Student alleges abuse at Pearson

WINSTED — Gilbert student Kenneth Hintz, 12, addressed the Board of Education during the public comment portion of a meeting held on Tuesday, Jan. 13.

At the meeting, Kenneth made accusations of abuse during his time at Pearson Middle School.

Starting in school year 2011-2012, the Winchester school district discontinued its seventh- and eighth-grade programs and sent students to The Gilbert School.

“I’ve been told by numerous sources that Gilbert School seventh- and eighth-grade students might be moved back to Pearson, and I want to talk about why I don’t want to be moved back,” Kenneth said. “There have been numerous occasions of abuse by some teachers at Pearson, and I would not want to go back to that school. They did not prepare the students to go to Gilbert. I was a D and F student at the beginning of the year because I was not prepared for Gilbert and their standards. I would not want to go back to Pearson because when I move back up to Gilbert I will not be prepared for the school. There were just numerous cases of abuse and neglect at Pearson and multiple counts of me not feeling safe and seeing police officers at Pearson. I know multiple people who do not want to be moved back to Pearson, and I just wanted to let you know why.”

Kenneth then walked to the back of the room and took a seat next to his mother, Michelle Hintz. 

A moment later, Board Of Education member Christine Royer addressed Kenneth’s mother and requested his full name.

“A child standing up at any time and using the word abuse, well there are issues with mandated reporting when a child uses the word abuse,” Royer said. “If you yourself had experience with that, there’s a [Department of Children and Families] hotline with an 800 number.”

“We dealt with it all last year, look up his documentation,” Hintz replied. She then provided her son’s full name and home address.

Mother, son speak

During a private interview, Michelle Hintz and Kenneth spoke about the situation in greater detail.

“What started it all was when I read in the Republican-American that they were talking about sending seventh- and eighth-graders back to Pearson,” Hintz said. “I told my son, who is in seventh grade now, about that and he said he didn’t want to go back to Pearson. I have a daughter in fourth grade, and she’s dreading going to Pearson. In 2013, his fifth-grade year was horrible. His teachers were bad. They humiliated him in front of classrooms, and he was bullied constantly. There was a kid that was running and hiding from the police in his school. They had lockdowns twice during the school year of 2012-2013. It was just a very bad year. Teachers not helping, kids being bullied. He saw his friend being put into a headlock in the bathroom and being punched.”

“[My friend] has Asperger’s, and he was put into a headlock and smashed into a wall and punched about four times in the head,” Kenneth added. 

“I sent a letter and worked with the principal at the time [Matthew O’Connell] about all of this and nothing was done,” Hintz said. “I sent a letter to this Board of Education. Not all the members were here that year but several of them were. None of them responded.”

Hintz stated that she will not be sending her son back to Pearson.

“Gilbert is a very good school. They really work with the kids,” she said. “The teachers enjoy being there to help, and they are on top of everything. He was failing a class in fifth grade, and I didn’t find out about it until I got a report card. At Gilbert, if they miss one homework assignment that teacher will call you.”

Discussion at meeting

During the meeting, members of the Board of Education, including Superintendent Anne Watson, did not respond to Kenneth’s claims.

Later on during the meeting, resident Lisa Steeves spoke up from the back of the room.

“I know this is not public comment time but there has not been any mention about seventh and eighth grades being pulled from Gilbert,” Steeves said. “I had just assumed that would be something that would be discussed tonight.”

Superintendent Watson said the issue was not on the agenda for the meeting.

Steeves said she wanted the board to discuss the matter.

“It was handed to the Gilbert Trust by your lawyer, so I would imagine that it would be discussed,” Steeves said. “I think my question is, if you’re going to use these [issues] in negotiation, when can we as citizens, besides public comment, discuss with you our desires besides in emails that may or may not be answered? I wanted to discuss these things face to face but there is no opportunity for us to have these discussions. When it’s already in negotiation then we’re too late.”

“I think if negotiations with Gilbert don’t proceed, if there is no resolution, then we are going to have to talk about other alternatives, at which point I do agree with you, community is an important part of it, but that’s premature today,” Chairman Susan Hoffnagle said. “That’s not something that we have on the table for action by the board.” 

“When you say it’s in negotiation, that doesn’t mean that we are taking action on that,” Royer said. “The meeting that is being referred to is the negotiating meeting between some members of the Winsted Board of Education and members of The Gilbert School Corporation. A lot of discussion informs those ideas, and that is all they are, ideas. What informs those ideas was [Gilbert School Superintendent] Anthony Serio communicating with our superintendent by which the Gilbert Trust School budget would be increased in order to comply with everything that the correct report has stated that they must do, so you’re kind of getting it out of context. There is other information that went into it. The negotiations are, we’ve only had one meeting and Serio said at the meeting ‘This is going cost you, it’s going to cost you big.’ He said that basically to our superintendent.”

Board of Education member Brian Shaughnessy advised that the conversation appeared to be going out of the scope of the meeting.

“Although this is a very emotional and warranted conversation, this could be something held in a public forum with the proper representation of both The Gilbert School and the Winchester Public Schools as well as the concerned parents and citizens of town,” Shaughnessy said. “It’s kind of an uneven conversation without all parties here, and I would entertain to recommend that we have a larger forum for this sort of conversation in the future.”

“I think that’s well overdue,” Steeves replied. “It’s something that we’ve needed to do on many other instances and this is something I’d like to see happen, so please pursue that.”