Topic: Is having a Bible in the classroom a Mount Vernon Teacher's right?

[mountvernon1805]

No I'm not saying Freshwater is being paid.  I'm saying because Freshwater wasn't in the union, he wasn't protected under the union contract to be placed on administrative leave.  Freshwater isn't being paid because he was fired.  He's in the middle of appealing that.  Because he is not in the union, he is not getting the full benefits of paid leave. 


To sum up:  When you are fired, just or unjust, you don't get paid.  He could apply for unemployment.  Or why don't his christian brothers sell some more halo t-shirts?

I hope I don’t sound especially disagreeable, but…

Freshwater has not been fired. He is also not “appealing” the resolution by the school board.

Ohio revised code 3319.16 is the relevant law on this. What the board did one year ago was to approve a resolution titled “Intent to Consider the Termination of the Teaching Contract(s) of John Freshwater.”

Legally, the hearing is not an appeal—that is something he can do if the board does vote to fire him.

See http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/3319.16

[seabiscuit]

Unpaid leave?   Freshwater isn't part of the union, he can't be placed on unpaid leave as that belongs to the union.  When you're fired you're fired, when you're placed on administrative leave you get paid for doing nothing.  That's what happened with Haschak.
His wife being added to the suit, oh well..  small potatoes. 
And if anyone from the Team Freshwater says "read the transcripts" one more time, I'm going to start firing back "Read the rules of being a teacher in the state of Ohio." 
I'm sure there's a line like "Thou shall not injure a child."  or "Thou shall keep thy kooky thoughts in thy kooky head."  But I'm paraphrasing a bit.

Are you saying that Freshwater is being paid?

He may not being paid but he is still receiving medical insurance benefits paid for by the District.   While those Freshwater supporters out there keep "tallying up" the cost of the trial, I'd like to know how much the district has paid to maintain his insurance.

It's time for Mr. Freshwater to move on.  He's trying to milk a dry cow when he could have moved on and gained employment elsewhere.   The longer he keeps this up, the less employable he will become.  Yes, his wife is affected by HIS actions.   My prediction is that he will never hold a teaching job again in his lifetime.  He's made darn sure of that by his continued actions which are having a negative impact on his future employability.   He's not been forthright with the truth since this whole situation began.

[geeksneedlovin2]

Mv1805 - I like you. You seem to know what you're talking about and you query as opposed to becoming hysterical.

My point is - suing for slander is gonna be hard.

The moment that he declared himself the spokesperson for the movement of whatever sort of religious rights group he's doing by having rallies, doing interviews on the t.v. radio and whatever else would pay him attention, he became a public figure. The man has his own (and edits his own - quite frequently) wikipedia page. He put it up himself.

He started all of this by misrepresenting the cause of this investigation - and if you go back and read, you'll see that most of the members here were in support of him when we thought it was because he had a bible on his desk.

Then the truth came out, and it polarized the town.

If anyone has a slander/libel case, it's the boy - who was subjected to public humiliation in the form of billboards and signs reading "Keep the bible - lose the kid" and the persistent demands that he expose himself to the public at large so Mr. Freshwater could face his accuser.

[mountvernon1805]

Mv1805 - I like you. You seem to know what you're talking about and you query as opposed to becoming hysterical.

My point is - suing for slander is gonna be hard.

The moment that he declared himself the spokesperson for the movement of whatever sort of religious rights group he's doing by having rallies, doing interviews on the t.v. radio and whatever else would pay him attention, he became a public figure. The man has his own (and edits his own - quite frequently) wikipedia page. He put it up himself.

He started all of this by misrepresenting the cause of this investigation - and if you go back and read, you'll see that most of the members here were in support of him when we thought it was because he had a bible on his desk.

Then the truth came out, and it polarized the town.

If anyone has a slander/libel case, it's the boy - who was subjected to public humiliation in the form of billboards and signs reading "Keep the bible - lose the kid" and the persistent demands that he expose himself to the public at large so Mr. Freshwater could face his accuser.

“The man has his own (and edits his own - quite frequently) wikipedia page. He put it up himself.”

I’ll have to admit I was surprised to read that. From some things that have been stated in the hearing, I wouldn’t have taken Freshwater as being someone who would attempt to create or edit Wikipedia pages.
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Freshwater

(When Freshwater was asked in the hearing about a video of him on YouTube, his reply indicated he didn’t even know what that was. He said something about not having YouTube at home. One of the computer people from the middle school testified to working with Freshwater once on researching something online and that he didn’t think Freshwater was very web savvy.)

I took a look at the revision history on the Wikipedia page, it shows a user by the name of “We66er” as creating it.

Geeks—I take it from you comment that you have probably been involved editing the Wikipedia page. Did We66er state that he was John Freshwater?

As far as I can tell, the following is the first version of the Wikipedia page on Freshwater:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_Freshwater&oldid=225510297

[wtfreak]

It appears the hearing will never continue. According to a Christian radio show Mr Hamilton plans on appealing Judge Eysters decision. Never ending saga......

http://www.home.wrfd.com/WRFDInsiderPage.htm

Interview on July 10th.

[mountvernon1805]

It appears the hearing will never continue. According to a Christian radio show Mr Hamilton plans on appealing Judge Eysters decision. Never ending saga......

http://www.home.wrfd.com/WRFDInsiderPage.htm

Interview on July 10th.

"Never" in this case probably means the hearing won't resume until the year 2010.

[ClockStopper]

 

It appears the hearing will never continue. According to a Christian radio show Mr Hamilton plans on appealing Judge Eysters decision. Never ending saga......

http://www.home.wrfd.com/WRFDInsiderPage.htm

Interview on July 10th.

For those interested, a commenter on Panda's Thumb has posted a transcript of the whole two-hour interview.

[phred]

It appears the hearing will never continue. According to a Christian radio show Mr Hamilton plans on appealing Judge Eysters decision. Never ending saga......

http://www.home.wrfd.com/WRFDInsiderPage.htm

Interview on July 10th.

For those interested, a commenter on Panda's Thumb has posted a transcript of the whole two-hour interview.

              Thanks, Clockstopper.

[seabiscuit]

I hope I don’t sound especially disagreeable, but…

Freshwater has not been fired. He is also not “appealing” the resolution by the school board.

You might want to tell Mr. F that he has not been fired because this is what he said on WRFD:

BB (Bob Burney) Okay, the hearings have been going on since October, and this is you appealing the firing, correct?

JF (John Freshwater) Yes.

http://www.geocities.com/marion_delgado/Freshwater_Burney_ALL.txt

[seabiscuit]

Today's Update:

Well, today was an interesting day at the hearing. All I can say back at the Freshwater supporters is:

Moooo, Moooooo, Moooooooo to R. Kelly Hamilton for milking the taxpayers.

Today's hearing was cancelled because according to statute, Mr. Freshwater doesn't have to have hearings scheduled during the school's summer vacation.

According to the referee, R. Kelly Hamilton sent him an email on Tuesday (not sure what time of the day) but the referee was unable to deal with it because of the constraints of his private practice. So this morning, Hamilton, the referee and Millstone met in quarters to discuss the email.

Now let me ask this. Mr. Hamilton agreed to this date previously but then at the last minute decides he wants to pull the card, "it's in the statute that we don't have to do this during the summer" and throws out an email on Tuesday. Obviously, this was a tactic on his part or he would have never agreed to the hearing dates in the first place.

I found it interesting that there were only very few of the Freshwater supporters at the hearing and John Freshwater was not their either so it was obvious that "something was up" and they all knew about it in advance so didn't show up. Interestingly, the witness was there ready to testify but I believe that was part of the tactic as well. How much did this cost the taxpayers?

I'd say this little stall tactic is probably cost us several thousand dollars!

For all the accusations that Mr. Freshwater's posse throws out about what the "other side does", they have been equally guilty of the same things (i.e. forcing names to be disclosed, using stall tactics which cost the taxpayer's unnecessarily, milking the taxpayers).

So, here's back at you, Mr. Brayton:

"Brayton said the board’s attorney is “milking the situation for all it’s worth” and has found a “cash cow” in the Mount Vernon school district."
http://www.mountvernonnews.com/local/09/06/16/citizens-square-off-with-mv-school-board

It looks to me like what's "good for the goose is good for the gander".

So Mr. R. Kelly Hamilton, "moooo, moooo, moooo, mooo, mooooo, moooooo, moooo,.................."

[davidsdaughter]

Thanks, seabiscuit. What a joke.   

[seabiscuit]

Yes, it is a joke!  I'm copying a post from Panda's thumb below that was posted on Knox Pages.  It is an excellent summary of what appears to be going on:

Freshwater Update: A last-minute postponement

The hearing on the termination of employment of Mt. Vernon Middle School science teacher John Freshwater was scheduled to resume today, July 24. However, after an hour-long conference this morning among the attorneys and referee, the hearing did not resume and will not resume until sometime on or after September 10, 2009. It seems that the Ohio Revised Code provides that in such a hearing, the subject of the hearing, in this case Freshwater, can elect to not have hearing days scheduled when the schools are not in session, and through his attorney, R. Kelly Hamilton, that choice was made today. In interviews after the aborted hearing Hamilton made it clear that it was his decision as Freshwater’s attorney, not Freshwater’s.

Hamilton said he intends to file a writ of mandamus with the Ohio Supreme Court to compel the Board to issue subpoenas for two Board of Education members, Jody Goetzman and Ian Watson, to testify. He had previously requested that they be subpoenaed, but the Board of Education (the issuing body for subpoenas for the hearing) quashed the subpoenas and the Knox County Court of Common Pleas declined to enforce the (non-existent because they were quashed) subpoenas. See here for that story.

A writ of mandamus is a high priority item for the State Supreme Court – it goes to the head of the queue on the Court’s docket – but the Court is on summer recess now so it’s hard to know when the Court will rule on Hamilton’s motion, which is not yet filed.

More below the fold.

It’s of some interest that Hamilton informed the hearing referee of his intention to delay the hearing on Tuesday of this week, but it was not acted on until this morning after a bunch of attorneys, a prospective witness, and a (very small) gallery of spectators and media had assembled in the hearing room this morning. That it was a last-minute affair is consistent with Hamilton’s apparent strategy to delay, delay, and delay some more in order to bring pressure on the Board of Education to settle on Freshwater’s terms. Hamilton mentioned his intention to appeal the Common Pleas Court’s ruling two weeks ago on July 11, 2009, in a radio interview. So there was no need to bring all these attorneys to Mt. Vernon this morning only to announce that Freshwater would choose to postpone it until September.

In the radio interview linked above Don Matolyak, Freshwater’s pastor, complained about the cost of the hearing to the school district and the hours that Freshwater’s attorney has put in, explictly coupling the latter with comments about Freshwater’s terms for a settlement. In my view, Freshwater and his attorney have been a primary cause of that cost. Just this morning five attorneys spent billable hours because Hamilton delayed the request to postpone the hearing until the last minute.

In comments after the postponement, David Millstone, the Board of Education’s attorney, said that he wouldn’t speculate on Hamilton’s motives for requesting the postponement, but that the Board was eager to conclude the hearing expeditiously and regretted the delay. He said that calling the Board members to testify was inappropriate because they have no first-hand knowledge of the matters that are the subject of the hearing, Freshwater’s behavior in a variety of school contexts. He said also that the Board members will have to make a decision on the referee’s recommendation. They initiated the process that will lead (sometime this decade, I hope!) to a recommendation from the referee and will then have to act on the recommendation. However, they were not themselves parties to or observers of the acts that led to the initiation of termination proceedings and hence their testimony is inappropriate.

However, Freshwater (and/or Hamilton) has a conspiracy theory to the effect that his 2003 effort to introduce Jonathan Wells’ crap into the school science curriculum put a target on him, “branded” him, in his own words in the interview linked above. Apparently someone – the Board, the administration, someone – has held a grudge against him for that, and the termination proceedings six years later are the result of that grudge. It’s of some interest that there are only two people in authority in the school during his termination proceedings who were also in their positions during the 2003 incident. They are Lynda Weston, who was Director of Teaching and Learning from 2000 to 2008, when she retired, and Dr. Margie Bennett, an administrator at the Mt. Vernon Nazarene University and the only Board member during the 2003 incident who is still on the Board now. So if Freshwater is right and administrators and Board members have been conspiring since 2003 to get rid of him, it’s Weston and Bennett who must be the culprits. I don’t think John has thought this through very carefully. Bennett in particular has taken significant pressure from her co-religionists in this matter both in 2003 and now, and I admire her ability to think about her responsibilities to the schools in spite of that pressure. She has done a good job for the schools for years.

http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2009/07/freshwater-upda-1.html#more

[phred]

         



                    Thanks, Seabiscuit.   Appreciated.
                   
                    Just a couple of thoughts:

                    1. Am not certain as to why that section of code
                        exists.   Would seem that it should be deleted.

                    2. I am very disappointed in the hearing officer -
                        the referee.  He should have known the law.

                    3. This horrendous delay tactic by Hamilton and
                        Mr. F., I should think, would work against them.

                        If anything, it further convinces the Board the
                        here is an individual that should not be around
                        children.  If Mr. F. gets everything that he wants,
                        after all this and because of all this, then it would
                        seem that he would be on a free ride forever
                        and pure hxxx to live with....... not a good outcome.

                   
                     
 

 
                         

[seabiscuit]

         



                    Thanks, Seabiscuit.   Appreciated.
                   
                    Just a couple of thoughts:

                    1. Am not certain as to why that section of code
                        exists.   Would seem that it should be deleted.

                    2. I am very disappointed in the hearing officer -
                        the referee.  He should have known the law.

                    3. This horrendous delay tactic by Hamilton and
                        Mr. F., I should think, would work against them.

                        If anything, it further convinces the Board the
                        here is an individual that should not be around
                        children.  If Mr. F. gets everything that he wants,
                        after all this and because of all this, then it would
                        seem that he would be on a free ride forever
                        and pure hxxx to live with....... not a good outcome.

                   
                     
 

 
                         

I couldn't agree more!

[Imagine]

I was in the Kenyon Bookstore on Saturday and noticed a book entitled, Freshwater Ecology.


Anyone else think it's a funny title?