Somehow WMAQ-TV broke the story of a wresting hazing investigation at Crystal Lake's Prairie Ridge High School on Wednesday and updated it with precious new information on Thursday night at its ten o'clock broadcast.
Dated today, the following letter has been posted on the District 155 web site about the WMAQ-TV’s Ten O’Clock hazing story:
February 4, 2010
Dear Prairie Ridge Community:
We would like to share information pertaining to recent events surrounding the Prairie Ridge High School wrestling team and subsequent actions taken on behalf of our students.
On Thursday, our principal Mr. Paul Humpa, became aware of alleged incidents of hazing and intimidation occurring within the wrestling program. Both actions, of course, are prohibited by board policy (Board of Education Policy No. 4375 and 4380; visit www.d155.org/boardpolicies.htm to view the policy).
Accordingly, Mr. Humpa and his team immediately took steps to ensure that these activities were not continuing, and began a thorough investigation.
Since potential criminal acts were involved, the Crystal Lake Police Department joined our investigation. Both school and police investigations are currently ongoing.
No arrests have been made at this time.
The district’s administration will take appropriate disciplinary action against students who violated either the intimidation or hazing policy or any other district policies governing student conduct.
Under the guidelines mandated by the Illinois Student Records Act, we will treat all matters concerning student discipline privately. All students and parents have the right to have their child’s privacy protected.
Please be assured that our administration and the Crystal Lake Police Department are fully investigating every aspect of our students’ well-being and safety. Again, be assured that our actions and decisions will be based on facts resulting from this investigation.
While the disposition of any pending disciplinary matter must and shall remain confidential, please understand the administration’s position regarding hazing and intimidation. We will not tolerate behaviors that clearly violate our policy guidelines.
Sincerely,
Dr. Jill Hawk
Superintendent
This happened on the coaching staffs watch, are they not accountable ?
GWC you are right . . . staff should be held accountable.
From what I understand the coaches are not suppose to be in the locker rooms.
Interesting, I don’t recall any mention of a locker room. Do you know something we all don’t? If the coaches are not allowed to monitor the locker room who does?
Nobody monitors locker rooms. There’s no way to really without causing other problems. It’s the same with changing for gym class. Coaches and teachers aren’t supposed to be in the locker room. Crazy that they would for some reason trust their team to be responsible, huh?
I went to PR and this type of weird stupid stuff has been happening forever; it happens at every high school. Its not every jock or athlete, its those certain kids who are just extremely immature and gross. You guys no what i mean, the kids that you told to get and stay away from you in gym class beacause they slapped your butt. Don’t blame these coaches, their not in the locker room watching the wrestlers shower, their doing what they should do, they coach. We need to put some responsibility on these students who made these decisions to mess with their teammates. I think these student should be held accountable for these stupid actions regaurdless if their a freshmen or seniors.
If the coaching staff knew about one of these issues and did nothing about if, then they should be held accountable. However, it is very possible that these actions are being taken because the coaching staff is reacting to an issue that an athlete or athletes created.
I went to PR and this type of weird stupid stuff has been happening forever; it happens at every high school. Its not every jock or athlete, its those certain kids who are just extremely immature and gross. You guys no what i mean, the kids that you told to get and stay away from you in gym class beacause they slapped your butt. Don’t blame these coaches, their not in the locker room watching the wrestlers shower, their doing what they should do, they coach. We need to put some responsibility on these students who made these decisions to mess with their teammates. I think these student should be held accountable for these stupid actions regaurdless if their a freshmen or seniors.