A security guard stopped an active-duty Army lieutenant colonel from entering his daughter's Detroit-area high school Tuesday, saying those in military uniform weren't permitted inside.
The incident at Rochester Adams High School involving Lt. Col. Sherwood Baker, which was reported by Fox 2 Detroit and other local media outlets, triggered online outrage and a rapid response from the school district's superintendent, a former Marine officer.
"I learned at The Basic School that I'm responsible for everything my people do and don't do, and I'm responsible for this and I'll correct it," said Robert Shafer, superintendent for Rochester Community Schools who left the Marine Corps as a first lieutenant and later made captain in the Reserve. "It's not the kind of behavior that we'd endorse as a school district. It certainly isn't a policy, and it's regrettable and we're going to fix it."
New to the school district, Baker was visiting the school to help his daughter transfer into a different math class, said Baker's wife, Rachel Ferhadson, in a Thursday phone interview.
Baker, whose command did not respond to interview requests, told WJR-AM's Frank Beckmann Show that four security personnel met him at the door, and "I wasn't allowed access to the building because I was in uniform."
Baker told Beckmann that the security person said the denial was based on the possibility that "some special ed students in the building, they could go crazy if they saw me in uniform."
He was given phone numbers to some of the school offices, Ferhadson said — he could call about the class, or he could change his clothes and come back.
Ferhadson, who was in the car waiting for her husband, said they called from the car; a school official came out to the car and escorted them into the building.
People began apologizing and promising to check into the school's policy, Ferhadson said, but Baker wasn't interested, saying "I just want to help my daughter, I just want to get her squared away and I want to go to work," she recalled.
Ferhadson contacted WJR later that day. Shafer said he received word on the incident from the high school about the same time the story hit the airwaves.
"I have been on deployment, I do have two campaign ribbons, and I understand the sacrifices that go along with that," Shafer said. "I completely understand the heightened sensitivity to this."
The security team at the school is made up of contracted employees, he said, but he would not discuss disciplinary or contractual changes until there was "a full investigation of how this manifested."
He did reach out to Baker, who has deployed three times apiece to Iraq and Afghanistan, and to his wife to convey a simple message.
"The superintendent was shocked and appalled and disgusted," Ferhadson said. "He didn't expect that to come out of his school district."
Shafer said he also planned to or had already spoken with, other prominent military leaders in the community as well as Army Recruiting Command. Ferhadson said her family has received support from online well-wishers as well as local parents without military affiliation.
"Last night was Curriculum Night ... the parents get sort of a syllabus for the year," she said, adding that "lots of parents had Army T-shirts on, camouflage pants" in a show of support for Baker, who attended.
"There were a handful of people who nudged each other and looked at him and said, 'That's who that is!' — [they] were definitely being very supportive in their own quiet way, and I think that was amazing."
The family has been appreciative of officials' reaction in the wake of the incident.
"It's a really good school where somebody made a really bad decision," Ferhadson said.
Kevin Lilley is the features editor of Military Times.
