ROCHESTER HILLS, Mich. – Hundreds of people attended a hearing Thursday over whether to censure Rochester school board member Andrew Weaver, who is accused of spreading misinformation on social media and TV after a middle school field trip went awry.
In November, a class of sixth-grade students from Hart Middle School attended a field trip in Detroit. After attending a musical performance, the teacher brought the students to a restaurant in Greektown for pizza.
The restaurant did not have enough seats for all of the students, and instructed the group to eat upstairs in a lounge area. The lounge appeared to be a nightclub that wasn’t in use, and had dancing poles, a bar, and liquor ads. Photographs and videos were taken of the students in that setting.
Reports say the teacher leading the field trip immediately notified the school principal of what happened and was upfront about the unfortunate incident with the district.
Months later, Weaver, a school board member for the Rochester Community School District, made public comments about the field trip on social media and the national Fox show “Fox and Friends.” School staff members have requested to censure or remove Weaver following such comments, saying he spread misinformation about what happened and put the school and district in a dangerous situation.
The school and its staff reportedly fielded several threats made after Weaver’s public comments.
“I am angry that Mr. Weaver is seemingly incapable of learning anything from this experience and that he continues to deflect the blame to others,” Linda Key said during Thursday’s school board meeting.
Weaver is accused of spreading the photos and videos taken during the field trip and speaking badly about it without ever clarifying what actually happened with the middle school staff. Multiple union complaints were made against Weaver by Hart Middle School staff who said they were harassed and threatened after his media appearances.
“From the start, Mr. Weaver’s position as a trustee could’ve been used to seek understanding,” said teacher Amy Rever-Oberle. “Instead, he allowed a false narrative about our school to be spread. Every new post he shared about this story has poured salt into a barely healed wound over and over again for months.”
Weaver claims that sharing the information wasn’t to draw attention to himself, but rather to talk about bad district policy. He said parents were not notified about the whole ordeal.
Before Weaver was voted onto the school board, he was a vocal critic of the school’s administration and the school board. The district’s sitting superintendent has been on leave for a substantial amount of time, claiming the school board hadn’t protected him from “personal attacks.”
The community was divided over the issue at the Board of Education meeting on Thursday, June 22. The voting process continued after the airing of Local 4′s broadcast.