School Board Votes To Give Teacher’s Accusers $121,000

Editorial

In a strange move—but perhaps one that should not come as any surprise—the Mount Vernon City School Board voted Wednesday to give the Dennis family $121,000. Had this been any other school board, you might expect that they had reached a settlement. Not so for this board.

The lawsuit will continue in spite of giving thousands of dollars—through the board’s insurance company—to the suing family. The headline in the Mount Vernon News would have you believe that the lawsuit has been settled—the News went so far as to title their article “School board resolves federal lawsuit.”

In return for the money, the Dennis family is supposed to drop as defendants: the board, superintendent and middle school principal. The lawsuit will continue but with the pretense of only including the teacher, John Freshwater.

The News quotes the board as making a statement that implies the payment to the Dennis family will help the school district focus on educating the students. “Being in the business of educating children, the board recognizes the need to remain focused on what is best for the students of this district,” the board stated, according to the News.

The payment, when it is made, will in effect help fund the family's continued lawsuit against the teacher. Does this help the district focus on educating the students? Would the students, and tax payers, been better served if the board had only agreed on a payment—if there really was a need to pay the suing family—on the condition that the lawsuit IN ITS ENTIRITY be dropped?

Read more: "Media Didn’t Tell Whole Story about 'Settlement'"

A Questionable Science: New Book Takes On Evolution

Book review.

Supporters of prohibiting evolution from being questioned in the classroom like to evade the problems with the theory by turning the debate’s focus onto creationism. Author Lisa A. Shiel takes evolutionists to task for this type of evasiveness in her new book The Evolution Conspiracy: Vol. 1 Exposing Life’s Inexplicable Origins & The Cult of Darwin.

Shiel approaches the evolution controversy from a secular viewpoint. She points out that it is not just those trying to promote creationism that have serious doubts about evolution as legitimate science.

In confronting the status quo, Shiel will undoubtedly receive rebuttals that go no deeper than name calling. Some critics will probably point to the subject matter of her previous book Backyard Bigfoot: The True Story of Stick Signs, UFOs, & the Sasquatch as reason to dismiss what she has to say. This book is not for them. Shiel has written for a lay audience that is willing to listen to the facts about the “science” of evolution.

In this book, Shiel delves into the ambiguity surrounding definitions of the scientific terms involved in the study of evolution and other disagreements in the science community. (Topics include punctuated equilibrium and gradualism.) The consensus among scientists is that evolution took place—somehow.

Scientists offer the “explanation” that evolution works by gradual change through mutations and natural selection—somehow this led a single cell over billions of years to produce humans. Try testing that in the laboratory. Shiel says that scientists have skipped over the scientific method in their hast to conclude that evolution is true.

Let’s not forget the fossil record. Darwin even recognized in his day that the absence of numerous links posed the biggest challenge to his idea. Punctuated equilibrium—which Shiel abbreviates to “punk eek”—attempts to sidestep the problem by stating that evolution occurs in occasional spurts that don’t make it into the fossil record. (Would anyone like a miracle with that explanation?)

Paleoanthropologists, for their part, sift through the fossil record looking for any evidence they can find of the missing links. Shiel says that their finds often consist of just a few bones or a partial skeleton reconstructed from bits of bones that were scattered across a wide area. As an example, Shiel points to the famous “Lucy” skeleton. Only 40% of the skeleton was recovered but it is still sometimes referred to as “almost complete.”

The 132 page book cuts through the confusion in the science community and offers readers explanations that get as close as possible to what scientists are thinking. Readers, however, will be left with one big question: Why would anyone think evolution is a fact?

The book, to be released September 1, is available for pre-order at Amazon.com.

John Freshwater Files Writ of Mandamus with Supreme Court of Ohio

The ongoing dispute over the legality of school board members quashing subpoenas, issued to fellow board members, has been taken to the Supreme Court of Ohio. On Tuesday, suspended Mount Vernon Middle School teacher John Freshwater filed a Writ of Mandamus requesting that the court order two board members to testify in an ongoing employment hearing.

The matter was previously taken before the Knox County Common Pleas Judge Otho Eyster who ruled in July that he had no jurisdiction to force board members to testify. Eyster implied in his ruling that the board had the authority to quash subpoenas but gave no explanation as to the legal reasons.

In a subsequent interview with Eyster by Mount Vernon News reporter Pamela Schehl —“Judge explains denial in Freshwater case”— the judge gave additional details. “Since the matter is an administrative hearing, the judge said, the board has the legal authority to issue and quash subpoenas,” Schehl wrote.

Neither in Eyster’s ruling or in statements credited to him in the News article did the judge cite the applicable law or judicial precedent that gives the board the authority to quash subpoenas.

The board did not seek to have a judge quash the subpoenas. The minutes of the May 4, 2009 school board meeting show that the board voted to quash the subpoenas of Margie Bennett and Ian Watson.

In addition to the disagreement over authority to quash subpoenas, the board and Freshwater disagree over who was originally subpoenaed. The “Application to compel attendance of witnesses in the employment hearing of John Freshwater” that Freshwater’s attorney, R. Kelly Hamilton, filed in June also lists Jody Goetzman as a board member who was subpoenaed.

The petition filed with the Supreme Court of Ohio includes a copy of an email allegedly sent by board attorney David Millstone to Hamilton. In the email, Millstone informs Hamilton of two subpoenas being quashed and a third one not being issued. “There is no person known as Jodi Fair to the Board and therefore no subpoena was issued,” the email states.

An affidavit by Freshwater, included with the recent petition, alleges that Goetzman’s name was included in the request for subpoenas. “On or about April 28, 2009, me and my attorney submitted another specific Request to Issue Subpoenas to the BOE’s attorney seeking to have subpoenas issued to the BOE’s Watson and Jody Goetzman to appear for testimony and produce specific documents,” Freshwater stated.

Board member Bennett is not included in the recent petition as someone being requested to appear to testify. Only Watson and Goetzman’s names are included. The board’s attorneys had raised the concern earlier that if three or more members were required to testify, and if they had to subsequently disqualify themselves, there would not be a quorum when it came time to vote on whether or not to retain Freshwater as a teacher.

As support for why Freshwater wants the two board members to appear to testify, the petition cites testimony from the hearing that the two individuals who brought the primary complaints against Freshwater, that led to an investigation, spoke with board members multiple times about the allegations.

The petition claims that by the board members refusing to testify they are depriving Freshwater of his due process rights:

“As set out hereinafter, Respondents, collectively and or individually and or in concert with one or more of each other, have refused and continue to refuse to perform mandatory statutory duties, have engaged in non-permissive action and refuse to proceed with legal process whereby Respondents thwart and deny Relator Freshwater due process of law.”

(Click here to go to the Supreme Court of Ohio website for documents in the case State of Ohio ex rel. John D. Freshwater v. Mount Vernon City School District Board of Education et al.)

For further information, see past articles on this topic:

“School Board ‘quashed’ Subpoenas in the John Freshwater Hearing.” (6-12-09)

"School Board Gives Reason for Not Complying With Subpoenas." (6-18-09)

"Subpoenas in John Freshwater Hearing -- School Board Says Judge Doesn’t Have Jurisdiction" (6-20-09)

" Judge Says He Doesn’t Have Jurisdiction " (7-9-09)

UPDATE 8/9/2009:

The portion of this article that dealt with “Rule 24(A) of the Ohio Rules of Civil Procedure” was deleted due to the probability that it was not actually being used by the board as support for being able to quash subpoenas. It was probably only cited by them as the basis to submit their reply to the original document filed at the county courthouse.

UPDATE:

See the following Mount Vernon News article regarding the resolution of this matter before the Ohio Supreme Court: “Ohio supreme court rules in school board’s favor.”

Cattywampus and Teaching Critical Thinking

I recently came across an old article from Life magazine about a teacher who sounds a lot like Mount Vernon Middle School teacher John Freshwater. The article, by David Owen, was titled “The Best Teacher I Ever Had.”

The author’s science teacher encouraged his students to use critical thinking and to be willing to question not only the textbook but also the teacher. The students even had a code word they would say aloud when they questioned the validity of something—Cattywampus.

(Click her to read the full story.)

Once Again - Letter to the Mount Vernon News

The following “letter to the editor” was submitted to the Mount Vernon News on July 30, 2009 in response to an editorial published by the News on July 28.

Editor, the News:

Once again, the Mount Vernon News editorial writers have focused on what they perceive as the time-wasting thoroughness of John Freshwater’s attorney. The July 28 “Our opinion” described Freshwater’s attorney, R. Kelly Hamilton, as using “trivial entries” in Ohio law to buy more time while he appeals to the Ohio Supreme Court regarding the subpoenas of school board members.

Why is the News more concerned about finding fault with Hamilton’s methods of representing his client than with the ways the school board and administration failed to protect Freshwater’s rights? Does the News consider the due process portion of the U.S. Constitution to be trivial?

A better use of the editorial writers’ time would be looking into the process the school used to investigate Freshwater. Was the decision of the school board to suspend Freshwater without pay valid if they didn’t follow the investigative process in the Master Contract?

The contract states that all witnesses identified by the teacher will be interviewed, written statements will be obtained from the witnesses if possible and the teacher will be given the opportunity to give a comprehensive written response to the complaint being made against him.

David Millstone, attorney for the school board, made the recommendation to the school that they use H.R. On Call to do the investigation. Considering that Millstone had worked with HROC on prior occasions, he would have been familiar with their investigative methods. Does any of the fault for the current mess the school is in rest on Millstone?

The News credited Hamilton with pulling a “magic trick” in delaying the hearing while he seeks to have several board members testify. It would seem that Millstone has pulled a magic trick of his own—in the eyes of the News’ editorial team he can do no wrong.

—Sam Stickle

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(Click here to read previous letter to the editor.)