Parents of ESE Students Allege Neglect, Abuse and Failure To Communicate

Remarks Met By Silence From Board Members and Superintendent

Holly Bishop and Shannon Hube spoke out at the Clay County School Board meeting in March 2024.

“Most people spend more time and energy going around problems than in trying to solve them.” —Henry Ford

Two parents of exceptional-ed students recently accused officials at Clay County schools of pretending problems don’t exist instead of trying to solve them. They pleaded for help.

Shannon Hube and Holly Bishop both have children in Exceptional Student Education programs in county schools. These programs, often referred to by their initials “ESE.” provide support for students whose needs are different than most. Hube and Bishop outline allegations of neglect and abuse their children faced recently at the schools they attend.

The first parent to speak, Shannon Hube, is the parent of several children in Clay County schools and a teacher. She spoke about how she was forced to hire an outside advocate to review her children’s Individualized Education Plans (IEPs). The advocate discovered that one of her children had not been given proper reading instruction and was grade levels behind in reading. Hube said the advocate helped her use the school district’s data to force the district to provide proper reading instruction for her son.

Hube also talked about injuries her children suffered at school. In one incident, her son broke his arm at school. The school nurse dismissed the injury as there was “no broken skin” and “nothing to clean.” The child was sent away with an ice pack.

In another incident, her child fell on the playground and injured their head, in response to which the school put a band-aid on his knee. Later, it was discovered the child had an injury on his back and was vomiting. Hube said the injury was from a three-foot fall that left her son with a concussion. She said she wants more open and honest communication from the school and the district.

Holly Bishop spoke after Hube. Bishop has two children who are ESE students in Clay County schools. She described her oldest daughter’s experience as "mediocre” and her younger son’s experience as far worse. She considers moving her family to Clay County a mistake.

Bishop’s son, Beckett, was allegedly verbally accosted by a staff member at his school, Lake Asbury Elementary. Bishop only learned about the incident when a parent who witnessed the event reached out a month later. The parent contacted Bishop when she realized the school had not contacted her about the incident. The school administrators only investigated the incident after Bishop contacted them. They advised Bishop that the surveillance camera footage of the incident had been overwritten, and they could not find anyone who witnessed the event.

Bishop went on to say that she worked with Beckett’s ESE teacher for a month to craft his IEP, only to have the teacher remove him from the classroom eight days later. The teacher removed Beckett via Florida statute 1003.32, which enables teachers to remove students from their classrooms for being “disobedient, violent, abusive, uncontrollable, or disruptive.”

According to Bishop, no written reason was given for the removal, and she was advised that information could only be delivered verbally because written information would require a public records request. In addition, the ESE staff at the school were not allowed to speak to the students' parents and referred them to the teachers. However, according to Bishop, the teachers communicated via daily reports outlining Beckett’s behavior in the classroom without further discussion.

Bishop concluded by urging the school board to ensure ESE students are considered just as important as the rest of the students.

Bishop followed up with this statement to Clay News & Views:

I was born and raised in Clay. When my husband left the military we knew we wanted to come HOME. My education in Clay was amazing. We uprooted our entire family to come back here in hopes of better for our son with Down Syndrome.

It has been a huge mistake. I spoke at the school board meeting on 3/7 to share a small glimpse of the poor leadership, lack of support, and zero accountability that we have witnessed at our children’s school.

So much time and energy is spent arguing book policies and political agendas that the blinders are on for the host of other issues in our schools. Nothing about Clay County is “A” rated from where I sit. Especially for our ESE students and their teachers and support staff.

Currently we have 26 open jobs for ESE related roles and they will likely go unfilled. Many of them are behavior-support related roles.

The rate of diagnostic testing and growth of the ESE student population is a crisis and trending upward every year.

Prioritizing proper support for these students, appropriate placement options, and services that best fit their needs is critical. But we can only do that if we have the staffing and those staff members have the best training and support to be fully equipped to effectively teach these students. Otherwise, our ESE staff retention will keep dropping and there won’t be anyone left for our kids!

This is a leadership issue. Not a teacher or student issue.”

Hube and Bishop’s comments were met with applause from the audience and silence from the school board and superintendent, continuing a policy of not responding to people who speak at board meetings. (As former board member Carol Studdard once said, “A school board meeting is no place to question the school board.”)

Clay News & Views will be standing by to see whether anything comes of this.