The Clarksville-Montgomery County School System’s (CMCSS) School Board received an earful at its meeting on Tuesday evening.¶
Local parents are upset about the school district’s handling of a school bus crash that killed two Kenwood Middle School students and injured more last March. During the public comment section of the meeting, five parents called the district out for a lack of accountability, transparency, and support for grieving and traumatized families and students.¶
Background
According to a preliminary report by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the accident occurred on the morning of March 27, when a CMCSS-operated school bus collided with a dump truck operated by the Tennessee Department of Transportation while heading to a school event in Jackson. The left side of the bus sideswiped the left side of the dump truck, causing the bus to then collide with an SUV. The school bus was occupied by 24 students, four adult chaperones, and the driver at the time.¶
Zoe Davis and Arianna Pearson, two eighth-grade students at Kenwood Middle School, died. Other passengers, including the school bus driver, sustained serious injuries, while others received minor injuries.¶
Davis’s family filed a lawsuit against the bus driver and CMCSS. The driver was hired in the summer of 2021 and had not been in a crash before.¶
Public Comment
Xaviel Lugo, one of the Kenwood parents who provided investigators with dash-cam footage of the accident, accused the board of making false statements in the wake of the crash, including publicly stating on the day of the crash that all parents had been informed of the accident, when they had not.¶
“Many parents learned about the tragedy through calls from strangers, calls from distraught kids, social media, and their own desperate efforts, not through the emergency communication system we were told we can rely upon in the aftermath,” Lugo said.¶
Lugo also said parents seeking accommodations from the district, such as excused absences from TCAP (Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program) testing for affected students, were met with a “pass the buck" attitude, and that many parents received actions from Kenwood Principal Dr. Karen Miller that felt “retaliatory, dismissive, and intentionally harmful towards families already coping with unimaginable trauma.”¶
“Some families received guidance and support, and others received little to no communication at all,” Lugo said. “This inconsistency has deepened the frustration and pain we already carry. The leadership's handling of the situation has left many parents with the impression that testing participation and district metrics were a greater urgency than the emotional and physical well-being of the children.”¶
Another Kenwood parent, Diana McClain, recounted her repeated attempts to contact the school in the immediate aftermath of the accident after receiving a FaceTime call from her child, who was “covered in blood.” She said she was denied access to speak with Principal Miller and was hung up on eight times by the woman who answered the phone.¶
“She told me that whenever it is convenient, she will have the principal call me; however, that moment (was not) about convenience,” McClain said. “This was a real emergency. Let me state it again: I called eight times. Every other time, she told me that I was playing a sick prank and would hang up on me. I only got through to the principal when I called the nurse, begging for help. In that moment after, the communication from the school did not exist. I put my lifeline in your hands, and in the wake of tragedy, the school went silent and didn't communicate with us.”¶
Adam Ellithorpe, the father of a senior at Montgomery Central High School, told the board that while he understands there are legal limitations on the amount of detail the district can divulge at any given point in the accident investigation, he felt there was not enough accountability and transparency in communicating with families.¶
“The parents have asked questions and received little to no clarity,” Ellithorpe said. “Community members have demanded transparency and instead have been met with carefully worded statements, closed-door consent discussions, and a system that appears far more focused on protecting itself than rebuilding public trust.”¶
