Parent at odds with Springstead coach
SPRING HILL –
Springstead High School junior Marisa Perez told school officials she couldn’t take the verbal abuse any longer from color guard coach Kristi Wahl. And that the bad blood between Wahl and her mother was boiling over to the point where the coach was taking out her anger on her.
Even the band director, Richard Dasher, admitted things were hostile.
Crying, Perez went to Principal Susan Duval and Dasher, who early last week told Perez and her mother, Lisa Perez, that he would smooth things over with the coach.
But by Tuesday, things were not better. Perez discovered she was removed from the team — leading her mother to believe that administrators determined it was easier to kick her out than tackle the problem.
“I trusted him to handle things,” Lisa Perez said. “I agreed to back off and put things aside and let him moderate and smooth things over. Instead (Marisa) is kicked off the team. (Dasher) then says the situation is too volatile and that it’s in her best interest not to be there. Well if it’s so volatile, why are they removing my daughter rather than trying to control the situation?”
On Wednesday morning, Lisa Perez returned to meet again with Dasher and Duval — this time tape-recording their meeting.
Dasher can be heard telling Lisa Perez that the practice environment was not only “very hostile,” but “worse than (he) thought it was,” and worried that if Marisa went back to practice, she’d be “walking into a hornets’ nest.”
At the beginning of the conversation, Dasher said it’s his recommendation that Marisa Perez drop this year because of too much bad blood between her, her mother and the coach. He added that he wasn’t kicking her off the squad, just saying that she “shouldn’t go” back to the squad until the next school year.
By the end of the meeting, Duval said she was interpreting Marisa’s statement to her and Dasher that she didn’t want to be on the color guard squad anymore and was quitting, and soon shortly thereafter, Duval ended the meeting.
Lisa Perezcontinued to claim to no avail that Marisa only said that because she was upset due to recent events — and not because she wanted to leave the team. When she added she would go to the practice field and confront the coach herself, Dasher warned that deputies would be called.
Despite calls to Duval’s cellphone both Thursday and Friday, she could not be reached for comment. Superintendent Bryan Blavatt, who was in Houston, said Wednesday he wasn’t privy to the situation and added he would also contact Duval to get her to make a statement.
Relations between Wahl and Lisa Perez came to a head recently, Perez said, after she reported safety and lack of paperwork concerns to the Florida Federation of Colorguards Circuit — the state oversight group for competitions.
During Wednesday’s meeting between Lisa Perez and Dasher, he called what she did “despicable” and “wrong.” He also accused her of trying to sabotage the group and added that he didn’t believe her claims that Wahl is verbally abusive to students.
“You’re the only one who says that. I haven’t heard that from anyone else,” Dasher is recorded saying.
As of press deadline, no official complaint has been filed against Wahl. Lisa Perez said her daughter went to file a bullying complaint form at the school with the anti-bullying coordinator, but couldn’t due to no one knowing where the forms are.
The online links to report bullying are also broken on the district website.
However, Lisa Perez said she’s pursuing the matter with district administration to see that the matter is handled.
“I think Marisa was removed because of feelings toward me, and that’s not fair,” she said. “The school administration should be addressing the hostile environment, which they admit there is one, instead of just kicking my daughter out, pushing this under a rug and hoping everything just goes away so they can finish out the season.”
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