Friday, January 18, 2013
A thank-you to readers
Four years ago AccountabilityInTheMedia.com was launched to respond to inaccuracies in the media’s coverage of the John Freshwater and Mount Vernon Board of Education controversy.
During the intervening years, I’ve striven to provide alternative news coverage of the ongoing story.
To all of my readers, thank you for your interest in this project.
I’ve had the opportunity to meet some of you. I appreciate the encouragement and thanks that you have offered.
Recently, I’ve obtained a job that requires moving out of the country. This change combined with pursuing other writing projects means that I will no longer be providing in-depth coverage of the Freshwater controversy.
I will, however, like many of you, continue to follow the story as the case continues its way through the court system.
Sincerely,
Sam Stickle
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
MVCS superintendent to retire in June
During Monday’s meeting, the Mount Vernon Board of Education approved the retirement of Steve Short, superintendent of schools, effective June 30, 2013.
In a Jan. 11 letter to the board, Short cited changes in the state retirement system as influencing his decision to retire this year:
Dear Members of the Board of Education,
This is a community that is special to me. We have great staffs, students and administrators. It has been a pleasure to work in this District for 29 of my 31 years in education.
The change of the State Teachers’ Retirement System benefit packages have impacted my decision on when to retire. I will be retiring effective at the end of the day on June 30, 2013.
Thank you for your support and encouragement.
Respectfully,
Stephen J. ShortAccording to a Mount Vernon News article, Short’s current salary is $122,000 per year. His retirement will come a year before his contract was set to expire.
Short became superintendent in January 2008. Prior to that, he served a brief period as interim superintendent. He also served in other positions with the district.
The board’s 2009, 2010 and 2011 written evaluations of Short’s performance as superintendent show mostly positive remarks and ratings.
A notable exception had to do with personnel management. In the 2010 performance review, four out of five board members rated Short as needing improvement in the category of maintaining “high, clear and fair standards of performance for all personnel.”
One board member commented in the review: “I believe Steve, as a person, wants to be fair and consistent. However, the system for which he is responsible lacks consistency, thoroughness, and timeliness.”
The review cited the “handling of John Freshwater and recent administrators’ performance” as “evidence of weakness in this area.”
Short’s retirement was first announced by the district in a Dec. 20 press release. Both the News and KnoxPages.com ran the press release as a news story that same day.
In the press release, Dr. Margie Bennett, president of the board, expressed her appreciation for Short’s years of service with the district:
“We are deeply saddened by Mr. Short’s decision to retire. He has always been a strong proponent of this community and deeply cares about our students and employees. I have the greatest respect for Mr. Short; his decisions evidence wisdom and compassion. He will be sorely missed.”
Additional information:
Press release: Mount Vernon City Schools Superintendent Steve Short to Retire (PDF)
Jan. 11, 2013 letter from Short to board (PDF)
2009 performance evaluation of Short (PDF)
2010 performance evaluation of Short (PDF)
2011 performance evaluation of Short (PDF)
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Ohio Supreme Court denies school board motion
The Mount Vernon Board of Education lost a last-ditch effort
to keep significant portions of John Freshwater’s appeal from being heard by
the Ohio Supreme Court.
The court on Wednesday denied the board’s “motion to strike propositions of law 1 & 2, appendix pages 49 & 55-56,
and supplement pages 103-116 from [Freshwater’s] merit brief.”
The decision by the court means that all of the issues presented
in the merit brief will be considered, the text of the First Amendment will
remain in the merit brief and the newly introduced evidence, discrediting a
board witness, will be considered.
Additional
information
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Freshwater responds to school board’s arguments
John Freshwater, through his attorney R. Kelly Hamilton,
filed his reply brief with the Ohio Supreme Court on Tuesday. The brief is the
final step before oral arguments are presented in February 2013 regarding
Freshwater’s claim that he was wrongfully terminated from his job teaching at
Mount Vernon City Schools.
(See here for a copy of the brief.)
The Mount Vernon Board of Education fired Freshwater in January 2011 from his position teaching eighth-grade science. He had been
employed by the school since 1987.
The board’s resolution firing Freshwater provided two
categories of reasons for the firing: The first involved Freshwater’s teaching
methodology which the board characterized as religious. The second was about
“religious articles” in his classroom.
Freshwater’s brief takes the position that this “is a case
of first impression, and no known precedent provides a useful framework for its
analysis.”
The key aspects distinguishing this case from others are
that Freshwater’s actual teaching methods were within the scope approved by the
board’s own policies and administrative guidelines, and the items in
Freshwater’s classroom were permitted elsewhere in the school.
“Freshwater has never, at any time,” the brief says, “refused
to comply with any clear directive of the Board or administrators as to how he
should teach his class, what topics could be discussed in the classroom, or
what items could be displayed, and he has not challenged the Board's authority
to give these orders. This fact, and the correspondingly limited, defensive
First Amendment protection Freshwater claims, distinguishes this case from the
host of ‘teacher speech’ cases cited by the Board.”
Although the board attempted to support its censorship of
Freshwater’s classroom based upon the argument that it had the authority to
control Freshwater’s speech, the brief says the censorship the school engaged
in was ad hoc and circumvented the board’s own polices:
“Freshwater does not now dispute nor has he ever denied the
Board's authority to control its curriculum and classroom decor through
duly-enacted policies, even-handedly applied. However, Freshwater asserts that
the weight of First Amendment jurisprudence forbids the school's ad hoc
departure from governing policies and guidelines where it is undertaken to
eliminate discussion of viewpoints it disfavors or to sterilize the school of
words, pictures, or ideas that have a tangential association to religion.”
The brief also says,“[T]he Board's position ignores entirely
what was, perhaps, the most specific directive provided to guide Freshwater's
teaching methodology: the Academic Content Standards for Eighth Grade Science.
As Freshwater has consistently maintained, his teaching methodology was
purposefully and properly designed to fulfill his Board-given mandate to enable
students to ‘Explain why it is important to examine data objectively and not
let bias affect observations.’ In fact,
school officials admitted that materials used by Freshwater were properly
tailored to this standard.”
The brief concludes with the following statement:
“In terminating Freshwater, the Board has gone far astray
from foundational First Amendment principles. Freshwater does not claim a
general First Amendment right to determine school curriculum, to discuss
whatever he likes in the classroom setting, or even to decorate his classroom
free from Board directives. Rather, Freshwater asks this Court to rule that a
public school teacher retains at least this modicum of academic freedom and
protection from religious hostility: that school officials may not terminate
him for using teaching methods and materials or for possessing items that
comply with school policies and practices but are censored due to their
particular viewpoint on an otherwise approved topic, or due to their consistency
with the presumed religious beliefs of the teacher in question.”
Freshwater is seeking monetary damages and reinstatement to
his position teaching eighth-grade science.
Note: Internal citations
were omitted from the quotes from the brief.
Additional
information:
See the articles in
the archive for additional coverage of the Freshwater controversy.
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Press release: Rutherford attorneys file final brief with the Ohio Supreme Court in case of teacher fired for urging students to think critically about evolution
The following press release was provided today by The Rutherford Institute:
MOUNT VERNON, Ohio—Attorneys for the Rutherford Institute have filed a final reply brief in the case of science teacher John Freshwater, which arose after the Mount Vernon City School District’s Board of Education terminated his employment in January 2011. The Ohio Supreme Court has agreed to The Rutherford Institute’s request to hear the case, and the case will proceed to oral arguments in February 2013. Rutherford Institute attorneys argue that the School District violated Freshwater’s academic freedom rights—and those of his students-- by firing him for encouraging students to think critically about the school’s science curriculum, particularly as it relates to evolution theories. The Institute argues that where a teacher’s speech is in compliance with all Board policies and directly relates to the prescribed curriculum, the school should not be permitted to terminate the teacher’s employment as a means of censoring a particular academic viewpoint from the classroom.
The Rutherford Institute’s reply brief to the Ohio Supreme Court is available at www.rutherford.org.
“Academic freedom was once the bedrock of American education. That is no longer the state of affairs, as this case makes clear,” stated John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute. “What we need today are more teachers and school administrators who understand that young people don’t need to be indoctrinated. Rather, they need to be taught how to think for themselves.”
In June 2008, the Mount Vernon City School District Board of Education voted to suspend John Freshwater, a Christian with a 20-year teaching career at Mount Vernon Middle School, citing concerns about his conduct and teaching materials, particularly as they related to the teaching of evolution. Earlier that year, school officials reportedly ordered Freshwater, who had served as the faculty appointed facilitator, monitor, and supervisor of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes student group for 16 of the 20 years that he taught at Mount Vernon, to remove “all religious items” from his classroom, including a Ten Commandments poster displayed on the door of his classroom, posters with Bible verses, and his personal Bible which he kept on his desk. Freshwater agreed to remove all items except for his Bible. Showing their support for Freshwater, students even organized a rally in his honor. They also wore t-shirts with crosses painted on them to school and carried Bibles to class. School officials were seemingly unswayed by the outpouring of support for Freshwater. In fact, despite the fact that the Board’s own policy states that because religious traditions vary in their treatment of science, teachers should give unbiased instruction so that students may evaluate it “in accordance with their own religious tenets,” school officials suspended and eventually fired Freshwater, allegedly for criticizing evolution and using unapproved materials to facilitate classroom discussion of origins of life theories. Freshwater appealed the termination in state court, asserting that the school’s actions violated his rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and constituted hostility toward religion. A Common Pleas judge upheld the School Board’s decision, as did the Fifth District Court of Appeals, without analyzing these constitutional claims. In appealing to the Ohio Supreme Court, Institute attorneys argued that the Board through its actions violated the First Amendment academic freedom rights of both Freshwater and his students. The Board attempted to have the Ohio Supreme Court strike the First Amendment claims from the lawsuit, but was unsuccessful.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Was the 2012 MV school board oath legal?
When the Mount Vernon Board of Education met for its
organizational meeting in January 2012, it was missing something very important:
A copy of the oath of office.
As even Chief Justice John Roberts could tell you, it’s
probably better to have a copy of the oath in front of you than to try to wing
it.
Nonetheless, Superintendent Steve Short decided to wing it.
Or, as he put it, “We’re making this up as we go.”
The 2012 oath of
office
Here’s what happened at the opening of the meeting:
Dr. Margie Bennett:
Are you going to give us the oath of office?
Steve Short: I
don’t have it.
MB: We may have
to wait. … Because we won’t have a quorum.
SS: We need to.
Go ahead, and I’ll give it if that’s OK.
MB: OK
SS: We’re making
this up as we go.
MB: Is it legal,
then?
SS: Well, as the
treasurer is not here, and I don’t anticipate her getting here until close to
7:30, I can go ahead and ask the question; what do you guys think, would you
rather wait—
MB: Are you going
to do us together, or do you want one at a time? You probably wouldn’t say the
same thing three times.
SS: Let’s all do
it together. How’s that? Let’s go over here. And let’s put the left hand on the
Bible; raise the right hand. ‘I swear to do the duties of a board member of the
Mount Vernon City Schools.’
MB, Cheryle Feasel
and Jody Goetzman: I do.
SS: I hereupon
decree that you are a board member of the Mount Vernon City Schools. Thank you.
(See here for a video clip from the meeting.)
The oath as reported
in the official record
Here’s what was recorded in the minutes of that meeting:
“Do you solemly (sic) swear that you will support the
Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Ohio;
and that you will faithfully and impartially discharge your duties as a member
of the Board of Education of the Mount Vernon City School District, Knox
County, Ohio, to the best of your ability, and accordance with the laws now in
effect and hereinafter to be enacted, during your continuance in said office,
and until your successor is elected and qualified?”
For you math folks, the oath reported in the minutes showed
a 418.75% increase in word count over the actual oath administered.
The board subsequently approved the minutes of the meeting.
During research for this article,
AccountabilityInTheMedia.com submitted a public records request for copies of
the relevant minutes.
Due to several tell-tale shadow lines around a group of
signatures on the minutes of the organizational meeting, AccountabilityInTheMedia.com
requested to examine the original at the school’s district office.
The examination of the original document showed that the
signatures had been physically cut-and-pasted onto the document.
(The Mount Vernon
City Schools occasionally uses cut-and-paste signatures, such as those shown in
this photo.)
“The signatures are authentic, as you saw,” Short told
AccountabilityInTheMedia.com in an email. “To place the document in the minutes
book it had to be reduced. The Board members
signed the oath and those signatures were placed in the minutes book after the
original was signed. It was simply a
process that allowed the oath to be printed in the minutes book.”
Research by AccountabilityInTheMedia.com did not find anything
in Ohio law that specified that the oath was required to be signed or that
signing the oath would substitute for a properly administered oath.
Ohio law and board bylaw
As noted earlier, Bennett raised the following question at
the organizational meeting: “Is it legal, then?”
Both Ohio Revised Code 3313.10 ("Oath of office of
member") and board Bylaw 0142.1 (“Oath”) require that the oath be taken
before entering into the duties of the office:
O.R.C. 3313.10:
Before entering upon the duties of his office each person elected or appointed a member of a board of education shall take an oath to support the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of this state and that he will perform faithfully the duties of his office. Such oath may be administered by the treasurer or any member of the board.
Board Bylaw 0142.1:
Before entering upon the duties of a member of the Board, each elected or appointed member shall make the following oath, which may be administered by the Treasurer, or any member of the Board:
I, __________________, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support The Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Ohio; and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge my duties as a member of the Board of the Mount Vernon City School District, Knox County, Ohio, to the best of my ability, and in accordance with the laws in effect during my term of office until my successor is chosen and qualified.
Both O.R.C. 3313.10 and board Bylaw 0142.1 include explicit
reference to supporting the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution
of Ohio.
The oath administered by Short did not include any such explicit
reference: “I swear to do the duties of a board member of the Mount Vernon City
Schools.”
Although someone could attempt to argue that supporting the
Constitution is implied through the words “the duties,” Ohio law makes a
distinction between the wording and the content of the oath.
O.R.C. 3.21 (“Form of oath”) says, “Subject to any section
of the Revised Code that prescribes the form of an oath, a person may be sworn
in any form the person deems binding on the person’s conscience.”
However, O.R.C 3.23 (“Contents of oath of office”) says, in
its relevant part, “The oath of office of every other officer, deputy, or clerk
shall be to support the constitution of the United States and the constitution
of this state, and faithfully to discharge the duties of the office.”
The oath administered by Short closely matches the wording
of the second half of the required content of the oath: “[F]aithfully to discharge
the duties of the office.”
The flexibility allowed in the form or wording of the oath
would conceivably allow the second half of the oath’s content to be worded as,
say, “I’ll never let you down.” That flexibility in the form of the oath,
however, does not negate that both the Constitution of the United States and
the Constitution of Ohio are included under the required content.
Of possible relevance to the impact of an incorrectly
administered oath are O.R.C. 3.01 (“Continuation in office until successor elected
or appointed and qualified”) and O.R.C 3.22 (“Oath of office”).
O.R.C. 3.01 says, “A person holding an office of public
trust shall continue therein until his successor is elected or appointed and
qualified, unless otherwise provided in the constitution or laws of this
state.”
Two out of the three people given the oath in January of
this year had been re-elected to the position. Assuming they had been given a
valid oath previously, O.R.C. 3.01 would seem to allow them to continue in
office.
O.R.C 3.22 says, in part, “The failure to take such oath
shall not affect his liability or the liability of his sureties.”
AccountabilityInTheMedia.com has requested comment from the
Ohio Department of Education regarding the legality of the oath administered by
Short.
Additional
information
The signed minutes of the Feb. 13, 2012 MVBOE regular meeting
UPDATE 10-22-2012:
John Charlton, a spokesperson for the Ohio Department of
Education, declined to comment on whether the wording used by Short complied
with Ohio law.
Charlton did comment on whether Short was qualified to
administer the oath: “The superintendent is not qualified to administer the
oath, unless the superintendent also is a notary public.”
According to research done by a person from the Knox County
Clerk of Courts Office, no one by the name of “Stephen Short” is listed as a
notary public in Ohio.
Short told AccountabilityInTheMedia.com in an email this
afternoon that he is not a notary:
“My administration of the oath was purely ceremonial for the
public meeting, I am not a notary. I
gave them a verbal representation of the oath.
Our Treasurer fulfilled the requirements of giving the oath that night
when she presented the incoming board members the oath and had them sign
it. The minutes reflect the actual oath
given by the Treasurer which she had the incoming board members execute.”
AccountabilityInTheMedia.com has requested comment from Judy
Stahl-Reynolds, the school’s treasurer, regarding whether she administered the
oath of office.
(See here for part two of emails to and from AccountabilityInTheMedia.com regarding the oath of office.)
UPDATE 10-24-2012:
Stahl-Reynolds said that she officially administered the oath of office by way of having Bennett, Feasel and Goetzman sign a copy of the oath:
UPDATE 10-24-2012:
Stahl-Reynolds said that she officially administered the oath of office by way of having Bennett, Feasel and Goetzman sign a copy of the oath:
The Oath of Office was officially administered to the newly elected/re-elected Board members by me on January 10, 2012. As you know, Mr. Short administered a modified version of the Oath of Office verbally because I was not at the meeting in time. After I arrived, all three members in question signed, witnessed by me, the Oath of Office stating the following:
“Do you solemnly swear that you will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Ohio, and that you will faithfully and impartially discharge your duties as a member of the Board of Education of the Mount Vernon City School District, Knox County, Ohio, to the best of your ability, and in accordance with the laws now in effect and hereinafter to be enacted during your continuance in said office, and until your successor is elected and qualified.”
Based on the information supplied by the school, what
remains of the document signed is the signatures pasted onto the minutes of the
organizational meeting.
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