Parents and staff tell Colonial Heights School Board of special‑education failures and privacy breach

At the Colonial Heights School Board meeting on Sept. 23, 2025, parents and a district employee told the board they had experienced inadequate special‑education services, alleged violations of federal and state student‑privacy rules, and asked the board to investigate and discipline staff where appropriate.

The complaints began with Morgan Shinkle, a pre‑K teacher at Lakeview and a parent, who said Lakeview is in its second year of using a virtual speech‑language pathologist alongside an in‑person speech‑language pathology assistant and that arrangement “is not ideal.” Shinkle said the assistant cannot perform required diagnostic testing, forcing screenings to be done remotely or by already strained district SLPs. “We are grateful to have an in person speech assistant, but they cannot replicate nor replace a fully licensed speech pathologist,” Shinkle said.

The most extensive public comments came from Cindy Bell, a district employee and university supervisor at Virginia Commonwealth University, and Janice Brookwood Jackson, a parent of two children with disabilities. Bell said she had disclosed…