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Several parents spoke at the Snowflake School District Governing Board meeting on Sept. 12 expressing their concerns over a policy regarding police interaction with students. Parents are accusing the school of not following their own policy, which states that a student cannot be interviewed at the school without a parent first being notified.
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Several parents spoke on the issue of Joey Fish, who was interviewed and arrested by the police at Snowflake High School last year regarding an incident at the high school without either of his parents being notified. The parents of Fish both spoke at the call to the public along with other parents who had the same thing happen to their child as Fish. Many of the parents claimed that the policy had been changed during the incident involving Fish to protect the school from being responsible for not protecting students from law enforcement.
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Stephanie Adams, Fish’s mother stated, “At the time that my son, Joey Fish was questioned and arrested at the school, the policy stated that it would notify me before allowing interviews. This was not followed. Instead, Joey was left feeling like he had no choice but to answer the questions honestly because he thought that he was talking to a friend and that was what I had taught him to do.
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“Being questioned at the school put my son off his guard and at an unfair disadvantage when defending himself against the charges made. After I learned of the same thing happening to two other boys and the school continuing to conduct interviews at the school, I went to Mr. Titus (principal) and I begged him to step up his game and protect those students from being taken advantage of by officers that they were viewing as their friends,” Adams continued, stating that the practice persisted and the wording of the policy was changed to legally free the school from any culpability rather than protect any of the kids. “They took our example and they made them(selves) safer by making sure they were safe and not our kids,” she said.
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According to Adams, the breach of policy caused her son to be charged with felony charges of inappropriate touching of fellow students. Fish was ultimately found guilty of two counts of unlawful imprisonment following a jury trial at Navajo County Superior Court for the incident that occurred in the boys locker room.
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Although the board members were not able to discuss the matter at that time, Superintendent Hollis Merrill had this to say to the board, “As board members are aware; we have not requested any changes to our policy. We subscribe to Arizona School Board Association Policy and they recommend any changes to most of our policies. Similar to tonight’s policy, we’re not recommending any of those changes and, obviously, we can’t discuss any of the situation that’s been brought up. We’ve never recommended any change to this policy since I’ve been in this district and there really are no recommended changes from them that touch on some of the things that were brought up today, it’s changes in other areas.”
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There was also a report from the Skills USA team on their trip to Nationals. The members who spoke thanked the board members for the opportunity to participate in the competition and connect with other students and potential future employers.
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“There are many businesses there that are hiring and you get stickers if you are looking for a job. And you can sit down, most of the time, with the CEO of a company. 3M, Toyota, all those big-name companies from the entire United States were there and it was a really awesome opportunity and we thank you for giving us those things,” said Tyler Peterson, club president.
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