Utah State Board of Education

Friendly staff. Went there for a blood draw

The Utah State Board of Education’s licensing process is extremely frustrating. Customer service is almost impossible to reach, and when you do get someone on the phone, they are often rude and unhelpful. Email support is redundant, and they seem to get upset if you leave both an email and a voicemail. There is no transparency about ticket status or how issues are resolved. I am currently trying to get licensed, and the fingerprinting/background check system is not even pulling the correct information from the facilities that perform these services, which is completely unacceptable. The entire process needs serious improvement—right now it feels disorganized, inefficient, and discouraging for anyone trying to navigate it.

In March of 2023 I filed a complaint against my son’s school (Canyon View High, Cedar City) with the OCR department. Daniel Kowalski is the gentleman who took mine and our son’s statements pertaining to the incident that took place at the school. This complaint was regarding direct racism, and harassment by another student to our son, and the negligence in the schools response to the incident. I would periodically check in with Mr. Kowalski to see if there was any updates on the investigation. He always told me the same thing, that these investigations take time, and we would be notified of an outcome when the investigation is complete. Fast forward 3 years. We have never been notified of the outcome, no word at all from Daniel Kowalski, or the department of education regarding our complaint. When I recently reached out again asking where the investigation is now (after 3 long years) I was told that my son is now 18, we had 20 days for our son to sign a consent form, and email Mr. Kowalski giving permission for me to continue on with this complaint on his behalf. If we did not comply within those 20 days, the investigation/complaint would be dropped. Of course we did as asked, and yet again when I ask Mr. Kowalski for an estimated date of when we could receive a response, I am told the same thing I’ve been told for 3 years. Due to the racism and bullying problem in the schools here in cedar city, and the deeply flawed school systems, we were forced to pull our son out of public schools, and put him into online schooling. Unfortunately, our son was cheated out of a normal high school experience, and had to graduate online. No changes have been made in this district because no one is willing to listen and do something about it. Children who are different in anyway, especially non-white students are not able to receive a quality education in a safe environment because the schools, the district, and the board of education turn a blind eye, and do nothing to help improve these hostile environments. Teen suicides are at an all time high, every person who continues to ignore these seriously flawed issues within our public schools have the blood from these kids who commit suicide on their hands. You’re no better than the bullies themselves. You have failed to protect these children. It’s your job to implement better programs and protocols to handle bullying situations, in order to protect these kids, and prevent tragedies such as suicide. I want the public to know what our personal situation details. These people don’t care. So many other parents have had to pull their children out of the schools here for the same exact reasons. There’s a lawsuit against iron county school district now, because they are still not being proactive in making positive changes to their extremely flawed policies, and it’s at our kids expense. I want you to know that I will not go away. If you refuse to do your job, I will make it my mission to find a way to force you to.