Ballard High's Wynkoop Out/Lincoln Students March Out

Two stories of interest.

There is an updated notice at the SPS website about who will be principal at Ballard High School and it appears that Kevin Wynkoop is out.

We are beginning the process of identifying the next principal for Ballard High School.

The other story is about Lincoln High School students walking out in support of victims of sexual assault at their school. Story from The Stranger:

On Friday afternoon, hundreds of students gathered at Wallingford Playfield to support victims of sexual violence and call on the Seattle Public Schools (SPS) District to take action to do the same.

During the sixth class period, a handful of student speakers, one after another, came up to a small podium surrounded by Lincoln High School (LHS) students to accuse SPS of “hand-waving,” “gaslighting,” and overall “failing” survivors of sexual assault.

This because:

A group of high school students known as Lincoln Against Sexual Assault organized the rally in response to what they describe as a long history of SPS ignoring victims, but a recent incident was the straw that broke the camel’s back. 

Earlier this month, a LHS student took to social media to accuse another student, who holds a student leadership position, of sexual assault. Student organizers said four other students levied accusations against the same student.

According to an email from Principal Ruth Medsker to the LHS community, the administrative team handed the reported information to the district’s Title IX Office, as is the district’s policy. Since the alleged assault happened off-campus, SPS cannot investigate and the case is in the Seattle Police Department’s hands.
But some students want to see action from the school itself. On April 7, LHS students sent the administration an email that included a petition of over 200 sophomores’ signatures, collected in just one day, demanding that the district’s Title IX coordinator oversee the student’s investigation. They also requested that the Class of 2024 Council move to administer a “vote of no confidence” to boot the accused out of office without interference from the administration.

The students said they didn’t want to debate the accused student's guilt and made it clear to signatories that SPD was still investigating. Still, the students wrote in the email that the petition demonstrates that “the Class of 2024 does not want someone accused of a crime–regardless of their guilt–to be the face of our class.”

The district fired back:

She (Title IX coordinator, Natasha Walicki) continued with a common move by school administrations – pointing out that the students’ efforts to stand in solidarity with an alleged victim violates the district’s Harassment, Intimidation, and Bullying (HIB) policy. Since the district has an “obligation to both alleged victims and alleged aggressors in ensuring we respond appropriately to concern,” Walicki told the students to stop the petition and said that in her other role as the District’s HIB Compliance Officer, she would be working with LHS for any “necessary next steps.” 

 

Students' demands:

During Friday’s rally, students presented four clear demands: consent training twice in high school, clearly outlined punishment for sexual assault, a designated person students can report sexual assault to, and a more positive environment for victims.

Of course a fraught and difficult situation but 1) the district needs to educate parents and students about what they can legally do. They CANNOT legally kick an accused student out (perhaps if they were arrested and were in jail) and they CANNOT allow students to create an unsafe environment for an accused.

This is a good time to explain to students the U.S. legal system because this statement cannot stand:

“the Class of 2024 does not want someone accused of a crime–regardless of their guilt–to be the face of our class.”

Being accused of a crime happens - unfairly to a lot of people especially Black and brown people. Do these students blame anyone who gets arrested for a crime?

However, I would say that the student council should be able to take whatever action they want to except that which would endanger a student. Saying that a situation is such that a student in leadership makes it difficult to act as a group so that the group needs to take that student out of leadership should be up to the student council. But they should NOT say why because again, being accused of a crime does not make someone guilty.

I do want to point out that in both the Ballard High principal story and the Lincoln High student uprising against sexual assault that it leads me to ask - where is the Board in all this?

The district's update on Ballard High does not include students on the hiring committee. When I was on the hiring committee for Roosevelt, there were at least two students. Are there to be NO students on the Ballard hiring committee?

As far as Lincoln, this is what? the third high school student body to rise up against how the district handles sexual assault issues. Where is the Board's leadership on this issue?

Oh that's right, they only have time to be creating some student "board members" and maybe after that gets settled, the Board will listen.

All this blah, blah, blah about student voices and yet here's evidence the district and the Board both don't seem to be listening to students.