Band director sent video to mother of student as he calls her a vulgarity
By Gerry May
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SHREVEPORT, Louisiana (KTBS) — Parents of a Southwood High School student say the band director should be fired after he struck an especially sour note. It was in a selfie video that Lennard Holden sent to the student’s mom, calling the girl a vulgar word over and over.
Lennard said in the video as looked directly into the camera on his smartphone, “I’m tired of this hoe. That hoe right there? I’m sick of that hoe.”
Holden went on to call her that same name two more times in the video, as she sat in the background sadly, with one hand holding her head.
Her mother told KTBS, “I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I could not believe my eyes or my ears what I was hearing, that a teacher would send me something so obscene and vulgar.”
“She’s traumatized,” the girl’s father added. “She has to see this man the last two hours of the day.”
We’re protecting the identities of the girl and her parents.
The parents say Holden apologized when they had a conference with him and the principal. But they don’t believe it was sincere.
When they followed up later, asking the Caddo Parish School Board what discipline Holden received over the video, they got a letter from Chief Human Resource Office Leisa Woolfolk that read in part, “Because this is a personnel matter we can not go into detail, except that it has been addressed.”
The parents say Holden has not missed any days at school since the incident earlier this month, other than taking what they were told was one vacation day.
“How do you get that type of information and you slap that teacher on the wrist and send him right back to the school?” the student’s father says.
The parents say Holden is known for using vulgar language in front of band members. The father says he’s even witnessed it.
“The usage of the ‘B’ word on a regular basis is constant. Every time I’ve been up there to pick up my daughter, and the kids are in the band room, cleaning the band room, that’s how he addressed them,” he says, adding that Holden also makes homosexual references to the boys.
But, the parents say, Holden seems to be protected at the school board.
“He informs the children that if they speak out against him, or if a parent does, it’s not going to make any difference because he never loses if they go to the school board. He always wins,” the girl’s mother says.
The parents say Holden has targeted their daughter since last year, when she complained of being bullied by other band members. While they say Holden is no longer speaking to their daughter, they believe band members who are loyal to him continue to bully their daughter at his direction.
Mary Nash Wood, spokeswoman for the Caddo Parish School Board, says it’s against the law for the district to reveal disciplinary action against staff.
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