Two Silverton teachers give tough grades, get demoted, win grievance

SILVERTON – A fight between high school teachers and administrators that began over low grades and plagiarism in a college-level writing course has ended with a finding against the school district and a settlement agreement.

Former Silverton High School teachers Ben Hynes-Stone and Travis Woodside won’t get money from the Silver Falls School District. Rather, the settlement agreement calls for the district to recall letters of reprimand it sent to the state agency that credentials teachers, and to issue them neutral letters of recommendation. 

 An arbitrator ruled the district was “engaging in a pattern of retaliation and reprisal” against the pair when they filed grievances during the 2017-18 school year.

“Having all of this legally documented with evidence from district administrators’ emails and their own testimony is a tremendous win for teachers and unions across the United States,” Hynes-Stone said.

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Grading

Hynes-Stone and Woodside came to the Silver Falls School District in 2014 and 2015, respectively. They began the 2017-18 school year as co-teachers of an advanced writing course for “highly motivated and capable students” wanting to earn college credit, according to their complaint filed with Oregon’s Employment Relation Board last winter.

Not long after classes began, students and parents began to complain to administrators about the low grades awarded in the class, according to public documents. The teachers maintained their academic expectations fit the class description as a college-level course, but tensions over grading mounted as the weeks passed.

Woodside also complained that the high school principal and vice principals pressured him to blunt his response to plagiarism by students who were children of administrators or other parents “well-connected” in the community. In one case, one-third of a student’s paper appeared to have been written by a parent, he said.

St. John Bosco:Class of 2019 High School graduates

As the fall semester drew to a close, Principal Wade Lockett opened an investigation into the pair’s grading practices that pulled in district administrators and union representation and resulted in letters of reprimand being sent to the Oregon Teacher and Standards Practices Commission.

With the union, Hynes-Stone and Woodside filed a grievance, asking that the letters be rescinded.That spring, the district disciplined Hynes-Stone for raising his middle finger in a photo with a student; he responded with another grievance.

Then Lockett didn’t allow an Albany high school’s administrator interested in hiring Hynes-Stone to visit the teacher’s class, and he gave Hynes-Stone’s a poor end-of-the-year evaluation.

When administrators told both teachers they were being transferred to lower-grade schools for 2018-19, they resigned. Since then, they’ve been teaching elsewhere and awaiting the results of arbitration and the settlement processes.

Kennedy:Class of 2019 Kennedy High School graduates

Arbitration

“In this case, there were very little facts that were in dispute,” said Lisa Freily, the district’s attorney. “What was in question was why the actions happened. I don’t think anyone intended that 'because (the teachers) filed a grievance, (we’re) going to give you a penalty.' But, in some cases, intent doesn’t count.”

Administrators’ emails, a teaching evaluation, and the involuntary transfer of both teachers to lower-grade schools at year’s end combined to convince Minnesota-based arbitrator Richard J. Miller, hired jointly by the district and union, that the teachers were penalized for formally disputing the actions of their principal, Wade Lockett, and other administrators.

“(After the grievances were filed) the relationship between them changed so dramatically that it established a pattern by the school district (of) animus and intent to retaliate,” the arbitrator wrote in his 39-page decision.

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Now, in a letter signed by Supt. Andy Bellando and union president Michelle Stadeli, administrators and union leaders pledged to participate in joint training about the “appropriate roles and responsibilities for both labor and management.”

“The parties agree that, going forward, both sides will focus on building a more positive relationship and will assume a positive intent until it is demonstrated otherwise,” read the last item in the settlement agreement. “The association and district agree that there must be mutual respect for the rights and obligations of both the union and the employer, and the representatives of each organization.”

Although Hynes-Stone and Woodside are still teaching, both left the district in 2018. Hynes-Stone is now an English teacher at Central High School in Independence, and Woodside is a reading specialist, instructional coach and PE teacher at Eagle Charter School in Salem.

“For me, this decision has been very much a weight off the shoulders in my personal life,” Woodside said. “How we were treated doesn’t sit very well with me. I’m really hoping somebody out there sees this and decides this is something that needs to change.”

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