Oklahoma School District Fails to Learn its Lessons About Discrimination

Photo courtesy of: http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/about.cfm

Disclaimer: The following remarks are my own and are not to be construed as coming from any source other than the URLs provided.


Mr. Joe Quigley, who with the defense support of his teachers' union, successfully proved in the Oklahoma County Court, Judge Swinton presiding, that the Oklahoma City Public School District wrongfully terminated his tenured teaching contract.

Quigley is one of Oklahoma City's leading voices in advocating for the inclusion of GLBT protective language in the District's public policy manual. Through various extra-legal actions and verbal hairsplitting the District has time and again avoided its public duty under the law to include all minority students under a non-discrimnation umbrella.

Judge Swinton ordered the District to reinstate Quigley to his former status.

However, the District voted, with two dissenting votes, to appeal Judge Swinton's order and is stopping the payment of Quigley's paycheck during this process, in direct violation of the Court's judgement.

Here are quotes from Judge Swinton's decision:

Case No. CJ-2008-4883

"In determining whether or not the preponderance burden of proof has been met by the school district, I've considered the main factors that were brought forward in the Defendant's Exhibit 1. That addressed most of the exhibits that we have been through the last couple days.

In considering the issue as to whether or not Mr. Quigley used videos improperly, it appears to me that this is one of the prime examples that the school district believes that following policy is more important than educating children. And I can't find that anything that he wished to show his students would have harmed them in any way or done anything more than help educate them in the curriculum that Mr. Quigley was assigned.

It appears that he was subjected to dispirit treatment with regard to the policy on videos and that that does not establish any of the allegations alleged against him.

With regard to failure to use PASS Skills, I have the conflicting information between observers and the video showing that the skills were listed. And all I have with regard to the end of year or end of instruction testing is that his students did well, by his testimony. No one brought me the test scores, so I don't know. I have to accept his testimony.

With regard to lesson plans, in reviewing the policy of Northwest Classen the only requirement is that they should reference the objectives in the PASS documents, not that they have to be listed by number or by specific date or attached to a video request. There's no requirement in this policy for that. So that appears to be less than objective.

With regard to the emails. It again focuses on the allegation that the district has stated that he's failed to do the things his employer asked him to do. Well, I think what teachers are asked to do is educate the children, and it appears this case is more concerned about whether or not we can fill out forms or keep track of emails or who we're sending emails to. There's no evidence that the children were neglected in his class because he was sending emails. There have been emails sent during instruction time, but no one's brought me any evidence that has caused a lack of learning in his classroom if it, in fact, happened.

With regard the zero grading policy, what a Catch-22. First Mr. Quigley's faulted for giving zeroes for lack of participation during class and then faulted for leaving them blank if work is late but they're within the five-day policy of turning it in. So I'm sure the SmartWeb is a wonderful program and I'm sure there are parents that use it, but to criticize a teacher and try to take his job away for not following a policy that he gets faulted whether he uses it or doesn't use it does not appear to be a good use of the district's time.

It appears this case could have been solved very easily if they had just changed the evaluator. If the problems had remained the same with a different evaluator that had not made up her mind, this case would have been completely different, but the school district chose not to do that.

So I believe it's obvious from the parts of this case that I have just commented on that I find that in no way has the district met their burden of proof. And I, as a parent of a child of Oklahoma City Public Schools, apologize to Mr. Quigley for the way you've been treated. And I hope in the future-----I doubt that you'll choose to stay with the Oklahoma City Public Schools, but I hope our children will have that opportunity and I wish you good luck."

The latest article about the District's action is here:
http://tinyurl.com/mnkxxe

The earlier article concerning the District's dismissal of Mr. Quigley is here:

http://tinyurl.com/m2wpty