Court documents in a lawsuit brought by a 7-year-old Brook Knoll Elementary School student against the Scotts Valley Unified School District show the superintendent considered calling Child Protective Services (CPS) on the parents of the boy, who was protesting the District’s Covid-19 control measures.
They also reveal Scotts Valley Police Department Chief Steve Walpole Jr. even offered to help handle the situation at one point.
“Let me know if you want a police report to get things started from our end,” reads a text message from Walpole to an unidentified recipient, apparently from January 2022.
The boy’s father was threatening to film the principal sending the child home for not being vaccinated and not testing weekly for the novel coronavirus, the other party claimed in the back-and-forth.
A Feb. 22, 2022, email chain, which emerged through the discovery process and was first reported on by the Epoch Times, shows Superintendent Tanya Krause looked at getting CPS—which intervenes in cases of abuse and neglect of minors—involved.
In the exchange, board vice president Michael Schulman responds to an email from Krause indicating the boy, known only as H.N., was “refusing to comply” with pandemic protocols.
“Has anyone suggested child protective services”? Schulman asked, referring to rules that prevented disobeying children from being allowed in the classroom. “They’re essentially abandoning their child at a location not permitted to accommodate him safely (we can’t lock him in a closet), and based on public health guidelines they are compelling him to put himself in danger.”
“I suggested that and was discouraged from doing that as they are short staff and this is not really a ‘negligence’ case,” Krause responded a couple hours later.
Tracy Henderson, the family’s lawyer, said the boy ultimately was put into a storage room.
“Think of the absurdity of it all,” Henderson said. “This healthy kid wanted to go to school and learn.”
She said school districts got “bullied” into enforcing Covid-19 rules by the California Department of Public Health, adding that asymptomatic spread of the virus is “a fallacy.”
A January 2021 Front Public Health analysis pointed to people with the virus who don’t feel sick circulating in the population as possible fuel for the crisis.
“Children and females were more likely to present as asymptomatic Covid-19 cases and could act as unknown carriers of SARS-CoV-2,” reads the paper’s abstract, which continues, “a mass surveillance system to track asymptomatic cases is critical, with special attention to females and children.”
The authors declared no financial ties that could be seen as a conflict of interest.
H.N.’s lawyer supplied her own collection of studies—including a 2020 systematic review from J.F. Ludvigsson and Acta Paediatr stating children were “unlikely to be the main drivers” of what Henderson likes to call the “scamdemic.”
The email exchange about H.N. and CPS followed several incidents, described in court papers, where the boy protested Covid-19 procedures, including a Feb. 15, 2022, situation where he was sent to see a school counselor after holding up a sign that read “END THIS NONSENSE!”
A Covid-19 lawsuit Henderson filed against the Santa Cruz County Office of Education was thrown out, as it sought “declaratory relief” to reverse policies, something that was no longer relevant as the pandemic wound down.
H.N. sued the Brook Knoll principal, SVUSD, Krause and two teachers for negligence, false imprisonment and civil rights violations, in August 2022.
Portions of the suit were struck down earlier this year; however, the Santa Cruz County Superior Court judge allowed the case itself to continue.
Schulman, who is now board president, brushed off the Epoch Times article as a piece from an international “conspiracy” outlet and defended the discussion around turning to CPS. After all, he notes, SVUSD didn’t end up going that route.
“It didn’t seem to rise to that level,” he said. “There were a lot of incidents with this young man and his family.”
Because school officials are “mandated reporters,” they are required to pass along any legitimate concerns that the child could be facing abuse or neglect to child welfare authorities, Schulman noted.
“So, the fact that it was considered was probably an appropriate discussion,” he said. “If the decision was made to go forward and to bring in CPS, and they come back and say there was no reason to involve us, then you can say, maybe you overstepped. But the decision was, let’s look at it and decide. And I guess the staff decided, no, we don’t go there. It’s kind of a non-issue.”
Henderson said it’s anything but.
“CPS is an extremely dangerous organization,” she said. “They can terminate parental rights.”
The boy’s father, Justin Nordgreen, said learning that school officials looked at involving CPS and the police has made him feel vulnerable.
“I think it’s appalling that a school superintendent earnestly explored the weaponizing of a state agency against me and my family,” he said.
On Monday, Henderson told the court SVUSD hasn’t been very responsive, so far.
“Defendant’s counsel returns calls and emails occasionally but never has time to discuss the issues in detail,” she wrote. “Defendants failed to provide code compliant responses to document demands.”
Henderson told the Press Banner the District, at least in some cases, has only offered one side of a conversation when they’re required to supply both.
Walpole’s texts are particularly concerning, she adds.
“Why is the school district trying to involve the police?” she asked. “That is abuse of power. They’re way out of their lane.”
Henderson said she’s now subpoenaed Walpole.
District lawyer Mark Davis told the court Tuesday a trial in the case—which he characterized as about a boy who “refused to comply with District-issued policies on vaccination, testing, and mask-wearing, and crusaded against such policies through a series of acts and omissions”—might take four days.
Krause referred questions about her email exchange to Davis, who was not available for comment on Wednesday. Walpole did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the text messages.
The next hearing is scheduled for Aug. 16 at 8:30am in Department 5 at the Santa Cruz Courthouse.
Will be interesting to see if Scotts Valley Chief of Police Steve Wapole has had a change of heart rather than having his premature opinion of beginning an investigation. Seems very “heavy handed” in this case. Wonder if he has done this before?