Waynesboro School Board needs to hold administrators to account for WHS football hire

It would seem to be a given that Shonn Bell won’t be the football coach at Waynesboro High School this fall.

And that shouldn’t be the only fallout from the matter of how Bell, with a concerning criminal record that includes convictions for resisting arrest and operating a vehicle under the influence of alcohol, and a rape charge in Virginia in 1993 that was later dismissed, was somehow hired last month not only for the football job, but also a security-officer job at the high school.

The people involved in the hiring process – ostensibly, the school’s athletics director, Jake Peeling, WHS principal Bryan Stamm, Assistant Superintendent Ryan Barber and Superintendent Jeff Cassell – all need to be held to account.

Because Bell, nothing personal against him, but he should never have been hired by Waynesboro Public Schools in the first place.

I want to assume that Bell, a Waynesboro native who played two games in the NFL in 1999, and has what we were told in a press release is a 14-year coaching resume in semi-pro football and as a volunteer assistant at a high school in Illinois, has turned his life around since the 1993 rape charge, the criminal convictions in 2009 and 2010, and the drug charges from 2016 that were later dismissed.

But, seriously, should a person with that background be employed in a school setting?

When the parent who reached out to us to inform us on Friday morning of Bell’s questionable background, which we then were able to independently verify, I wanted to assume that, somehow, some way, it was simply a matter of, none of this came up in the background check that the school system ran on Bell as it considered his suitability for the football and security jobs.

Turns out, no, the school officials knew.

Barber, the assistant superintendent who heads up the human resources office at Waynesboro Public Schools, told us in an email on Friday that “(a)s part of our employment process, searches of the FBI database, Virginia State Police database, and central registry for sex offenders are completed for all employees. Currently, the school division does not know of crimes that would constitute a legal barrier to employment.”

This comes across as a legalistic answer – that the school system isn’t aware of crimes on Bell’s record that would “constitute a legal barrier to employment.”

Barber doubled down on the legalistic approach with a line in his email to us noting that Bell is “employed in a public school division in Iowa,” implying that, hey, another school division did a background check on Bell, hired him and continues to employ him, so, this isn’t just us.

At the absolute very least, the school system, since it was aware of Bell’s criminal record, should have been up front about the issues from Bell’s past in its announcement of his hire.

Instead, what we got from Waynesboro Public Schools was a glowing press release highlighting what was termed “a comprehensive selection process” that led to the determination that “Bell emerged as the ideal candidate to lead our football program into the future.”

The press release reported that Cassell, the superintendent, “expressed his confidence in Coach Bell’s ability to uphold the high standards set by his predecessors, emphasizing Coach Bell’s strategic vision for fostering relationships, setting lofty expectations, and building upon the foundation established by the former coach, Brandon Jarvis.”

Jarvis stepped down from the WHS football job earlier this year after going 7-30 in his four seasons at the school, with the program winning just one game total in his final two seasons.

The release quoted Peeling, the athletics director, saying Bell is “someone I think can inspire our athletes to greatness, instill discipline, and foster a culture of teamwork and resilience. He is not just a football coach, but someone who possesses the ability to cultivate character, both on and off the field,” and noted that the Waynesboro School Board “eagerly anticipates Coach Bell’s positive impact on our school division, enhancing the overall educational experience for students and instilling a culture of excellence throughout the community.”

Knowing what we know now, this is a bit much, and again, I say that wanting to assume that Bell is a good guy who shouldn’t be defined by several incidents from his past.

But honestly, there’s a reason that the most recent coaching gigs on his resume are a volunteer assistant position at a high school that ended in 2018 and a coordinator position for a now-defunct semi-pro football team.

I’m not sure that there’s a pro football team that would hire a coach with the record that we’ve seen here with Shonn Bell, and a pro team wouldn’t have to address concerns about having a guy with two criminal convictions and two other serious charges, including a rape charge, that were later dropped, working with kids.

Bottom line here: the decision by WHS administration and the Waynesboro Public Schools central office to hire Shonn Bell for the football and security-officer jobs was a colossal mistake.

All involved in the hiring process need to be held to account, and that account could come down to some or all involved losing their jobs.

That, to me, is just how egregious this mistake, made by a group of people who should individually and collectively know better, is, and needs to be treated.