BOULDER VALLEY SCHOOL BOARD VOTE ON MONARCH STUDENT SETS UP POWER STRUGGLE

Principal Worries About Message Behind Decision To Reinstate DA's Son
As Head Boy

A faculty adviser to the Monarch High School student council has
stepped down from his post, showing his displeasure with a recent
Boulder Valley school board decision to reinstate a student who had
been removed from the council.

Science teacher Tony Tolbert stepped aside from his job teaching the
student council class at Monarch after the school board voted 5-2 on
Friday to reverse a decision by the principal -- later affirmed by
Boulder Valley School District Superintendent Chris King -- to remove
senior Dylan Quick as head boy of the Louisville school.

Quick was caught in September with marijuana paraphernalia on school
grounds.

Tolbert didn't return calls for comment, but Monarch Principal Jerry
Anderson said Tolbert "had to do what he thought was best."

"He doesn't think it's the right message to send the students," she
said of the decision to give Quick back his head boy title.

But school board member Laurie Albright, who voted in favor of
reinstatement, said Monarch administrators didn't follow their own
student council constitution, which states that a head boy can't be
removed without first being impeached by the 11-member student council.

"When you have rules and a constitution, words matter," she said
Monday. "And we need to follow the policies that were written."

School board President Ken Roberge and member Lesley Smith, both of
whom voted in the minority, couldn't be reached Monday.

Friday's vote came in response to a complaint filed by Quick's parents
claiming their son had been wrongfully stripped of his role as head
boy because his fellow council members had never been given the
opportunity to vote on his fate.

Both the head boy and head girl are seniors who are elected by the
student body. They are responsible for presiding at pep rallies,
mediating class discussions, promoting positive school spirit and
being role models for the entire school.

Dylan Quick's father, Adams County District Attorney Don Quick,
acknowledged that his 17-year-old son had made a mistake, and he
agreed with the school's decision to suspend him for several days.

He said he also punished his son at home, grounding him for a month
and revoking his driving and off-campus privileges.

"My kid screwed up," Quick said in a phone interview
Monday.

But he said Monarch can't remove a student from the council by
ignoring the rules in its constitution.

"The bottom line is I want my kid treated like every other kid," he
said.

Quick said he simply acted as a parent and was "very careful" not to
inject into the appeals process his position as the top prosecutor in
an adjacent county.

But Anderson, the principal, said she and her colleagues thought long
and hard before deciding to remove Dylan Quick from the council. She's
afraid the board's decision last week will have the effect of
undermining her and her staff's authority at the school.

"It really does make me wonder where I stand as the building principal
when it comes to fulfilling what the community asked of me," she said.

The principal said the board's reversal also runs the risk of damaging
morale among teachers at Monarch.

"My staff felt we made the right decision in the first place and that
we should have been supported," she said. "They are not happy."

She said the reinstatement decision was based on a technicality that
missed the larger message about the importance of adhering to school
regulations and rules.

"The priority of that decision is based upon following the student
constitution; it's not based upon setting a good example," Anderson
said.

But she said the board is charged with making final decisions, and she
will abide by its direction.

Briggs Gamblin, spokesman for the school district, said the student's
parents followed the "due process" available to them.

But he acknowledged that it's not often the board takes the kind of
action it took Friday.

"An appeal to the board is fairly rare, and a decision to overturn or
modify an administrative action taken is even more rare," he said.