Attorney claims school corp breached contract and discriminated against Otwell Elementary principal
Otwell — Mark Phillips, attorney for Rick Fears, the beleaguered former principal of Otwell Elementary School, plans to file a lawsuit in Pike County against the Pike County School Corporation for breach of contract and is exploring a potential federal case for discrimination.
Phillips asserts that the Pike County School Corporation breached Mr. Fears’ contract when they voted to terminate it at a meeting Tuesday night. The termination was based on alleged offenses listed in a “findings of fact” document released publicly Wednesday.
Additionally, Phillips states Mr. Fears was discriminated against by the superintendent and the school corporation. “We believe there is a good argument and a strong basis to show that Mr. Fears has been discriminated against in violation of federal law,” Phillips said in a phone interview Thursday. “What they said in there [the findings of fact document] is not supported by the record, number one. Number two, there were other administrators that did not complete the evaluations as were required and nothing has happened to them. In fact, you are going to learn in the litigation that the superintendent chose not to do anything to at least one, if not two other administrators, who did not complete the evaluations; unlike Mr. Fears.”
The majority of the findings of fact document deals with Mr. Fears’ evaluations of teachers beginning in the 2011-2012 school year. The document states that Fears did not complete the evaluations correctly and in a timely manner. (More here)
The Boonville-based lawyer also contends that Fears did complete the evaluations but was not allowed to vet any of the items in the findings of fact document at a hearing held by the school board and administration on August 27. “The corporation attorney led me to believe the corporation would speak for two hours,” Phillips said. “But in actuality we were subjected to a six hour quasi-judicial forum. The corporation’s lawyer served as the hearing officer, for lack of a better term, and the rules of evidence didn’t apply. The board didn’t ask a single question about the allegations during the entire proceeding.”
The findings of fact document also states Fears falsified attendance records in 2010. “It is my understanding this is a common practice among administrators. Like in the cases of seniors at the high school on the last day of school. They don’t attend the last day of school. The administrators mark what they will and close the books on the school year,” Phillips stated. “In addition, if this occurred, which they haven’t shown any evidence that it did occur, it occurred prior to Rick Fears’ current contract with the school corporation.”
On top of that Phillips asserts the evidence presented by the school corporation to show Fears falsified attendance records is unsubstantiated. “They won’t find any report that Rick Fears signed, nor submitted, such as what they say was determined [in the findings of fact document],” Phillips said. “They presented a computer printout [at the August 27 hearing] that the secretary at the Otwell school had never seen before and she guessed that it might have been done by Rick Fears. That is the extent of their evidence.”
After the closed six-hour meeting on August 27, the school board met in public for a little over three minutes the evening of September 3. Just enough time to make the motion to terminate the contract and then vote on it. Phillips stated he was shocked by the decision. “I was confident that the board would recognize the absurdity of what the superintendent had alleged.”
According to Phillips, the basis of the potential discrimination lawsuit centers around the fact the school corporation treated Fears differently than the rest of the administrators.
“In the litigation, you will see that the corporation treated Rick Fears differently, and Otwell Elementary School differently, than any other administrator in the corporation, including the superintendent, and different than the other two elementary schools [Petersburg and Winslow Elementary schools] in the corporation,” Phillips said.
Phillips also alleges that the corporation singled out Rick Fears’ wife —a teacher at Pike Central High School with 30-plus years under her belt— three years ago with similar tactics.
Questions from the Dubois County Free Press to Pike County School Corporation Superintendent Suzanne Blake went unanswered as she has been advised against speaking about the allegations and termination of Mr. Fears due to the threat of litigation.
Fears has been principal of Otwell Elementary since 2007. The school attained state Four-Star School status three of the past four years and in 2011 the school was one of 304 in the nation deemed a Blue-Ribbon school by the U.S. Department of Education.
“When you have a principal who has led an exemplary educational career, who has been a partner with exemplary teachers at the only school in the Pike County School Corporation that has had the privilege of earning four-star and blue ribbon status by the Indiana Department of Education. And you see him attacked and allegations made that are just flat out untrue in an attempt to cancel his contract. And then be subjected to headlines that he has been subjected to,” Phillips said, “I can’t really imagine the humiliation and disgust that the Fears family feels at this point.”
