Interim principal says parent shoved her and slammed her against a wall
This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press on Friday, May 13, 2005.
By CHRIS AMICO
Valley Press Staff Writer
ACTON - The interim principal of Vasquez High School, Sharon Millen, said she has resigned following a scuffle prompted by a parent's attempt to seize records of his son's suspension.
Millen, interviewed Thursday evening, said she is pressing charges in the May 4 incident, in which she said the parent shoved her and slammed her against a wall. She said a restraining order has also been filed.
"I am pressing it to the full extent of the law, for all the school's benefit," she said.
It was not immediately clear, at press time, what action was in progress resulting from Millen's decision to make a formal complaint to law enforcement.
Millen said the encounter formed her decision to end her school career at Vasquez.
"When I told my family, they were very, very concerned."
"'Please don't go back,' " she said members of her family told her. "So I listened to my family, my God, my heart, and I walked away."
The parent, identified by other witnesses as Charles Bang, denied any wrongdoing in a telephone interview with the Valley Press on Thursday evening.
"I don't wish her any harm at all," he said. "I think she's a nice lady. If she's coming after me, I don't know why."
Bang said he had not been arrested and that, to his knowledge, there was no restraining order against him.
According to Millen, Bang's son was suspended for three days last week. The student, whose name was not released, should not have been on campus for three days, but "when I arrived in my office, the father and the son were in my office," Millen said.
The father demanded that his son's suspension be lifted, according to Millen. Millen said she refused to comply with the demand. Then, she said, he demanded to see student testimonials regarding the suspension. That was a demand Millen also refused.
On the way out of the meeting, Millen said the son pointed to a stack of papers on the school secretary's desk, telling his father the student statements were there.
Bang, according to Millen, grabbed for the papers.
"He said, 'I'm taking these,' " Millen recalled, and she put her hand down over the stack of papers.
"He grabbed me by both shoulders and threw me against the wall," she said. "I slid all the way to the floor."
She said she recalled someone in the office shouting "to call 911." A senior student, an athlete, came from around the corner and stepped between Millen and Bang, Millen said. Millen was just getting off the floor, she said.
"Don't you touch her again," Millen remembers the student shouting.
"On penalty of perjury, that's what happened," Millen told the Valley Press.
Bang gave a different account.
"I didn't do anything to her," he said. "She actually pushed me and ripped some papers out of my hand."
Millen finished the week, but chose to step down. Martin Young took over as the school's principal on Monday. The school board had already named him to head the campus starting July 1, and Young had started filling in for Millen on some days and making decisions about next year's staff and programs.
"The time has come for Mr. Young to transition," said Dr. Linda Wagner, superintendent of the Acton-Agua Dulce Unified School District. Millen also expressed confidence that the new principal was ready to step in.
Young will be the third principal to lead Vasquez High during this school year. Steve Pinkston began the year, but was re-assigned to a teaching position in December. Millen took over in January after winter break, but said she would only stay until June.
The board put Young in place less than two months ago.
Millen called her half-year at Vasquez a "very positive experience," despite the altercation.
"It closed the loop on my career," said Millen, who has been a principal at elementary, middle and high school levels. "I've seen them cry when they started kindergarten. I'm sad that I won't see them cry when they graduate."
She plans to stay in education, working as a consultant for the Association of California School Administrators.
The once-again-retired principal added, "I will not return to the campus. It is not worth the discomfort and the anxiety."