Alexander v. Reeves

90 So. 3d 1273, 2012 WL 2384165, 2012 Miss. App. LEXIS 402
CourtCourt of Appeals of Mississippi
DecidedJune 26, 2012
DocketNo. 2010-CC-01992-COA
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 90 So. 3d 1273 (Alexander v. Reeves) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Mississippi primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Alexander v. Reeves, 90 So. 3d 1273, 2012 WL 2384165, 2012 Miss. App. LEXIS 402 (Mich. Ct. App. 2012).

Opinion

BARNES, J., for the Court:

¶ 1. Garry Alexander was terminated from his position as a health and physical education teacher at Hazlehurst Middle School. After hearings were conducted regarding his termination, James Reeves, the conservator for the Hazlehurst School District, upheld the decision on January 12, 2010. Alexander submitted an appeal to the Chancery Court of Copiah County, which affirmed the decision on September 29, 2010. On appeal, we find no error and affirm.

SUMMARY OF FACTS

¶ 2. Alexander was hired on June 25, 2005, to teach at the Hazlehurst School District’s middle school. In February 2009, Ken Acton, the principal for grades K through 8, recommended that Alexander be terminated from his position. The basis for the termination was neglect of duty, specifically his failure to supervise his classroom adequately and the failure to report an incident to the administrator regarding an assault on a student by other students. On February 17, 2009, Stanley Blackmon, the interim conservator for the school district, notified Alexander of his termination, effective February 20, 2009. Alexander requested, and was granted, a hearing. Shortly thereafter, James Reeves replaced Blackmon as conservator for the school district.

¶ 3. A hearing was conducted over the following dates: April 22, 2009, June 26, 2009, and December 2, 2009. Dorian Turner was the hearing officer. At the hearing, testimony was presented that Alexander had not been actively involved in his teaching duties, nor was he properly supervising his students. Acton testified that he had met with Alexander several times to discuss proper classroom supervi[1276]*1276sion and had written a letter outlining these discussions. Acton stated: “The biggest safety issue was the lack of supervision in Coach Alexander’s room.” The four or five times Acton visited Alexander’s classroom, Alexander was “sitting each time at the desk basically doing nothing,” and the students were gathered in the hall or standing around the classroom. Although Acton directed the students back into the classroom, the students quickly resumed their previous activities. Acton also noted that he never received lesson plans from Alexander.

¶ 4. At the request of Blackmon and Acton, the assistant principal, Brendsha Roby, visited Alexander’s classroom on January 14 and January 16, 2009. On her first visit, Roby saw students running around the room, talking loudly. Alexander was seated at the desk grading papers, with students gathered around him, including one student who was copying answers down from the answer key. Roby instructed Alexander to stop grading papers and start class, and he passed out a worksheet to the class and returned to his seat. On the second visit, Roby saw the same thing: students around the classroom, talking in groups; Alexander grading papers at his desk and providing no instruction. Again, Roby told Alexander to give the students something to do. Alexander then began reading to the class from a binder. Her visits were documented by observation notes. Roby stated there were other times she saw Alexander teach, but the majority of times he was seated at the desk and “no instruction was going on whatsoever.” At the final hearing on December 2, 2009, Roby again testified, stating that she was present when Acton gave Alexander an improvement plan and that she observed Alexander at the direction of Blackmon and Acton. Roby stated that she did observations of other teachers and that some of them were later terminated. She again testified about her two written observations of Alexander and his classroom.

¶ 5. Patsy Livingston, an evaluator for the Mississippi Department of Education (MDE), testified that Alexander was a person of “high concern” and was known to have classroom difficulty. Livingston described Alexander’s classroom as disorderly, stating that it was often difficult to determine if Alexander was even in the classroom, as students were out of their seats and gathered around the room, thereby obstructing her view of Alexander’s desk. She said it was not unusual to find Alexander with his head on the desk and arms outstretched. Livingston acknowledged that other teachers had problems with classroom management but submitted that “nothing comes close” to the problems she saw in Alexander’s classroom. Livingston filled out a MDE “Teacher Performance Standards Monitoring Document,” giving Alexander “unsatisfactory” ratings in almost every category. Additionally, Debbie Childers, another MDE evaluator, wrote a letter to Acton dated February 11, 2009, expressing her concern about safety in Alexander’s classroom. Although she did not testify, Child-ers’s letter stated that she and other team members in classrooms across the hall from Alexander were often disturbed by noise coming from Alexander’s classroom. On six to eight separate occasions, they had to go across to Alexander’s class to investigate. On one of those occasions, Alexander told Childers, “Some of them are not my students. I can’t keep these kids in my room. They won’t sit down.”

¶ 6. Then, on February 12, 2009, an incident occurred on the playground involving [1277]*1277the assault of a young female student who was supposed to be under Alexander’s supervision. Roby noticed the female child with a scratch on her face getting on a school bus. Roby stopped the school bus and called the nurse to treat the child’s injury. It was alleged that the fourth-grade girl had been assaulted on the playground where “boys were throwing the girls down and doing inappropriate things to them.” Acton and Roby questioned and obtained written statements from each of the students involved. The boys responsible were suspended. Although Alexander was not questioned, Acton concluded that the incident resulted from Alexander’s inadequate supervision. Acton testified that Alexander never reported the incident nor submitted any explanation about what happened. Joe Allen Mack Sr., the other teacher who allegedly was assigned to assist Alexander with supervision, testified that there were many assignment schedules and that he normally supervised the school’s gym, not the playground. Mack said he “spent very, very little time on the playground during the school year.” Mack was never asked about the incident but stated that he would have reported it if he had been involved or known about it.

¶ 7. Eileen Milner, a teacher mentor for the MDE, made an impromptu visit to Alexander’s classroom on February 17, 2009. Milner testified that she and another teacher were talking when they were interrupted by loud noise from Alexander’s classroom. When she entered the classroom, she saw students standing up, shouting, and some were even braiding each other’s hair. Alexander was reading a newspaper, and he stated to Milner that “the kids didn’t want to learn and he wasn’t going to try.” In a letter written to Acton on February 18, 2009, Milner stated: “There had not been one minute of instruction occurring during this class period.”

¶8. On the second day of the hearing, Dr. Samuel Magee, a former bureau director for MDE, testified on behalf of Alexander. Dr. Magee’s responses were based merely on the facts presented to him, as he had never worked with the Hazlehurst School District. Dr. Magee testified about teacher improvement plans and stated that “[fjailure to be specific in telling an employee what the expectations are would not be grounds for dismissal.” Dr.

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Related

Robey v. Cleveland School District
138 So. 3d 230 (Court of Appeals of Mississippi, 2014)

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Bluebook (online)
90 So. 3d 1273, 2012 WL 2384165, 2012 Miss. App. LEXIS 402, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/alexander-v-reeves-missctapp-2012.