Two Prairie Grove School District administrators took leave after reportedly showing teachers a video depicting their children as if they were killed in a school shooting.

Sheriff Reba Holmes has been placed on leave effective immediately and will retire at the end of the school year, while Middle School Principal Shayne Taylor has also been placed on leave for the remainder of the school year, according to William Dick. Prairie Grove School Board Chair. The school board held a special meeting Friday and took a roughly 10-minute break during the executive meeting, Dick said.

When the board returned to public meeting, it voted on three separate motions without discussion, Dick said. All three motions passed unanimously, and all board members were present except for Bart Orr, who attended the family event. The first request is to allow Holmes to work until he retires on June 30.

The second motion would allow Taylor to take leave through June 30 with pay from personal vacation and sick leave. Holmes and Taylor will not receive any wages while on leave, Dick said.

The third motion is to appoint Assistant Superintendent Pete Joenks as interim superintendent, effective immediately, Dick said. Joenks has been with Prairie Grove Schools since July 2018. He was previously the principal of Springdale High School. The administrator’s request for leave appears to be the result of a training video that was shown to teachers on Wednesday, but Dick said the board has yet to respond to the video. He said the board only considered previous personnel measures. Dick said he received leave requests from Holmes and Taylor on Friday morning.

Dick said he had not seen the video, but received a call Wednesday from a teacher expressing concerns about it. The board was filled with teachers and parents, and Dick said the board retreated to a separate room for the board meeting, rather than asking attendees to leave the room, which is standard procedure at board meetings. Holmes and Taylor were not present at the meeting.

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Dick declined to comment further on the staffing measures. In a recorded video of the meeting, board members present can be heard saying they should stand up for their teachers, who are “the people who raised our children.”

Middle school teacher Aubrey Crain told members of the media at the meeting that Taylor showed a video to teachers Wednesday afternoon. She said the video was in a monumental style, set to melancholic music. According to Crane, the video states, “On December 14, 2022, a shooter entered Prairie Grove Middle School. So many injured, so many killed. The casualties are as follows.” Crane said, the video Photos of the teacher’s personal children were then shown, as if they had died in a school shooting.