Opinion ID: 217169
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Reports to School Officials

Text: The next day at school, however, L.E. and B.R. went to see Diana McDaniel ([]McDaniel[]), the guidance counselor at Finland, and reported the incidents that had taken place on the school bus the previous afternoon. L.E. and B.R. state that after hearing their version of the events, McDaniel asked both girls to write a statement. McDaniel also indicated that the girls should not be treated in that manner and that the incidents would be taken care of. L.E. and B.R. claim that, upon receiving their written statements, McDaniel threw them in the trash. Defendants [Board of Education Southwestern City School District (Southwestern) and Smathers (collectively, defendants)] claim that L.E. and B.R. reported only that they had been subjected to inappropriate verbal comments, that nothing physical had happened, and that McDaniel never would have thrown the girls’ written statements in the trash. In the notes obtained by Plaintiffs [Robert Evans (Evans) and Tonya Riffe (Riffe) (collectively, plaintiffs)] from McDaniel, taken after these incidents, McDaniel writes that she had both B.R. and L.E. write a statement.2 According to McDaniel’s notes, she and [Bradley] Adams [(Adams)], Finland’s assistant principal, informed M.C. and another boy of the school’s zero tolerance policy for the type of comments that M.C. had allegedly been making to B.R. and L.E. The following day, McDaniel’s notes document that “M.C. did not listen & this day he tried to rub against legs (LE? or BR?) as he walked down the aisle.” At this point, McDaniel notes that she took M.C. to Smathers, . . . shared with Smathers that M.C. “isn’t getting the message” and “filled Mr. S. [i]n on what had transpired & left.” Plaintiffs[] also assert that Smathers was again made aware of the ongoing harassment of L.E. and B.R. on the bus when B.R., at Riffe’s urging, made a report directly to Smathers [some time] after the girls had met with McDaniel. Riffe has stated that, after meeting with her daughter, Smathers called her [and informed her that the boys whom L.E. and B.R. had reported would be suspended]. During the hearing conducted by Southwestern pursuant to Evans’s appeal of L.E.’s suspension, Smathers denied ever having spoken with Riffe or M.C. about any investigation into harassment. At his deposition, however, Smathers admitted calling Riffe.3 2 “McDaniel ‘has no explanation as to why the statements disappeared’ and testified that she turned the statements over the school secretary who was responsible for maintaining Finland’s discipline files.” 3 “Smathers’s testimony at the hearing on the appeal of L.E.’s suspension is also contradicted by the testimony of A.G. A.G., another student at Finland, testified that around January 2008, after -3- No. 10-4011 Evans, et al. v. Board of Education Southwestern City School District, et al.