The Arkansas Board of Education has revoked the teaching license of one teacher and levied lesser penalties against six others - including two who were principals - for violating the state’s Code of Ethics for Arkansas Educators.
In each case, the state Education Board upheld the recommendations Monday for action recommended by the Arkansas Professional Licensure Standards Board, which investigated the complaints made against the educators by parents or school district officials.
The state Education Board permanently revoked the license of Greg McGill, who was found to have exchanged sexually suggestive or explicit e-mails and text messages with a female 12th-grade student at Strong-Huttig High School while he was employed there in 2009. His e-mail to the student included photos of a nudemale.
The state ethics code requires teachers to maintain a professional relationship with each student inside and outside the classroom.
The state board also:
Fined Toni Louise Sayers-Barnett, who was an elementary school principal in the Strong-Huttig School District, $100 and suspended her teaching license for five years for creating false bids from bogus businesses so a friend’s business would be the successful bidder on multiple construction jobs at the school. She also was found to have done billing for her family-owned company on a school computer during school time.
Fined $100 and suspended for one year and put on probation for another year the license for Joe Bob Wise. He admitted that, as a teacher in 2009 at the Pulaski County Special School District’s Learning Academy, he yelled at a student who heckled him, used inappropriate language and responded in kind to a student’s use of fighting words. There was no physical contact between the teacher and student because another teacher intervened. Wise was voluntarily unemployed last year and sought counseling, according to agency documents.
Fined $100 and suspended the license for one year of Cyndi Lynnette Najar, who as a teacher at Bentonville High School in 2010 allowed a special-needs student to sit outside in a courtyard for several hours on a warm, sunny August day without food, water or sunscreen because the student refused to get up on her own and come into class. Najarstayed with the student, who has Down’s Syndrome and is essentially nonverbal, but the student suffered dehydration and sunburn.
Fined $75 and put on probation for three years the license of Steven Robert Garrison, who as a teacher in the Harrisburg School District last year engaged in an inappropriate relationship with a student by e-mailing and text-messaging the student on matters that did not have anything to do with high school education. Garrison resigned from the Harrisburg district.
Issued a written reprimand and a $50 fine to Brenda Allen who as principal at Little Rock’s J.A. Fair High School in 2009 did not compel a teacher on her staff to grade papers or post grades on EdLine, an electronic reporting system, in violation of school policy. Allen is no longer the school’s principal.
Issued a written reprimand and a $50 fine to Sandra Blasengame, who as a teacher last year in the Star City School District text messaged inappropriate information about an eighth-grade student’s behavior to other teachers, and then allowed another student to use her phone, which resulted in the message being forwarded to other students.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 22 on 02/20/2011