School board discusses bullying policy at length

At the February Hot Springs County School District Board of Trustees meeting, trustee Joe Martinez was unable to attend the meeting due to an emergency. Additionally, Superintendent Dustin Hunt held a moment of silence in honor and respect on the passing of former Board Trustee, Thomas Sullivan, Jr., who passed away in January.  

Monthly celebrations included recognizing Zane Stam. His accomplishments were featured in a front page article in the February 8 edition of the Independent Record. The student trustee report included things already reported on by this paper.

High school Vocational Agriculture teacher Britton Van Heule gave a presentation about his career over the years and the impact of the ag program and FFA on students.

After reading the board’s public comment policy, Chairman Skelton opened the meeting to public comments.

Concerned citizen Bob Aguiar then came forward to speak. He presented a book and handouts to each board member present.

Aguair stated, “For the record, for those who don’t know me my name is Bob Aguiar. And yes, I am the chairman of Moms for Liberty in Hot Springs County, but I am not here tonight representing Moms for Liberty. I’m here on my own accord.”

After stating the reason he was addressing the board was on the topic of school bulling, he then began explaining the handouts. “The handouts I gave you, I took this from your Hot Springs County website. Everything that you see on there came from the website with the exception of the last page. I highlighted a few items on there, defining bullying. The teachers, the students in this town are fantastic, I have no complaints on teachers, no complaints on students, they are great kids. But there’s a black cloud hanging over Hot Springs County right now, and part of it is bullying. Bullying has been around for a very long time, it’s nothing new. How we deal with it is sometimes a little bit different.”

Aguiar went on to explain how he does not think bullying is being dealt with properly. He brought up examples and mentioned what he considered a “privileged group, what I call the 80 percenters,” he said

He added, “We take 20% of our kids and we push them into homeschool school because they don’t fit in. That’s bullying on a lot of them. Some of them will not fit in no matter what. You talk to the parents like I have, and the kid was harassed by not just students, but by admins to get out.”

At this point the timer went off and Chairman Skelton thanked Aguiar for his comments and told him his time was up.

Aguiar questioned, “That was 3 minutes?” Skelton replied, “Yes, 3 minutes.”

Vice-Chair Nichole Weyer then said, “Thank you, Bob.”

Aguiar continued, “Last page, by the way, is going on the record. It is bullying by Mr. Clay VanAntwerp.”

Skelton again stated, “Thank you for your time, Mr. Aguiar.” Aguiar again continued, “I’m requesting your resignation from the board. [Referring to Trustee Clay VanAntwerp] 

Skelton and Weyer again said “Thank you,” with Skelton adding “We appreciate your time.” 

At this point, Trustee Clay VanAntwerp began speaking in response to Aguiar’s statements. He read from the last page of the handout which included communication between Aguiar and VanAntwerp. In a lengthy discussion, VanAntwerp read from the handout and explained his stance on that discussion. He said he had tried to call Aguiar, left him messages and ultimately had sent him text messages.

One of the messages read from Van Antwerp to Aguiar was ‘You say you have identified a problem with our data and then refuse to share your research. This makes me think you are not very confident with your research. You claim to be concerned about the crossing guard situation, but have you volunteered to stand to watch? I’m starting to lose faith in you, Bob. I thought you wanted to make things better, but instead you want to be a hypocrite. Accusing me of not talking to community members and then not answering your phone. What a way to be a man, Bob.’

VanAntwerp then stated to the board, “And as we all know, you can go back into the record and see how many times we’ve been basically accused of not talking to community members from that podium right there, me specifically, and I’m just stating for the record, again, that has never happened.”

For several minutes VanAntwerp spoke, with Aguiar occasionally commenting from the audience.

“I answer my phone religiously and if you have one name, give it to me. Jean stood right there and said she would give me the list. And to this day I do not have that list and I don’t have one example. And if somebody has an example come forward,” stated VanAntwerp.

Aguiar commented, “That’s an example of bullying right there.” 

VanAntwerp responded, “No, it’s not, Bob. I read it word for word… Bob, you’re a hypocrite.”  

For several minutes VanAntwerp recapped his text message exchanges with Aguiar, noting that on the handout Aquiar had left out his side of the messages. VanAntwerp read the entire exchange to the board.

VanAntwerp ended the text exchange information and read is final text to Aguiar. “Not even giving me a chance to speak about it. That’s real great of you, Bob. Call me so we can discuss this. You can record the conversation with another phone. I have done nothing to undermine you, Bob, and I’m not going to do anything to undermine you.” Then he stated “And that is everything that I’ve texted you, Bob. And I’m going to tell you something, Bob.”

“And for the record, then, so if we’re going to go into this as bullying, then what about all the stuff on your post, Bob, about us being evil and diabolical? That’s not bullying, Bob? How are we evil?,” asked VanAntwerp.

Aguiar replied, “I didn’t write it, I just forwarded it.” 

VanAntwerp stated, “You’re responsible for it, Bob. See, that’s what I told you when I talked to you before.  Anything on your page, Bob, you can believe this, I’m holding you directly accountable for it.”

Chairman Skelton spoke up and announced, “We may have another speaker that wants to speak on something.” He recognized concerned citizen Charles Curly who stepped up to the podium to speak.

Curly stated, “I’m a resident of Thermopolis and before this school district. I’m going to take a moment out from what I was going to say and comment on what we just saw. Mr. Chairman, you were quite right to rule Mr. Aguiar out of order. Having done so, it was very inappropriate for Mr. VanAntwerp to reply. It was a waste of the board’s time, the audience’s time, our viewer’s time to listen to this private dispute. The chairman should have ruled Mr. VanAntwerp out of order at least at the three-minute mark. I understand rebuttal, that’s great, but at three minutes, you should have cut it off.”

VanAntwerp stated, “I apologize. I stand corrected.”

Curly thanked VanAntwerp and then went on to state his original reason for addressing the board. “What I came here to ask is some questions that I have on this policy. I understand it is normal policy when someone wishes to comment on the agenda to submit a request in writing in advance.” Chairman Skelton replied that was correct.

Curly then said, “In order to do that, one has to know what’s on the agenda. Is there a process to get a draft agenda in a timely manner so that one can submit? And if so, who do I talk to?”

Board members then explained the process to get on the agenda or pick up an agenda. They said he could find a copy of the agenda up to seven days before a meeting on the school website.  

Additional conversation included Principals Darren Luebbe, Catelyn Deromedi and Nichole Ciz, discussing how they address bullying at the different schools. Superintendent Dustin Hunt also explained his methodology and perspective of bullying and how they handle it in the school district. 

Various board members discussed the matter as well, which included questions about what curriculum the school uses to educate the students on bullying.

Jessica Benefiel gave the bills and financial statement report. The board had no questions following her report and it was approved unanimously.

Chairman Sherman Skelton read a statement at about the one hour and 42-minute mark of the meeting when they were having policy discussion. He stated he would like to discuss the bullying policy for a moment. He thanked his fellow board members and said members of the board had recently been called hateful names by those wanting to push political agendas. He also said there was a group who corresponded about a meeting to discuss ways of pressuring the board to fire Superintendent Dustin Hunt along with High School Principal Catelyn Deromedi. He said he believed there was a calculated agenda against the board. After some discussion, the board then approved policies.

To see the entire 2-hour and 48-minute video of the February school board meeting in its entirety, visit HSCSD#1’s YouTube channel.