students became an issue during this public meeting we reached back into our archives. Real reporter stuff, folks. We maintain pertinent information across a wide area of Arkansas concerning school boards and city councils – the information other news outlets tend to overlook. We went back to March 2024 when homeschool was a topic during a Sheridan School Board work session.
On March 11, 2024, board members discussed the declining number of students. During the work session Lisenbey seems to give a directive to the administration to inquire if the vape policy is contributing to the number of students leaving the district for homeschool.
In the aftermath of Monday's board meeting the Reckoning's live-stream video of the meeting on Facebook has exploded. Hundreds of parents are rallying around the district's homeschool families with concerns of the negative comments made about their families and homeschool students during the board meeting.
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