Re-teaching John Freshwater’s Ace Students

The following testimonies took place on 10/30/08—this article relies on the official hearing transcript for details of the testimonies.

At least one high school teacher claimed that she had to “re-teach” students that came to her from the eighth grade science class of John Freshwater. During the 2007-2008 school year, Freshwater’s students passed the Ohio Achievement Test at the highest rate for the school—meeting and exceeding state standards.

An investigative report commissioned by the school stated that multiple high school teachers complained of having to “re-teach” Freshwater’s students—but the report did not give the names of the teachers allegedly making that claim.

Freshwater is on unpaid administrative leave pending an ongoing hearing into his performance as a teacher. (Following his refusal to remove a Bible off his desk, allegations emerged that a student was burned during a science demonstration and that he taught creationism in class.)

High School Principal Kathy Kasler

The report by H.R. On Call (HROC) included the statement that the high school principal, Kathy Kasler, received complaints about Freshwater from the teachers. “The High School Principal said that Mr. Freshwater has caused issues for her high school teachers in having to reeducate students from his teachings,” the report stated.

Kasler never sat in on any of Freshwater’s classes. She acknowledged that she has no firsthand knowledge about the allegations against Freshwater.

Freshwater’s students performed well on the OAT, Kasler said.

The complaints Kasler said she received were from four teachers including ninth grade teacher Bonnie Schutte. Kasler said that Schutte was the only person to bring “surveys” from the students.

The surveys were conducted at the beginning of the year and covered the topics of what the students “dislike about science”, “like about science” and “what they want to be in future.” Kasler said that Schutte had been bringing those surveys to her for all of the eight years they had known each other.

The HROC report quoted from some of the surveys. The comments included: “Evolution, and why that isn’t probable and how it is.” “The Big bang theory was the most important concept I learned in science.” “Studying evolution out of the book because it is all opinion. Not proven facts.”

Freshwater taught about 100 students per year—Schutte would bring surveys from about 20 students, Kasler said. Of the three or four times that Freshwater’s name would be mentioned in one year’s batch of surveys, the comments students would put down were “I liked when he taught, he showed us how to view (sic), that we should not believe everything,” Kasler said.

Some of the surveys did not have a student name on them, but of the ones that did, Kasler said she checked and found out who their teacher from the eighth grade had been. She said the names checked out as being former students of Freshwater.

Attorney for Freshwater, R. Kelly Hamilton, asked Kasler if she knew what Schutte may have said about Freshwater in her classroom. Kasler was not aware of Schutte saying anything about Freshwater, but she had not asked Schutte about that.

Kasler said she had passed the complaints on to the principal of the middle school.

When Kasler had a child in the eighth grade, she said she requested to not have her child in Freshwater’s class:

“[Because of the subject of creationism] my husband had told us if anything like that gets pulled and my child has him, I will in a heartbeat call the ACLU, and I don't care where you work. So in order to keep peace in my family and life simpler, I made a request.”

Schutte said that she probably would have made the same request even without her husband’s prompting.

Ninth Grade Science Teacher Bonnie Schutte

Student Surveys

Bonnie Schutte said that the surveys she had the students fill out were not intended to be scientific surveys. She acknowledged that the surveys did not isolate variables such as where the student learned the information that they wrote down.

Attorney Hamilton stated for the record that he objects to the surveys as evidence—describing them as hearsay. (It is very likely that the referee, R. Lee Shepherd, will agree. He has even declined to allow sworn affidavits from people unless they appear in person.)

Schutte said that she has never been in Freshwater’s classroom and does not know firsthand what he teaches.

During her testimony, Schutte gave conflicting information as to how long she had been conducting the surveys and turning in information about Freshwater’s students.

The first time she was asked, she said it had been for the last 19 years—she even gave names of some of the principals she made the complaints to: Ms. Kasler, John Kuntz, Blain Young and that there was another principal that she could not remember the name of.

The second time, Hamilton worded the question as “You've been focused on John Freshwater for 19 years in this regard, correct?”

“No, sir. I go about my daily teaching,” Schutte replied.

Schutte said that it would have actually been around the year 2002 that she started making her complaints to administration.

Re-teaching

The term “re-teaching” had at least two different meanings for Schutte: First, that the students already knew the material so they were re-learning it. Second, that they were disagreeing with her in class and needed to learn to accept what she was telling them.

Schutte described students that came to her from Freshwater’s class as “bored”:

“[S]ince Mr. Freshwater had one third of the students I teach, then those students think they already know about chemistry, so I have to have them, you know, kind of cool their heels a little bit while I explain to the other students what an atom is and that type of thing. They're bored. They think they know everything already. They don't know why we use the periodic table or that you don't memorize it and you don't know why we learn it. They've memorized it so they're done.”

The other problem Schutte ran into was students speaking up in class—she said that they would say things like: “that's not what Mr. Freshwater said or that's not true” , “carbon dating isn't true or isn't accurate” , “There's no evidence for Big Bang” and “The reason there are dragons in so many cultures is that people and dinosaurs lived at the same time.”

Schutte said that students can have their own opinions but that they need to learn the material.

Controversy Among Scientists

Attorney for the school board, David Millstone, asked Schutte about controversies in the scientific community over theories, to which she replied:

“I don't know that there would -- I can't think of a situation where there would be a controversy in the scientific community about a theory.”

AND

“They literally gather data, write to each other, now they can email each other and discuss everything. They get together and talk about it and they agree, okay, this is a body of evidence that's supporting all this, yeah, we're on the right track.”

Schutte acknowledged that there are some disagreements among scientists—such as disputes over the age of things. “There’s arguments as to 4.3 or 4.5, the universe 13 or 20 billion years,” Schutte said.

On the subject of evolution, Schutte said that there is “discussion” among scientists over punctuated equilibrium vs. gradualism.

Scientific Definitions

Attorney Hamilton shared with Schutte an excerpt from an “observation form” about Freshwater’s class that was filled out by former principal Jeff Kuntz:

“The lesson began with Mr. Freshwater giving three statements to his pupils. A hypothesis is an educated guess. A theory is an established fact that scientists believe to be true. To infer is to get an idea from your observation. These statements were shared one at a time from student to student around the room. Mr. Freshwater timed each activity.”

Hamilton then asked if Schutte agreed with the definitions.

On “hypothesis”: “I think by telling students a hypothesis is an educated guess, it gives them the wrong interpretation. It's not guesswork. You have to have background information before you can make a hypothesis, so you're not really guessing. But that's what most people tell -- how most people teach it.”

On “theory”: “But the thing -- theory is an established fact that scientists believe to be true. The word believe. […] The term believe I don't think should have been used, but I can see why somebody would say it that way.”

On “infer”: “[T]hat's fine.”

Schutte agreed that, based on the form, former principal Kuntz found Freshwater’s teaching on the matter to be acceptable.

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

Watching the movie Expelled, and then writing about it, was one option on an extra credit assignment given by Freshwater. Attorney Millstone asked Schutte if she was familiar with the movie and if she would consider it something that related to the science standards.

Schutte said that she had not seen the movie but had watched an interview of the movie’s producer, Ben Stein, and had read descriptions of the film. She said that it did not relate to the science standards.

The movie includes the claim that people in the education profession have lost their jobs because they expressed belief in Intelligent Design. Schutte said that claim was false. “So it wasn't because they were intelligent design people,” Schutte said. “They weren't researching. So the implication that they were fired because they're creationists isn't true. I know that's part of the movie and that's from the National Science Teachers Association.”

A search of the NSTA website (using the search term “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed”) turned up two entries—an article and a podcast. Both items relied on the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) for their information on the movie.

The mission statement on the website of the NCSE says that the organization is “dedicated to keeping evolution in the science classroom and creationism out.”

Jewish Student Finds Ten Commandments Offensive

The following testimony took place on 10/29/08—this article relies on the official hearing transcript for details of the testimony.

The student—testifying in a hearing that will determine if his former teacher keeps his job—said that the teacher kept two copies of the Ten Commandments displayed in the classroom. “I didn’t like being in that classroom and being Jewish,” James Hoeffgen said.

Hoeffgen said that there were other items in the classroom that he deemed to be “Christian” but the Ten Commandments was the only item he could name or describe.

The student—a high school senior during the time of his testimony—was called as a witness by the school board in the hearing for Mount Vernon, Ohio, eighth grade science teacher John Freshwater. The hearing began in October of 2008 and has yet to be completed.

Freshwater removed the Ten Commandments from his classroom when requested to do so, in writing, by school administration.

Hoeffgen said that the topics Freshwater covered in class included the age of things. “[W]e were taught such things such as the earth may have been around for only a few thousand years,” Hoeffgen said, “and that carbon dating was inaccurate and things like dinosaurs lived with humans and, for instance, the Loch Ness Monster existed still today.”

One of the handouts he received in class was titled “Survival of the Fakest,” Hoeffgen said. He said that handout, or another handout, contained information about faked drawings of animal embryos that originated in the 1800’s—the handout said that the drawings were still being used in textbooks.

There was an article published in the Dec2000/Jan2001 of American Spectator with the same title and that covered the same subject that Hoeffgen described. (For those that have access to OhioLink, here is the article “Survival of the Fakest” from American Spectator.)

Freshwater never used the words “Intelligent Design” or “Creationism,” Hoeffgen said.

Hoeffgen said he believed that some of the things being taught in class were based out of Christianity. He said he did pass his proficiency test for science.

John Freshwater Wanted Hearing To Be Before School Board

One year ago today, John Freshwater requested that the school board hear his case instead of taking it to a referee. “I request the hearing be a public hearing before the school board,” Freshwater wrote in a letter dated June 30, 2008.

Mount Vernon City School District Board of Education voted on June 20, 2008 to start the process of firing Freshwater. By law, Freshwater had ten days from receiving receipt of the board’s resolution to request a hearing. His attorney, R. Kelly Hamilton, said that Freshwater received the notice by certified mail “on/or about June 24.”

Ohio revised code 3319.16 states that a teacher may request the hearing to take place before the school board.

The board elected to have the hearing take place before a referee—with the board being able to make the final decision on retaining Freshwater after receiving the referee’s recommendation.

Attorney for the board, David Millstone, did not respond to a request for comment.

Freshwater spoke to the board during their meeting on August 4, 2008. In his comments to them, he responded to their choice to have the hearing before a referee. “Why not you?” Freshwater asked. “I want you, I don’t want a referee. That’s who should hear it, not a referee, not someone we don’t even know.”