In May a local activist and grandparent asked for a special-called meeting about vapes, especially those containing THC, in the Sheridan School District.
At the school board's regular June meeting, school board member Wade Crosswhite said a bigger problem than vapes was homeschooled students.
Crosswhite's remarks ignited homeschool parents. They commented on social media, gathered signatures for a special meeting and sent emails to the school about Crosswhite's remarks.
Under the Freedom of Information Act, the Reckoning obtained the emails.
A parent wrote to the school in a June 11, 2025, email: "The comment Mr Crosswhite made about Homeschool Children was dead wrong and uncalled for! I have 2 grandchildren who are home schooled, & I assure you they are not the problem! I am expecting an apology from Mr. Crosswhite for the comments made & would like to see made publicly!"
Crosswhite was forwarded the email from the school to his school board email address and his work email address at RoofConnect where he is president.
His reply that came from his work address? "Not going to happen!!"
Many parents who now homeschool once had their children enrolled in the district. They opted to homeschool because of several district-wide issues including drugs, bullying and inappropriate books in the library.
A clash between those parents and Crosswhite exploded Monday night at the monthly board meeting.
Watch the video here of that part of the meeting here. (Warning: Explicit sexual language)
Chris and Brit Connelly homeschool their two daughters. They removed them from the Sheridan School District last year. After Crosswhite's June comments, they gathered signatures for a special meeting to address the board about homeschool.
Superintendent Chad Pitts met with Chris Connelly. They agreed to address the issue in the regular school board rather than dedicate a special-called meeting to the issue.
School Board President Jeff Lisenbey, who is also the president of the Arkansas School Board Association, stated that each speaker would get approximately three minutes each to voice their concerns.
Before the parents spoke, Pitts showed slides with homeschool data.
According to his research, 329 students opted for home schooling during the 2024-25 school year.
Pitts stated that the primary funding source per student was $7,618 and indicated that although not an exact number, parents could multiply those numbers to get an idea of the loss of funding to the district. Those numbers tell a story, approximately $2.5 million dollars in lost funding.
Chris Connelly then addressed issues of bullying and drugs from a police reports generated from a Freedom of Information request. He also read parts of a police report from the school about a video going around the school showing beastiality.
He also referenced extreme violence on campus.
Crosswhite accused Connelly of causing division and told him he could leave the meeting.
Brit Connelly also addressed the school board after husband spoke.
She said that the couple took their daughters out of the district for several reasons.
"I have no problem with the Sheridan School District," Brit Connelly said. "It's just not for my family."
She said that her 10-year-old got a book from the school with two boys kissing without her consent. That was final straw for the Connellys' homeschool decision after a series of incidents had already occurred including a boy putting his hand on her daughter’s thigh, another boy telling her daughter he was going to kiss her on the playground, and students giving her other daughter a sucker that had been in the trash and kids laughing at her when she ate it.
"What kind of education is that?" she asked Crosswhite.
Both Connellys were interrupted numerous times by Crosswhite.
Crosswhite stood by his June remarks but said, "Homeschool kids can be successful. They can go to college. I'm telling you, I see, I have teachers tell me. We hire kids and on average, the kids I see it's not working for."
Crosswhite also questioned why the Connellys would watch a school board meeting.
At the end of the exchange he told Brit Connelly, "Thank you for scolding me."
She said, "I appreciate your lack of maturity and I am done."
Two other mothers who homeschool also spoke at the meeting addressing similar concerns about Crosswhite's attitude toward homeschooling.
According to school board minutes, Crosswhite's first school board meeting as a member was June 2021.
The 2020 census indicated that the Sheridan School District had reached a 10% minority population in the district triggering a restructuring of school board positions.
Before the census, all board members were elected at-large.
During the 2022 May election Crosswhite was elected to the Zone 3 position of the school board.
During the meeting Crosswhite also spoke about special-called meetings.
He said, "When people do this, when people call these meetings, when you call a meeting like this it should be because you cannot get in touch with the school board or the superintendent. That is not the case with us, all of these people will answer the phone. When you do this you deter teachers from coming to our district, you deter students from transferring in, you are sure to deter people from running for the school board, these guys are doing this for free and they are having to get called for extra meetings."
As Crosswhite continued he directed his comments to other members of the Sheridan community.
"It's the 50 or 60 people who sign the documents that's really disappointing," Crosswhie said. "It's showing me that you don't support, what it does is it hurts the education system. It makes it harder. We can't get good school board members. We are going to start getting bad school board members. We are going to lose Mr Pitts. We are going to lose all these people. We've got a really great thing here ya'll and we've got to protect it."
Glenn Strong Sr., a grandparent of students who attend school in the district and asked for May's meeting about vapes, addressed Crosswhite's complaints concerning special-called meetings.
Strong told Crosswhite: "It's our right to have meetings. It's our right to call meetings. It's our right to vote. It's our right to do everything in America."
The police reports
After the meeting, the Reckoning asked Chris Connelly to see the police reports he referenced to the board.
The Reckoning opted not to publish the one about the beastiality video because of its sexual explicitness.
The report about violence was submitted by School Resource Officer Saundra McKool and states:
On 10/16/2024 Mrs. Wilson reported to me that there was a student kicked humerous times in his legs and then in his testicles. Mrs. Wilson sent me the camera footage of the incident and it showed S1 kick V1 6 times in his legs and then kick him in his testicles. In the video you see V1 drop to the floor holding his testicles with both hands. V1 stays
on the floor for a few minutes then when he gets up, he walks off to talk to another group of kids. A little while later V1 comes back up to the group where S1 is standing. S1 begins to kick at him. Then S1 punches V1 in his testicles, V-1
again goes to the floor. I issued S1 a citation for Harassment for her behavior towards V1.
