Boy's return to school postponed

A freshman charged with assaulting his teammates on a bus has not returned to Glacier High School but is taking classes elsewhere in the school district.

Kalispell Public Schools Superintendent Darlene Schottle said Monday that Logan Jones, 15, is in one of the district’s “alternative settings.”

“Given the extent of the media coverage in this case, we decided it was in all the students’ best interest” for Jones to attend classes outside Glacier High School, Schottle said. “It was a mutually agreed-upon decision.”

Jones had been due to return to classes Monday following an expulsion by the school board.

The expulsion followed the district’s investigation into an alleged assault on a freshman football bus returning from a game in Missoula.

According to documents in a criminal filing from the Flathead County Attorney’s Office, several boys were pulled to the back of the bus and assaulted in various ways.

Jones and another alleged assailant, 15-year-old Charles Victor Calobeer, have been charged with misdemeanor assault, and they and four others were suspended after the Sept. 12 incident.

On Oct. 11, the board of trustees expelled Jones for the remainder of the quarter, which ended Friday.

That vote followed a recommendation from Schottle that Jones be expelled until the end of the second quarter, not for the entire year, as previously reported by the Inter Lake. Trustees considered that recommendation in light of the information presented during the Oct. 11 hearing.

“In this case, after hearing the investigative facts [and] listening to the input from all the witnesses and statements from parents, the trustees felt they should modify that decision to the end of the first quarter with the inclusion of a behavior plan,” Schottle said in an email Monday to the Inter Lake.

Parents of three alleged assault victims last week requested a temporary restraining order in an attempt to keep Jones out of school. District Court Judge David Ortley denied the request Friday.

In his ruling, Ortley said Jones could return to class at least until a Nov. 14 hearing to determine whether a preliminary injunction should be issued.

Jones will remain in the alternative school until that time, Schottle said.

“We will make a further decision at that point,” she said, adding that the decision will depend on the hearing’s outcome.

“If the judge were to say Logan has the right to return to Glacier, we will meet with Logan’s parents to determine where and when the re-entry plan will occur. We will also be working with the parents of the victims to do a positive re-entry for everyone concerned,” she said.

“If Logan were not able to return [to Glacier], then we will need to decide what his educational setting would be. ... A lot of this is in the judge’s hands.”