“Now come all parties, by and through counsel, to stipulate Plaintiffs John and Nancy Freshwater dismiss all claims contained in the First Amended Complaint with prejudice pursuant to Civ.R. 41(a)(1)(A)(ii).”
A copy of the stipulated dismissal is posted on the website of the National Center for Science Education.
UPDATE 10-22-10:
Don Matolyak, Freshwater’s pastor, provided AccountabilityInTheMedia.com with a copy of Freshwater’s statement regarding the dismissal of the lawsuit against the school board:
“I want to pass along this statement. My wife and I directly sent to the opposing attorneys the following statement by email on Wednesday, October 20, 2010. The truth is there was money offered to me several times to leave the district and stop the state hearing before Referee Shepherd could make his finding. If I took the money and left the district the opportunity for truth would never have come out and the eleven students from my 2007-2008 class would not have been able to testify about the truth. Most importantly if I took the money and left the district the Referee would have been prevented from making a decision. The Referee has heard 38 days of testimony and is the best opportunity for revealing the truth. I will await Referee R. Lee Shepherd’s decision.
“(this is the statement I made to the school board’s attorneys)
“Nancy and I prayerfully considered the settlement terms and have decided to REJECT the terms presented.
“From the beginning, my wife and I have only sought the truth. Revelations in the last few days exposed to us the strategy of those who have harmed me, a strategy designed to obscure the truth rather than seek justice and reconciliation. It has become obvious this federal platform and process will never result in the truth coming forward. Truth is not to be compromised or negotiated or hidden behind money.
“We feel confident that the hearing completed in August 2010, after 38 days of testimony before Referee R. Lee Shepherd is the best opportunity for revealing the truth we sought from the beginning. Therefore, we have decided to withdraw our federal lawsuit against all parties without any personal compensation or monetary gain as proposed, and we have instructed our attorney to file the proper paperwork. We seek no other option than to continue to patiently await the finding of Referee R. Lee Shepherd as he is the ONLY person to hear all of the testimony and most importantly see all of the students from my 2007-2008 class speak about the truth of what went on during my class.
“We have already spent our life savings and have pledged our farm to get to the truth. It is better to leave the money on the table than to take the Bible off of my desk.
“John and Nancy Freshwater”
According to Mount Vernon News reporter Pamela Schehl, school board attorney Sarah Moore said: “There was no settlement offer to accept or reject. There was no money on the table for [Freshwater] to leave there. We were baffled when we received the e-mail from him and we can't even begin to speculate why he is saying what he is saying.”
7 comments:
Why the months of silence from your blog? Admit it, it's because you simply can't defend Freshwater's actions anymore now that he's lost or losing in every possible venue.
anonatheist,
I haven’t posted anything recently due to both keeping busy with college and that there really hasn’t been much happening regarding the Freshwater matter.
I’m not sure what you mean by saying that Mr. Freshwater has “lost” or is “losing in every possible venue.” The only case that Mr. Freshwater lost was his counter suit to the Dennis’ lawsuit.
The referee has yet to make his recommendation in the state administrative hearing.
Are you finally ready to admit that Freshwater has lost? When are you going to post the decision by the referee? Or are you going to continue to avoid the truth?
Edhensley,
I do not, yet, have a copy of the referee’s recommendation.
If you wanted to teach religion you should have taught religion. How would this jerk react if someone in a class about Catholicism began to teach evolutionary theory? It has been repeatedly proven in Federal Court that Freshwater is a liar. Don't give this guy a cent, all he's doing is making sure these kids will fail biology next year.
The worst part is he's lying to these kids and he thinks he's saving their soul.
Selma DeStofy,
Thanks for commenting.
Selma DeStofy said, “Don't give this guy a cent, all he's doing is making sure these kids will fail biology next year.”
John Freshwater excelled as a science teacher.
Freshwater's closing statement brief includes reference to the Ohio Achievement Test scores from his 2007-2008 class. The following is from page 46 (PDF page 50) of the brief:
"Although Dr. Weston lacked any 'rapport' with John Freshwater she was clearly troubled, maybe even jealous, by the positive rapport Teacher Freshwater had with his students. Dr. Weston's personal motivations toward John Freshwater prevented her from respecting the validity of the 'OAT scores'(Ohio Achievement Tests) achieved by Teacher Freshwater and his students. Even though John Freshwater and his students achieved a remarkably high eighty-nine (89%) percent passage rate on the 'Evolutionary Theory' portion of the OAT, Dr. Weston's contention defied the logical basis of the OAT as she asserted,'..I couldn't make a judgment as to what John's students had and hadn't learned about evolution as part of the eighth grade curriculum'."
The following is from page 80 (PDF page 87) of the brief:
"The Ohio Achievement Test is the metric by which student and teacher performance is measured in the State of Ohio. The fact is that John Freshwater's class OAT scores not only surpass state requirements, but outpace the scores of the other Mount Vernon Middle School 8th grade science teachers, who, we note without prejudice, failed to meet the overall state requirements (See Diagram – John Freshwater EXCEEDS the state proficiency threshold and CONSISTENTLY taught the Academic Content Standards curriculum)."
(For a copy of the brief, see my article, "Freshwater's Closing Arguments: Allegations Unsubstantiated.")
http://www.accountabilityinthemedia.com/2010/09/freshwaters-closing-arguments.html
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