A parent’s letter triggered an investigation at Forest High School in Ocala into a trip home from cheerleading camp.
Forest High School’s Principal Brent Carson contacted the resource officer at the school, advising that he received a letter from an anonymous cheerleading parent, according to a Marion County Sheriff’s Office incident report.
The letter highlighted three situations that occurred during the school’s varsity cheerleading trip to Panama City.
In the letter was a photo a cheerleader took of herself and posted on social media. The parent said that the cheerleader supposedly has pictures and video of herself drinking and drunk on her page.
The second situation addressed was one of the coaches pulling to the side of the road to use the bathroom. The parent validated what she heard and found a picture on Snapchat of the coach.
“Also, the coaches thought it would be a wise decision to transport an open bottle of wine in a vehicle full of underage girls,” the parent wrote in the letter.
The parent questioned why they were drinking while traveling on a school function.
“We cannot ask the students to make wise decisions when adults around them are making bad choices,” the letter stated.
The coaches each wrote up an account and stated that the bathroom break happened because they had not come across any exits during the long drive home. As soon as they got off at the first exit they saw, the gas station was already closed. The female coach decided to use the bathroom in the nearby woods while the other coach and cheerleaders remained in the van.
In response to the alcohol, one of the coaches said the girls went into her bag and saw the wine. Both coaches offered assurances in their letters that the wine was not consumed around the cheerleaders.
