Good morning, class. In today's lesson we will discuss what constitutes justice in our schools today.
Case Study No. 1: After an Eagan school principal made a 6-year-old unclog a toilet the kid had stuffed with paper towels, the school board voted unanimously to fire the principal, Doug Steele. The board also sent him a letter that said, "The form of discipline you chose was degrading, humiliating and demonstrated a lack of interpersonal sensitivity."
Last week, an arbitrator argued that Steele acted in a "calm" manner in disciplining the child. The toilet contained only clean water, and Steele's record was generally positive. Steele should get a 15-day suspension instead of being fired, the arbitrator said. Steele will become a "principal at large," which sounds like a public school Gulag for the Seymour Skinners of the world. It's a good bet that his career has literally ended up in the toilet.
Case No. 2: New Prague school custodian Jarrod Novotny was fired for leaving something on a teacher's desk, and it wasn't an apple. Novotny did something many of us have probably considered in similar circumstances. After he saw a teacher's dog poop on the school lawn, he picked it up in a vinyl glove and left it on the teacher's desk as a not-so-subtle reminder that if you pack it in, you should pack it out. He soon regretted it, however, and called superiors to confess.
But school officials again acted swiftly and fired Novotny. And once again, an arbitrator this week decided the punishment was too harsh, and instead suspended him for 15 days. No doubt, someone tapped his personnel file and said, "This will be part of your permanent record."
Case No. 3: Back in April, the Minneapolis School District suspended Tim Cadotte, principal of Burroughs Community School, without pay for 10 days for "conduct unbecoming a principal, insubordination and inefficiency in the performance of duties as a principal."
The suspension came shortly after Cadotte had words with a school board member who recklessly accused the school and Cadotte of racism. Cadotte's attorney has said the exchange was unrelated to the punishment. So far, all we know is that Cadotte may have committed the sin of letting checks leave the building without two signatures. The horror.
Finally, Case No. 4: Last week we learned that Alex Merritt settled with the Anoka-Hennepin School District for $25,000 after two teachers teased him repeatedly because they thought he was gay. Merritt, who said he is not gay, reported that Diane Cleveland and Walter Filson joked that Merritt's "fence swings both ways," and that he enjoyed wearing women's clothes, among other things. To repeat, they were teachers who taunted him, not students.
