I wrote this Letter to the Editor that was published in The Bosque County News in the June 6th, 2007 issue. I had gone to Cranfills Gap, Texas, to attend an afternoon graduation ceremony and celebration for my niece, Kaitlan Head, the 2007 Cranfills Gap High School Valedictorian who was banned from her own graduation by Cranfills Gap Superintendent Carla Sigler and Cranfills Gap School Board members Kenny Wiese, Jeff Rose, Kathie Witte, Shelly Stuart, Virgil Tindall, and Jackie Ray Sorrels.
After Kaitlan's afternoon celebration, my sister Sue Lee, also a Cranfills Gap school board member, and I attended the evening Cranfills Gap high school graduation ceremony from which Kaitlan had been banned from participating.
That night, as I drove the sixty miles back to Waco from the Gap, a letter was forming in my mind about the shameful affair. What I wrote and was published in the Bosque County News is as follows:
NO VALEDICTORIAN AT GAP GRADUATION
Editor's Note: The writer of the following letter is the aunt of Kaitlan Head, the Cranfills Gap 2007 valedictorian who was banished from her graduation ceremony.
I attended the Cranfills Gap 2007 High School Graduation. A pall was cast over the ceremony by the conspicuous absence of the valedictorian, a childhood friend of the classmates. Not long before graduation, the salutatorian and the valedictorian, both exemplary students, got into a fight--actually, a silly scuffle--in which each struck the other.
Fighting in school is never right and is never to be allowed, though apparently the girls were not considered a threat to each other or the other students, as Superintendent Carla Sigler allowed both of them, on the very next day after the altercation, to sit in the same small classroom for several hours while they took a test.
However, the punishment did not fit the crime. The valedictorian was first told that her punishment was one day of suspension. But in a few days, her punishment had escalated to DAEP ( a last resort for troublemakers at a campus in another town), no high school diploma (as in, "Go get your GED"), no senior trip, no honors field day, no baccalaureate, no graduation ceremony, no recognition or awards or scholarships earned as valedictorian, and she would not graduate and was to be banned from campus.
The salutatorian, equally part of the altercation, received no punishment at all. Her parents were never contacted by the school about the incident , her injury was slight and apparently did not require a doctor's care, and she was not even sent to the office. She was allowed to participate fully in all school activities and graduate with a high school diploma and full honors as salutatorian, but the valedictorian was not. It was the same crime, but very different punishments.
About a week later, right after a trip with her classmates, a school board member, and Superintendent Sigler, the salutatorian was taken to the Bosque County Sheriff's Office where she filed charges of disorderly conduct against the valedictorian, which led to the valedictorian getting a ticket for a Class C misdemeanor assault. The valedictorian did not file any charges against the salutatorian, although she could have.
Board members and the superintendent then attempted to evade setting a meeting to hear the valedictorian's appeal until after June 1st, a date that fell SIX DAYS AFTER graduation. The valedictorian's father and her attorney demanded a hearing before the graduation date, and a special meeting was held the evening before graduation. The valedictorian's attorney informed the school board members and the superintendent that under Texas state law the punishment for what the valedictorian had engaged in was three days suspension, not DAEP or banishment from campus and not being able to graduate.
The school board finally agreed to give the valedictorian her diploma, as well as the awards and scholarships she had earned. However, even though fully informed that such action was illegal, the school board upheld the decision by the superintendent to banish the valedictorian from campus and not allow her to participate in graduation.
And that is why there was no valedictorian at the 2007 Cranfills Gap high school graduation. The sad part is that a student was deprived, with malice, of a once-in-a-lifetime honor that she had worked hard for all her life; another child and student learned that it is acceptable to break the rules with no punishment at all, while punishing another who is guilty of the same offense that she is; and Superintendent Sigler will move on to other unsuspecting school districts, leaving behind her chaos, heartbreak, and neighbor against neighbor.
Carla Sigler, with her fake PhD, will repeat her well-documented pattern of ignoring school policy, favoritism, falsehoods, controversy, division, and retaliation. As an educator and taxpayer, I am appalled at the shameful injustices that Cranfills Gap school board members Kenny Wiese, Jeff Rose, Kathie Witte, Shelly Stuart, Virgil Tindall, and Jackie Ray Sorrels condoned and let stand.
As a Christian, I recall that Jesus said, "Whatsoever you do unto a child, you do unto Me." I hope one day God can forgive those who had a hand in purposely harming a child. If this is the way children are treated in this school district, Cranfills Gap does not deserve a school.
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