Suspended Marietta student denied requests to contact parents during investigation 

By Rebecca Gaunt

A Marietta High School senior received a five-day suspension more than a month after students organized a protest against the actions of the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) for making flyers .

He and his father are asking why the discipline process included a direct call to the student on his personal cell phone from Superintendent Grant Rivera and a meeting with an investigator who denied the student’s requests to contact his parents.

Lucas Price said he was pulled from the senior awards ceremony, where he was being honored as one of Marietta’s top students, to the office of Principal Marvin Crumbs earlier this month. 

He was told to leave campus immediately and that he could not speak to any of his teachers on the way out. The reason given on the suspension form, Price said: use of school equipment without permission.

“No one told me not to use it. On camera, the librarians can be seen observing us,” he said. He did emphasize that the staff members present did not assist him with the creation of the flyers.

Price didn’t walk out of school on the day of the walkout. Nor did he attend the event, which primarily consisted of students who, rather than walk out under threat of punishment, were absent and met nearby off campus. Had he attended school that day, he could have left the building at the scheduled time of the walkout as he does not have third and fourth block classes.

Caught on camera

The Instagram account Abolish.ICE.Georgia drew both ire and support when it appeared in January, posting flyers for anti-ICE walkouts at various high schools in Georgia. The account states it is student-run, but some school and elected officials have accused the account of being run by adult activists. In January, the Courier reached out to ask who is behind it and received a statement reiterating that it is student-run, but no individuals were identified.

One of the flyers advertised a walk out at Marietta High School on Jan. 30 and included what Price described as the official MHS logo (flyers have since been deleted from account). When no statement came from administration disavowing the event, he took it to mean the event was either sanctioned, or that the silence was “plausible deniability” from the administration.

“They’re pretty good at having their ear to the ground,” Price said.

On Jan. 28, Price used the school’s media center to design a walkout flyer and make copies, which he and another student then passed out. The flyer included dos and don’ts encouraging peaceful protest. Due to the cameras in the library, the origin of the circulating flyers was quickly traced back to him.

Price, in a telephone conversation that included his father, told the Courier that Superintendent Grant Rivera called him directly on his personal cell phone on the evening of January 28. Rivera asked if he was with his parents. Price said he was not, and Rivera told him “I’m going to have the conversation with you anyway.”

Price owned up to making the copies immediately, but the call continued for another seven minutes.

In the conversation, which Price recorded, Rivera said he was “incredibly disappointed” in Price as a member of his superintendent’s student advisory council and that he was looking at a 10-day suspension on his record “that is going to be serious.”

“I want you to hear me that, and the reason that I’m so incredibly disappointed, like incredibly disappointed, is that you’re on the superintendent’s advisory council, Lucas. Like, I pick up the phone and call on your behalf to Posse and stuck my neck out for you…” Rivera said.

“I’ve reached out to you before. I’ve tried to help you with things when you needed something from me. The idea that you would not think to reach out and have a mature adult conversation, which is what the other kids did…Now, I’m gonna shoot really straight with you. In my 27 years in education, when I think about the kids who I saw so much potential and leadership in…I can’t think of a time, candidly, that I have been more disappointed in one student who I respected so much.”

Rivera continued, “If you’re motivated by my respect for you that’s one thing. Or, if you want to be motivated by a school suspension that will sting…Lucas, sting.”

About halfway through the conversation, Rivera told Price he didn’t want to have the conversation without his parents. However, the conversation continued for another four minutes and 22 seconds, with Rivera doing nearly all of the talking.

“We’ve got a problem, Lucas, and you’re at the root of it right now,” Rivera said. “So what I need for you to think about very thoughtfully, is how do we unring this bell?…So how do we want to handle it, Lucas?”

Price voiced his agreement that his parents should be on the call. Five minutes into the call, Rivera, again, said he wanted Price’s parents on the phone, but still did not hang up.

Rivera told Price that he had already left his father a voice mail and sent a text message prior to calling him.

“The organizer of a school disruption will face out-of-school suspension that will significantly impact anything you choose to do next year,” Rivera said. 

Rivera’s tone was more restrained in the subsequent 17-minute phone conversation with Price and his father, Dr. Harry Price, a music professor, who said very little, beyond acknowledging Price’s role with the flyers.

“I have friends that are in this country illegally. They have parents who are here illegally. They’re not going to go to a community fair because they’re scared that they’re going to get picked up at something like that. The idea was for this to show both our local and national community that there is awareness. There is care,” Price told Rivera on the call.

Price agreed to Rivera’s request to try to “unring the bell” and posted a message on his social media channels about his pending suspension.

“To be clear, no one should participate and endanger themselves unless they are willing to face the same consequences, especially if you have classes 3rd and/or 4th period, as you could receive identical punishment,’ he wrote.

Attempts to “unring the bell” included texting students he had previously discussed the walkout with to update them on the consequences. He also apologized to his teachers and school resource officers for any problems he might have set in motion. 

The next morning, Rivera appeared on Good Morning, Marietta, the school’s program for news and announcements, to discourage the walkout and share his safety concerns.

“I challenge every one of you to be somebody in a way that has lasting, meaningful impact, and not turning your back on the very adults in this building who care for you,” he said.

According to district spokesperson Chris Fiore, only three or four students left class on Jan. 30, but he declined to comment on whether any of those students were disciplined.

After the protest, Price said Rivera reached out again to request a meeting with him and his parents. At his parents’ request, Price agreed but requested something in writing beforehand. That never came and the meeting never took place.

Price’s father said Rivera’s assistant did reach out to set up a meeting.

“I wrote back again and said I’m more than happy to meet, but before we meet, I’d like something in writing telling me why we’re meeting. I never heard anything either time,” Dr. Price said.

The district has denied accusations that the doors were blocked to prevent students from leaving. It declined to comment on the Courier’s questions regarding the phone call and Price’s meeting with the investigator, citing student privacy.

In loco parentis

The week after the walkout, Price was called to meet with Darron Franklin, who served as the investigator on the case. Franklin is listed as the director of employee performance evaluation and investigations in the human resources department for Marietta City Schools.

Dr. Crumbs was also present. Price recorded the 38-minute meeting.

Franklin asked Price why he hadn’t set up a meeting with Crumbs to discuss the potential walkout first. Price explained that the last time he tried to set up a meeting with the principal, the first available date was four weeks out.

Price later referred to Rivera’s phone call as unorthodox.

“So calling someone is unorthodox?” Franklin responded.

Franklin also pushed him to identify any staff or students he collaborated with. Price said he did not directly communicate with any media specialists, and declined to comment on the identities of anyone who may have been watching him.

Twelve minutes into the conversation, Price asked to have his parents on the phone, explaining that Rivera had told him that was how any meetings on the topic would be handled.

Franklin refused, saying “It’s not alright. Your principal is here. The laws in Georgia said in parentis loca (sic). He is in lieu of your parents. So I’m not threatening you, I’m simply asking you questions. I don’t need to. I’m on a timeline. I don’t even work today. I came today because I missed you yesterday. So I don’t want this process to be derailed, delayed because your parents are either available or not available.”

[In loco parentis is the legal term for a person or institution performing the responsibilities of a parent.]

Price: “So I’m not allowed to have a parent present or on the phone?”

Franklin: “No, not right now.”

32 minutes into the conversation, Price asked again to have either his father or Rivera present.

Franklin: “It’s not okay.”

Price: “So I’m not free to leave?”

Franklin: “Not right now. I have a couple more questions I need to ask you regarding…”

Price: “And I’m not allowed to have those I’ve requested present?”

Franklin: “You can request, but I’m saying no.”

Price told the Courier, “I wasn’t going to implicate anybody else, so when he started asking about staff, other people, I basically said, ‘You know everything you need to know. I don’t know why you’re asking me.’”

According to Price, the investigator called his dad afterward and told him he was investigating school staff, not him.

Suspended

Price and his father spoke with the Courier on the last day of his suspension.

“At the end of the day, the suspension wouldn’t have been that big of a deal, except for the college. That’s the important part because I’m accepted, going almost full ride to the college I want to go to,” he said.

Price’s father’s frustration with Marietta City Schools has been growing for years.

“If he called Lucas and said I need to talk to you, but want to speak with you and your father, I would get that. But there was some talk well before it got to that point,” Price’s father said. “He was saying you’re one of the best kids in the school, and I can’t believe you would do this, and on and on. I won’t characterize what I think of that.”

This isn’t the first time Price has had problems at Marietta. He said he was suspended last year for fighting in band, which he says was mischaracterized, and that he had reported months of harassment from another student to the band director to no avail. Additionally, he says there is video from his freshman year of him being held down on the floor for hazing. Nothing was done.

In the eight-minute call, Rivera referenced the band incident.

“After all the conversations I had with you and your dad about how you felt like you were wronged in band, I can’t even imagine why you would put yourself in the center of the storm and risk all that you have tried to recover since before,” Rivera said.

Dr. Price summed it up saying, “There’s a long history there…in a strange way, this is sadly not a surprise, in my biased view, given the history of what’s gone on before.”