LITTLE ROCK — Friday, Quitman School District superintendent Michael Stacks was disciplined for his role in a bullying and harassment scandal that had taken place at the school.
The Arkansas State Board of Education listened to Stacks’ testimony concerning the issues at the Cleburne County school. Stacks was the high school principal and athletic director at the time of incidents, before becoming superintendent on July 1, that resulted in football coach D.J. Marrs being suspended from teaching for one year.
Allegations of sexual harassment and bullying by older members of the football team against younger members of the team were alleged to have occurred in the locker room.
Marrs received his suspension on June 12 for “being slow to report the incidents.”
The Professional Licensure Standards Board was responsible for recommending the punishment for Stacks. That board had recommended a three month probation which was not followed by the education board.
Jeff Wood, a board member, advocated for a long punishment for Stacks based on the fact that he failed to adequately address the incidents that occurred.
Wood went into graphic detail about actions that were taking place in the Quitman locker room.
“There are almost endless, almost daily descriptions of humping,” Wood said. “We have video of one of the instances of one of the victims being held down and having his mouth held open…”
The description of bullying was also addressed by Wood.
“Kids were shoved in lockers and hit with footballs,” he continued. “They were shot with Orby and/or BB guns. Some claimed that they were whipped with a bullwhip.”
Another issue that the board had with Stacks when he was serving as the athletic director was allowing a student that was on probation to participate in athletics.
Wood sparred with Stacks over the issue.
“I believe you have enforced, as written,” started Wood, “‘any student that is on court-ordered probation will not be allowed to participate in any extracurricular activities.’ It’s black and white. It’s super simple.”
Stacks said that school administration did adequately punish the players involved in the bullying and added that in his view that punishments are “not black and white because they depend on a student’s disabilities, individual education plan and more,” Stacks said. “We have to be able to look at that and take those kind of things into consideration when we are considering discipline for kids,” he stated.
The board finally voted to the two-year suspension with a $250 fine.
Stacks stated that he was troubled by the punishment.
“I accepted the three-month probation,” he said. “Rolling it back to a full two years, just based on their arbitrary decision making, is very troubling to me.”
After the punishment was assessed, there was time for public comment. Multiple parents addressed the board and stated that the punishment was not enough.
A parent alleged that half of the boys that were charged with assault, battery and harassment had testified that this behavior happened to them when they were students. The parent continued to express that this showed it was a culture of abuse in the Quitman program that was allowed to continue while Stacks was in authority over it.
