Sylvania shaken by dog attack

Several parents of students at a Sylvania grade school called for clearer communication Monday night and urged the district to build a fence between the school and the adjacent home of a dog that attacked a parent outside the building last week.

Speakers at the Sylvania Board of Education meeting also sought reassurance that Sylvania schools administrators will ensure the dog’s owner follows through on a promise made Monday to surrender the Rottweiler dog to Lucas County Canine Care and Control on Tuesday morning after initially refusing to do so.

“This was about student safety, which warrants more transparency,” Rebecca Shope, the mother of a Whiteford Elementary School fifth grader and a local lawyer, told the board after chastising the use of the term “medical emergency” to describe what had happened in initial communications from district administration.

“Moving forward, we’re going to try to do better,” Julie Hoffman, the school board’s president, said after commending the parents for their advocacy for their children while explaining that school administrators may have parsed their written words conservatively because of “privacy issues” and “rules we have to follow.”

According to a report prepared by Lucas County Canine Care and Control, Reem Kashen, 36, was bitten multiple times in the attack outside Whiteford Elementary School on the morning of Dec. 8, while her 3-year-old son was knocked down but unhurt.

The dog warden’s report said the dog, named Kynyk, would be declared dangerous and that owner Nikai Roberts would be charged with failure to control the dog as well as failure to vaccinate that dog and another he owns for rabies. As of Monday, no case appeared in the Sylvania Municipal Court docket.

Sylvania schools sent a letter to Whiteford families Sunday describing precautionary measures it would implement through Thursday, which is the last day of classes before the Christmas break, although Superintendent Veronica Motley said during the board meeting that those measures would be canceled once the dog is known to have been surrendered.

Those measures include directing all student drop-offs and pickups to occur in the car line, holding all recess indoors, moving all staff away from the school property line during arrival and dismissal, and allowing staff to carry mace or similar “personal safety devices” while outside the building.

Mr. Roberts could not immediately be reached for comment.

“This outcome is thanks to the advocacy of our parents and community members,” Ms. Motley wrote. “Early in the investigation last week, we were given the impression that there was nothing we could do regarding the canine. The voices of our community were heard, and I am relieved that the owner has chosen to do the right thing to help keep our students and families safe.

“Although this type of attack is rare, this incident has prompted a review of our safety and security protocols,” the superintendent wrote.

A composite video posted to Facebook, appearing to be drawn from school surveillance footage, showed a black dog dashing toward the woman and child near a school door, with the dog then knocking the woman over and latching onto a leg while she defended the child.

The woman fought the dog for nearly a minute and then another person, identified in the LC4 report as the dog owner’s wife, also struggled with the animal before finally freeing the attack victim.

The child was not hurt, but the school district said the mother needed emergency medical care afterward.

A Sylvania Township police report, meanwhile, said Nikai Roberts’ wife, Bolanle Almaroof, told officers she had opened a door into her home’s sunroom to retrieve leashes for walking the dogs in her yard, and Kynyk ran into that room and then out an exterior door that had inadvertently been left open.

According to the LC4 report, Ms. Kashen, 36, had just dropped off two older sons at the school and was walking with the 3-year-old when the dog charged them. She shielded the toddler but was bitten on the right calf and both feet.

And the police report said that while trying to pry Kynyk off Ms. Kashen, Ms. Almaroof suffered a hand bite for which she refused medical treatment, the police report said, and was “still visibly shaken up” when interviewed by an officer.

Caroline Reilly, a mother of three Whiteford students, told the school board Monday night that Ms. Motley’s initial description of the incident concealed the ongoing safety threat the dog posed to the children, including its lack of rabies vaccination. And speaker Erin Marsh said that in the absence of information, children in the locked-down school came to fear the threat might be someone with a gun.

The superintendent on Monday evening thanked the Whiteford community for its support and advocacy. She said she initially believed that the dog warden’s office could seize and impound dogs from private homes and, having been corrected about that, came to believe no action could be taken.

Doris Vincent, the mother of a first-grader and kindergartner and president of the Whiteford Parent Organization, said parents wished some of the security measures implemented Monday had been taken sooner and wanted the district to pursue erecting a barrier.

“If there had been a fence, this could have been avoided,” she said.

Ms. Motley promised to attend a January parents’ group meeting to further discuss the incident and the district’s response.

A dangerous-dog declaration, which is subject to appeal by the dog’s owner, triggers statutory requirements for the dog’s confinement or restraint, for dangerous-dog registration in addition to standard licensing, for microchipping and spaying or neutering the dog, and for posting a premises warning sign.

Both of Mr. Roberts’ dogs, which included an 11-year-old male Rottweiler along with the 3-year-old dog allegedly involved in the attack, had valid licenses including 2026 renewals, the LC4 report said.

Contact David Patch at

dpatch@theblade.com