A US school district is under fire after allegedly bringing students to a restaurant with a stripper pole lounge and supposedly threatening legal action against the trustee who exposed the scandal.
The incident reportedly took place on November 16 2022 in Michigan, when sixth-grade band and orchestra students from Hart Middle School in Rochester Hills visited Detroit hotspot Niki’s Pizza following a performance by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.
The students were allowed to go for the field trip after the school gave the parents a letter notice of the trip, only for parents to later find out that their kids were taken to a restaurant attached to a stripper club, with a photo of the kids dancing on the poles making the rounds on social media.
Also located in the Greektown neighborhood, Niki’s Pizza operates in conjunction with Niki’s Lounge, a risqué nightclub.
“The students were moved from Niki’s Pizza due to a lack of available space to the Lounge where they tried out some pole dancing,” Rochester Community Schools (RCS) trustee and parent Andrew Weaver (pictured below) alleged in a Jan. 6 Facebook post that has now gone viral.
In addition to a photo of the children playing on the poles, Weaver’s post, which was shared with followers of his blog Finding the Right Answer, includes images of Niki’s adult lounge scene and drinks menu.
Weaver’s post quickly made the rounds on social media, where it was shared on Twitter by @LibsofTikTok. Rochester Community Schools (RCS) subsequently blocked the controversial Twitter account as the story picked up news traction.
In a statement to the Daily Caller, RCS executive director of strategic communication Lori Grein denied that the district took students “to an eatery attached to a ‘strip club.’”
“Proposed field trips are evaluated by a curriculum team and require a parental/guardian permission slip,” she continued.
“The safety and security of our students, staff and school community is always our priority.”
Niki’s owner Agatha Kefallinos told the outlet that the school would have known about the seating arrangements when it made its reservation.
“Typically when we have a group of over 100 people, we give them the option of going to our second floor, which is operated as a club on Saturday nights but is closed during the day,” she explained.
“We’ve been doing this for 20 years. We’ve had dozens of school groups, and there was never an issue.”
Kefallinos also said the metal poles are not stripper poles, but simply “part of the decorations.”
Despite the school district’s denial of any wrongdoing, Weaver, who ran for trusteeship on a platform of greater transparency between schools and parents, doubled down on his stance that RCS failed to adequately address the situation.
“As I have stated previously and a key foundation of my promise to the public, there needs to be more focus on the actions that reflect poorly on our District,” he wrote on his trustee Facebook profile on Jan. 8.
[ruby_related heading=”More Read” total=5 layout=1]“Many community members feel that there is too much time and energy spent trying to stop people from knowing about the actions that reflect poorly on the District while not enough time or energy is spent on actually doing anything about the issue(s) at hand.”
Weaver also accused the district of attempting to intimidate him, writing on Wednesday Jan. 11 that Superintendent Robert Shaner sent a letter to officials on Dec. 21 encouraging the board to “take immediate action to ensure Mr. Weaver’s compliance with protocol” while threatening to seek “legal redress.”
This is not Weaver’s first issue with RCS. As a parent, he claims to have received two cease-and-desist letters from the district over social media posts criticizing pandemic policies and remote learning.
He also says Superintendent Robert Shaner filed a police report against him for making “false allegations and insults” during an exchange over masks at a school board meeting.
The district meanwhile denied any threats against Weaver.
“On Dec. 21, 2022, Dr. Shaner provided a letter to the Board of Education. The correspondence reinforced the need for a new board member to comply with board bylaws and the code of cooperation so that the district’s focus can remain on the education of all RCS students,” a statement the school made to Fox News Digital said
“The letter did not include any threats.”
