Pendleton County Schools Hiding Safety Threats From Parents?

I have spent the brunt of my life managing and repairing systems. The computer industry is full of structure, and while there are many variables, everything is system based. It is much the same as life, and in life those systems are how we live, how we communicate, and how we trust the institutions that shape our lives.

What do you do when one of those institutions makes their driving principle to systematically cover up incidents? Through weeks of reporting and over sixty private whispers, one thing rings truer than anything else: Pendleton County Schools prefer silence when dealing with issues.

Basically, and indulge me for being blunt, they act as if if they can silence the child, they can silence the issue. Parents are often left in the dark until their child feels comfortable enough to say something. Let me be clear: this is despicable behavior from the place you are entrusting your child’s education to.

Over forty-five messages we have received, all dealing with the same core problems. The child feels unsafe, the child reports they feel unsafe, the school does an internal investigation, the school rarely reports anything like they are supposed to, the school gaslights the child, and the parents are the last to know. These messages came from former students and from parents who did not find out until their child felt safe enough to speak. These accounts span anywhere from the last one to twenty years.

And here is the part many people need to hear. There are good people in Pendleton County Schools. Dedicated people. People who genuinely care about kids and want to do right by them. You can see it in the teachers who stay late, the aides who spend their own money on supplies, and the staff who show up every day even when the system does not make it easy.

But somewhere between the classroom and the administrative office, something changes. Somewhere in the climb to leadership, the focus shifts from children to appearance, from safety to optics, from honesty to damage control. And that shift is exactly what parents are sick of. No one is asking administrators to be perfect. They are asking them to be transparent. They are asking them to prioritize student safety over how the district looks on paper. They are asking them to stop treating every issue like a public relations problem instead of a child’s life, wellbeing, or peace of mind.

Good people are in the system, but the system is teaching good people to hide problems instead of fix them. And that is the failure parents can no longer tolerate.

So what has the response from leadership looked like? Crickets. Pendleton County School Superintendent Joe Buerkley replied to Tommy Weber with vague, cover up, internal investigation language and never followed up. We even have former superintendent Anthony Strong now running for Judge Executive, and it strikes me that during many of the incidents that have been conveyed to me, he was the superintendent at the time.

Pendleton County has enough problems with pretending that issues which are very much reality simply do not exist. Pendleton County has enough problems with officials who think silence is the best tool to effectively serve their community. Pendleton County has had enough of the old boys network that controls the narrative while questionable governance continues. On that note, I am asking for public comments from both Anthony Strong and Joe Buerkley about the problems going on with so many cover ups and so many children feeling unsafe.

Maybe you have noticed and maybe you have not. I have been kind of tame lately. I have been working a lot, and investigations take a lot of time with one person and a small team of people who help with information and digging. I hope you did not think that meant my fire for this had dimmed. The people have had enough long before some could put a voice to it. The old way, when people spoke up and were shunned, ignored, or pressured into silence, is dying.

It is hard to be nice when I say this, and this is one of those moments where decorum me is gone. I am done playing nice or being hampered. Most people are. The people who used to fear what might happen when they spoke up have now been joined by a community that is done being complacent. None of this flies anymore.

Whisper Networks LLC is a force multiplier. Most of our articles get more views than Pendleton County has people. Every one of our articles, even on the low end, is seen by more than three and a half times the population of Falmouth.

If Pendleton County Schools, Pendleton County, or Falmouth thinks they can keep up the good ol boy if we shut them up it will go away attitude, that time is done. Out of the sixty messages from parents, one third of them are talking about lawyers. Some are already speaking to lawyers. Some of these cases are the kind that could bankrupt the school system and the county if they were found negligent.

Trust me, I am riled, and rightly so. The message I received today is one of the more disturbing ones. Once again, the parents were the last to know about an issue they absolutely should have known about, and then the gaslighting begins. This is not just the school system. This is a pattern, and it has to stop.

If your a parent or a former student that has experienced issues in Pendleton County Schools we ask you to send us a message.  We have an extensive list and this investigation will go on until the problems are solved.   As always your messages will be kept anonymous unless you ask us otherwise.  For those that think they can ignore our articles as just talk and gossip or whatever else you want to say, well… The only thing I can tell you is everything we have reported on before now was only a portion of what your about to see.   This is an election year and I smell change coming.

Whisper One Out