Norco School Safety Uproar

Dozens of students walked out of John F. Kennedy Middle College School in Norco last week to protest school officials' alleged failure to take action against a special needs student who has reportedly threatened a popular teacher, driving the teacher to abruptly leave her job.

After the march by 150 students, many of whom demanded that teacher Heather Ellis be brought back — and be made safe from threats — some teens at the elite, 700-student high school angrily complained that principal Don Ward had waited far too long to deal with a student they say has Asperger's syndrome.

TV news reports said the student was suspended for five days in October after allegedly threatening the life of Ellis, who just five months earlier, in April, was named a teacher of the year.

When JFK's principal and other administrators "did nothing" to actually protect Ellis, some students allege, Ellis decided she could not continue teaching. By last Friday, Ellis had missed 54 days in class and her students were being overseen by a series of substitute teachers.

The Corona-Norco Unified School District Board was set to meet Tuesday evening to hear a raft of expected public criticism of its handling of the issue, then meet in closed session to discuss the district's reading of a California law on student expulsion and readmission.

Some students said word had gone out on campus that Ellis, who has not commented to the media, hoped to return next week.

Last Friday, Kimberly Kirchner, 17, a senior, said Principal Ward had failed the popular teacher and was ducking serious questions. "He's ... hiding somewhere in his office," she said of Ward. "ABC News was looking for him today and our school officials don't like the media. Our district hates the media."

Student Megan Ortega, 17, says, "We want our teacher back and we want proper safety procedures on campus. We're in our senior year and preparing to hit college, and we want to be prepared. We've had, like, seven substitute teachers in the past two months."

Official details are sparse regarding the nature of the alleged threats.

But Ellis' many, well-spoken teenage students tell L.A. Weekly the threats against the teacher were made in full view of others during class — and apparently also via e-mail or text message — and Ellis was not backed up by school administrators.

Ortega describes the student as a junior with behavioral issues, and she says other students feel the junior would be better accommodated in a different, more secure environment — not mainstreamed at JFK.

"They accepted him in spite of these issues and that was the problem," Ortega says. "He should be placed somewhere that is better equipped to help him and educate him. It's ironic that they label him 'special needs,' because they're not handling him like he has them."

The student walkout followed a flurry of last-ditch efforts by JFK school and district administrators to prevent it. Students tell the Weekly that they got an automated call from the principal the night before the Jan. 27 march in which he vowed to punish them with truancy citations by law enforcement — and even suspension from school.

Then, on Jan. 27, district officials called a forum on campus for students to vent their pent-up frustrations. But it was too little, too late for many teens who attended the meeting.

Students poured off the campus of the relatively new school — JFK is only 5 years old — and marched a short distance down the hill to the offices of the Corona-Norco Unified School District, chanting slogans and hoisting signs along the way.

As far as student walkouts go, this was a determined and spirited protest, but also a decidedly well-mannered civil demonstration in what's locally known as Horsetown, USA, a small town that straddles Interstate 15 and advertises its charm as "city living in a rural atmosphere."

Students loudly chanted their support for Ellis, though not in a menacing tone, and waved gleefully at the passing cars and trucks that honked their horns in support and proceeded along their route.

"We want [Ellis] back and we're trying to get her back," says senior Jesse Chavez, 17, who also complained about the unsettled feeling that the substitute-teacher parade, made up of more than a half-dozen new faces, has created in the class Ellis once taught.

L.A. Weekly tried to contact Principal Ward last Thursday, and was told by a desk clerk that he was no longer on campus. But students on the campus said Ward was sitting in his office.

When two students in front of the school attempted to talk with the Weekly, a security guard sent the students packing and demanded to see the reporter's driver's license.

"You were trying to talk to minors," the guard said, refusing to give his name. "We don't have students here that are 18 years old."

That may be news to Yesenia Vargas, 18, a senior, who said students are legitimately concerned for their safety in the aftermath of the alleged threats and the administration's failure to address them. "We feel very, very unsafe," Vargas says. "A teacher has been threatened. What about us?"