Johnson: School policy binds hands of principal

The most impressive thing, having spent more than an hour in her office, is she never mentioned the kid’s name.

Nor did she ever betray what Dylan Quick did. You cajole Jerry Anderson, maybe bat your eyes and later attempt trickery to find out. Nothing.

This is at the heart of what led the Boulder Valley School District board a week ago to reinstate Dylan Quick as Monarch High School in Louisville’s head boy. Head boy is what a lot of us remember as student body president.

Principal Anderson, you may have read, stripped the kid of his leadership role six weeks ago. The scuttlebutt is he was caught at school with drug paraphernalia. I wouldn’t know. Anderson wouldn’t say.

Whatever it was, it apparently was a severe violation of the school’s Code of Conduct, written by the Boulder Valley School District, a copy of which every kid must sign at the beginning of the year.

Initially I figured Anderson did the typical knee-jerk thing schoolhouse adults do when a bad thing happens, be it a T-shirt, a rosary or a clearly plastic, child’s toy gun: They go bonkers, take the most severe, unthinking action available and try to defend it by going on about how nothing matters except for the bad example it provides the rest of the kids.

I was going to rip her for doing just that.

And then, I walked into her office.

The school board, on a 5-2 vote, had reinstated Dylan Quick, saying Anderson failed to follow the school’s student council constitution, which says the head boy cannot be removed unless impeached by the student council.

Dylan was never impeached. Board member Laurie Albright, who voted to reinstate, explained that when you have rules and a constitution, “we need to follow the policies that were written.”

Anderson would have loved to follow the constitution, she said.

Yet she goes before the council, moving for impeachment, and says, well, what?

If she cannot under district rules tell me or anyone else what the kid did, how does she lay it all out to the student council?

“It all goes back to the fact that students have rights when it comes to the disclosure of disciplinary actions,” Anderson said.

So she based her decision on the Code of Conduct, which sets forth penalties for violating it, including removal from a leadership position.

The superintendent, Chris King, understood the impeachment conundrum she faced and backed her. However, the boy’s father, Adams County District Attorney Don Quick, appealed to the school board.

“My decision was hardly arbitrary,” Anderson said. “I have children. Why would I do that to someone’s child when I wouldn’t want anyone to do that to my own child?”

Tony Tolbert, a science teacher who also taught the student council class until stepping down last week in protest of the board’s decision, stopped by the office.

“I am fundamentally opposed to the board’s decision,” he explained. “There was no other way to voice my displeasure other than by stepping down.”

Anderson now spends much time talking with staff who disagree with the board’s call.

It is the thing about Monarch, where more than 85 percent of students are involved in extracurricular activities on some 45 teams and clubs. If this one kid —who was suspended — can remain head boy, what message does it send to every other kid who signed the Code of Conduct?

An educator for nearly 30 years, Anderson said she believes changes will be made soon that will satisfy everyone.

“I don’t have any doubt we will get it together,” she said. “Kids can be more accountable and expect accountability sometimes more than we give them credit for.”

Bill Johnson writes Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Reach him at 303-954-2763 or wjohnson@denverpost.com.