When Elwood Police Officer Noah Shahnavaz died in the line of duty last summer, he had many connections to the Fishers community. He continued to live here and graduated from HSE Schools.
At the time of his death, I expressed my deepest sympathies to Officer Shahnavaz’s family.
Then, in August, the HSE Schools issued a statement about an incident in a classroom where a poster saying “Defund the Police?” was visible to the officer’s brother. The statement made clear that the school district does not believe police should be defunded and both HSE school officials and the classroom teacher apologized to the Shahnavaz family.
A few days after the HSE Schools issued the statement, the district announced that local attorney Dan Henke, also the Fishers City Judge, would be conducting a fact-finding investigation into what happened in that classroom with the “Defund the Police” poster in the classroom where Noah Shahnavaz’s brother was in attendance.
Starting in late September and into early October, I took every opportunity to ask HSE school officials when the report was expected and what the school board would choose to do with the report. In other words, would any of the report be made public in any form, such as an executive summary or with names redacted.
As a journalist, I did argue that the district should make as much of the report public, while respecting privacy rights.
The answer came October 14, when HSE Schools announced actions it planned to initiate as a result of the report, but the report itself was not released at all. Obviously, as someone interested in government transparency, I had my concerns.
Then, I closely read three key sentences in that HSE statement from October 14:
As a product of his inquiry, Henke developed a written report. The report has a significant amount of student information. The district does not have consent to release the report with this information.
It should be assumed any report on this incident would contain “a significant amount of student information.” But, according to school officials, the families of the student (or students) involved chose not to consent to a release of Judge Henke’s report.
I would have much preferred to have some version of the report be made public, in some way. But, I would presume that if HSE Schools released the report when the student(s) families did not provide consent, the school district would be subject to criticism for doing that, not to mention any potential legal exposure.
So, although disappointed about this decision not to release Judge Henke’s written report, I do understand why.
By the way, HSE is holding a school board election. Early voting has already started. Even if you vote a straight ticket for either major political party, stay with the ballot, the school board elections are non-partisan and you must stay with it to cast your ballot. HSE has 4 districts and your choice of candidates depends on where you live in the district.
HSE can release a redacted report, but that is not the main issue with this incident. The main issue is the lack of action regarding the teacher who allowed her politics to cloud her judgment. What she did was indecent. Reprehensible. Disgusting. There are not enough words to describe the sickness of her displaying that poster and putting that young man and his family through that. Our community is better than this. We deserve to have a school system that upholds some basic level of decency. This school board and administration brought on themselves what’s coming in November.
Wow, decency! Perhaps listen to yourself and practice that. The debate sign would be have been best to have been removed, but the behavior of the adults making it a political divide is absurd. I think most of this city can see what’s really going on and that some of the candidates are politically motivated and do not care about all students.
What are you talking about? I don’t even see any connection between these events. You’re just trying to politicize things which have nothing to do with each other. Yes, it’s a sad event when someone dies in the line of work, but that has nothing to do with this. Having a relative–even a close one–die doesn’t grant you special priveleges.
Local republicans have so little to offer that they have to manufacture controversy to have anything to say.
People are forgetting about the first amendment when it makes them angry. The poster was a student project. The project did not encourage violence against police in any way. People have blown this way out of proportion. Could the teacher have removed it? Yes. Is it a political incident? No.
Thanks Larry for all you do for the community. I had a couple of questions. 1) Did HSE actually ask for consent from the families involved? While it is implied that they did ask. Considering that the school district intentionally released their statement on Friday afternoon October 14 as the entire district headed out on a week long fall break, you have to wonder. The timely of the release of the statement would certainly appear to be done to get the least amount of attention possible. 2) If they did ask for consent and did not receive it, what law prevents them from releasing redacted information? I have never heard of such limitations on releasing redacted information.
1) My understanding is that the report was shared with one or more families and they chose not to consent to the report’s release in any form, including redacted or summaries. 2) I am no lawyer, and did not say there would definitely be any legal ramifications, but that could get complicated, particularly under civil law, it is just one more factor in the mix.