BY MAIRE O’NEILL
maire@losalamosreporter.com
What is happening with the Los Alamos Public Schools? How has the situation gone from an African-American parent requesting records and information about the LAPS Equity Council in October 2022 from the office of the Superintendent, at that time Jose Delfin, to that parent, Luckie Daniels filing a lawsuit against LAPS in District Court that looks like it is headed to Federal Court?
Last Friday, a column sent to the Los Alamos Reporter by the NAACP about the situation. https://losalamosreporter.com/2023/12/22/the-time-to-change-and-act-is-now
https://losalamosreporter.com/2022/11/06/laps-parent-requests-information-and-history-of-districts-mandatory-equity-council-activities-since-established-in-2020
Luckie Daniels first appeared on the Los Alamos Reporter’s radar in October 2022 when other LAHS parents alerted her about public comments made by Daniels and documents she presented to the School Board about alleged incidents of discrimination and race bias experienced by herself and her LAHS student and athlete Jaiya Devi Daniels.
In documents filed in the Fifth Judicial District Court earlier this month, Luckie Daniels states that over the past 15 months she has sought relief through direct redress with the LAPS administrators and board members named in the District Court complaint, made multiple attempts to support the development of a District Equity Council mandated by the Public Education Department, advocated for participation in equity-focused strategic planning lead by the District and agreed to work as a Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Accessibility and Belonging (DEIAB) Strategist “to guide the District in correcting the very violations being cited”.
The lawsuit names Board Members Antonio Jaurigue, Ellen Specter, Melanie Colgan, Sondra Wyman and former Board Member Christine Bernstein, as well as Supt. Jennifer Guy and Asst. Supt. Carter Payne. The District has used its contracted attorney Karla Schultz and has apparently retained Santa Fe attorney Carlos Quinones to represent LAPS in the lawsuit.
Daniels at first was pro se but now has retained Los Alamos attorneys Philip Dabney and Paul Geisik. While she was still pro se, she submitted a complaint to LAPS, to the New Mexico Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights. She has reached out to the office of Attorney General Raul Torrez due to difficulties in obtaining documents from LAPS and NMPED under the Inspection of Public Records Act. The Santa Fe New Mexican published an article by Margaret O’Hara last Sunday –
On Friday, the NAACP – National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Santa Fe – sent a commentary to the Los Alamos Reporter.
Daniels herself submitted a commentary December 8 to the Reporter
https://losalamosreporter.com/2023/12/08/equity-a-teachable-moment/
After Daniels filed her complaint, LAPS hired attorney Tressineu McDaniels to conduct an “independent investigation” into Daniels’s claims. McDaniels has interviewed multiple people associated with the complaint. Although her investigation report, which will be presented to both Luckie Daniels and LAPS, has not been completed, and the lawsuit has been filed by Daniels, tense emails continue to exchanged almost daily between Guy, Payne and Daniels.
Interaction with LAPS staff hit a low point last Wednesday. After picking up her daughter, Jaiya, from LAHS, Luckie Daniels says she discovered that despite the lawsuit and previous verbal and written communication with LAHS leadership informing them that they were not to meet with Jaiya without her mother being present, a member of the LAHS security team was sent to Jaiya’s U.S. History classroom to escort her from there to Principal Renee Dunwoody’s office where she was questioned by Dunwoody and Topper Freshman Academy Principal Ryan Finn. Dunwoody reportedly told Jaiya that her mother had reported that she had been called “Hershey” by a student.
The Reporter obviously was neither at that meeting nor the meeting shortly after Luckie Daniels’ discovery that Jaiya had been removed from class by security and escorted to Dunwoody’s office. Subsequent email correspondence between Supt. Guy and Luckie Daniels contains accusations by Guy that when she entered the building she could hear Daniels “yelling” and acknowledgement by Daniels that she was very angry and had raised her voice. Guy voiced concern however at no time was the LAPD school resource officer or the two civilian security staff asked to respond to Dunwoody’s office.
The issue of the name calling was not a “new and recent allegation” by Daniels as Guy suggested. It had occurred last school year but no report had been made by Daniels at the request of her daughter.
Guy’s email to Daniels said that it is the District’s obligation to investigate and address all allegations of racism.
“We will continue to meet that obligation, as is our normal practice,” Guy said.
Guy told Daniels in her email that administrators will not always call parents, including Daniels, before speaking with a student on school matters.
“School administrators have the legal right to speak with students and question them regarding school issues. Where parents must be notified, they will be. Otherwise, the administrators will notify parents in a reasonable time after the investigation or at the appropriate time during an investigation. Today, it was Mr. Finn and Mrs. Dunwoody’s intent that one of them would notify you of the investigation and findings. However, you came to the school before they had the opportunity to call or email,” Guy said.
She also said that on Wednesday, “ensuring that Jaiya is not being harassed by another student or being subjected to racial slurs, was a safety issue and it required that administrators investigate.”
Guy has not indicated to Daniels what law or procedure actually grants the “legal right” to administrators that she referred to in her email.
The Los Alamos Reporter believes what has happened to Luckie in the last 16 months during her interactions with LAPS is just plain wrong and that it’s different from the majority experience in this community. LAPS asked Luckie Daniels to do some consulting work on equity for the District and she presented a work plan to Supt. Guy but instead of facilitating her work, the District denied Daniels access to the Equity Council and fellow staff members. LAPS also failed to notify Daniels that the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights had processed a complaint against LAPS about an incident during a soccer game. Not telling Daniels about the OCR complaint and the subsequent resolution agreement hardly seemed fair. OCR has indicated that there have been several complaints related to LAPS submitted to the OCR. None of them appear to have been disclosed to the community.
LAPS has failed multiple times to provide IPRA records to Daniels in the appropriate time frame. Some records have been issued where the content was blacked out from top to bottom as “redaction” while the same records when requested of the OCR were minimally redacted. Questions as to what process is used to gather electronic records have remained unanswered. Asst. Supt. Carter Payne, who has been named in Daniels’s complaints to the District, NMPED and OCR, is the Custodian of Records for LAPS.
Meanwhile Board President Antonio Jaurigue and Supt. Guy have publicly denied in writing all of Daniels’s claims. The situation has never been placed on the School Board agenda as requested by Daniels and no individual Board member has spoken about the complaints.
Watch the Los Alamos Reporter for more information on the status of the lawsuit as it progresses.