DENVER – The former Manual High School principal who abruptly resigned Friday is addressing the rumors to his resignation.
Nick Dawkins was the principal at the time the school accused Weld High School of bringing a Confederate flag to one of the school’s football games and yelling racial slurs.
On Saturday, he confirmed that incident is one of the many factors for his resignation.
Sitting with Denver7 Saturday evening, he also confirmed there is an apparent hostile work environment investigation from Denver Public Schools against him.
DPS declined to comment on the investigation against Dawkins, but Denver7 has requested any information on this matter through an open records request.
When asked what this investigation was looking into, Dawkins said, “I don’t know, DPS hasn’t shared anything with me.”
Dawkins told Denver7 that a lot of things happened at the beginning of the 2017-18 school year at Manual High School.
He said the alleged Weld High School Confederate Flag incident sparked racial slurs and threats towards him. He also said there was an extreme amount of trauma in the school when there was a shooting in the school parking lot on Thanksgiving.
During the interview, Dawkins wanted to make it clear he was not forced to resign.
“I was taken aback and I was hurt,” Dawkins said. “I think I was more hurt that, given my record of service, that I was asked to not be in the building for a while.”
Dawkins said he asked on Friday what the investigation was about and was declined any information by DPS, which is why he decided to resign.
Denver7 was also sent screen shots by an anonymous source of an email Dawkins sent to faculty members at Manual High School listing off other reasons for his decision.
According to the email, and confirmed by Dawkins, another reason he resigned was because of a situation where a staff member brought marijuana inside the school for an experiment without permission.
DPS declined to comment on the situation but did send Denver7 a statement:
“In any situation where concerns are raised, the person about whom those concerns are raised has a full opportunity to respond to those concerns and present all relevant facts.”
