City View Independent School District officials are trying to block a mom from attending her daughter’s “senior night” event after issuing her a criminal trespass citation last year—even though a judge has ordered that the mom be allowed to attend the on-campus event.
With parental rights attorney Janelle Davis to help her, Shannon “Dee Dee” Pennington was granted a temporary restraining order Friday morning to attend the senior event, which is being held Friday night on the campus of City View Junior/Senior High School in Wichita Falls.
City View ISD then directed outside attorneys to file an emergency motion to vacate the TRO, for the sole purpose of preventing Pennington from spending an evening with her child—all at taxpayers’ expense.
“We’ve tried to settle it multiple times,” Davis told Texas Scorecard. “This is the lengths they are willing to go to, to keep mom from being at her daughter’s senior night.”
Pennington was criminally trespassed by City View ISD on February 2, 2024, days after posting to social media that district administrators had failed to protect her child from being bullied.
The citation barred Pennington from all district campuses.
Pennington’s ex-husband, Carl Pennington, is an assistant principal at the district’s Junior/Senior campus.
Dee Dee Pennington had filed a grievance against the district in 2023 complaining that her daughter was being harassed by parents of another student.
Administrators then claimed she had “engaged in a verbal altercation with another parent after a sporting event” in another city, although no evidence of this was submitted, and issued the citation blocking her from district property.
The multi-level grievance process ended in July 2024 with City View ISD trustees upholding the decisions by Principal Kim Williams and Superintendent Jesse Thomas to dismiss the mother’s concerns.
Pennington alleged that Trustee Albert Deleon warned her that if she continued with her grievance, Superintendent Thomas would revoke her other daughter’s transfer to attend City View ISD.
In the petition for relief filed on Pennington’s behalf, Davis notes that under the Texas Education Code, districts may only exclude people from school property under certain conditions.
City View ISD claims that it is exempt from the requirements of Section 37.105 because of their District of Innovation Plan.
However, their DOI Plan only exempts them from a portion of this statute, not the entire statute. Importantly, the DOI Plan provides that City View ISD staff can “remove parents or visitors whose behavior is deemed inappropriate without warning or written notice.”
Putting aside the insanity of allowing districts to use DOI Plans to exempt themselves from state law, this DOI Plan does not exempt City View ISD from the requirement that the person being criminally trespassed must pose a substantial risk of harm to any person or must behave in a manner inappropriate for the school setting and persists in that behavior after being warned. No one has ever claimed that Plaintiff poses a risk of harm to anyone. There is also no allegation or evidence that she engaged in a manner inappropriate for the school setting.
“As seen in the February 2, 2024 criminal trespass letter, the only basis for Plaintiff being criminally trespassed was her posting on social media and her advocacy for her children, including through the District’s grievance process,” the petition concludes.
City View ISD’s outside attorney Meredith Walker claims that Walsh Gallegos, acting at the district’s behest, removed Davis’ TRO petition to federal court on Thursday night.
Davis provided a receipt showing that the original petition involving federal claims was not filed Thursday night, as it was rejected by the court due to errors.
Davis refiled the petition Friday morning without federal claims and received a TRO on Pennington’s behalf in state court.
A federal court later denied the district’s motion to vacate the TRO.
In an email to Walker, Davis advised that Pennington will be attending tonight’s senior event and will have a copy of the TRO with her to avoid any misunderstandings.
City View ISD has not yet responded to a request for comment.
In 2023, seven current and former City View ISD administrators were arrested for “persistent failures” to report a coach’s alleged sexual misconduct involving multiple female students.
Th Wichita Falls Police Department found that district officials covered up four separate incidents over an eight-year span starting in 2014.
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