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Haywood
County Schools
900 East Main Street
Brownsville, TN 38012
Phone: 731-772-9613
Fax: 731-772-3275
Email:
haywood@k12tn.net. |
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School board meets in special session December
15
The Haywood County Board of Education met in special session Monday night,
December 15, and reinstated two East Side Elementary teachers who were dismissed
last April. Both teachers, Amelia Lovett Morrison and Kellie Davis Mask, were
dismissed by former Director of Schools George Chapman for violations of state
testing security procedures involving the TCAP tests.
The situation developed last April when Amelia Lovett Morrison looked ahead in
the TCAP testing book, then talked about it with Kellie Davis Mask. Both
teachers stated that they did not know that what they were doing was in
violation of the testing procedures, and admitted that they had not read the
instructions about the tests that were available online.
Once the incident was brought to the attention of former Director Chapman, he
followed standard procedure by reporting the incident to the state.
Haywood Schools Interim Director Doris Battle said, “According to the Tennessee
State Department of Education, once any information concerning a possible breach
of testing security, has taken place, the school and system, must initiate an
immediate and thorough investigation into the circumstances of the event. The
State board of Education has adopted guidance in handling potential breach of
testing security concerns. The system administrators followed the procedure to
comply with the Tennessee Test Security Law.”
Chapman also hired attorney Jason Bergeron to represent the school system during
the investigation, and he was present Monday night to present the system’s case.
The state appointed an administrative law judge to hear the case on August 20-21
at the central office in Brownsville. The results of the state hearing upheld
the school’s decision to dismiss Morrison but reversed the decision to dismiss
Mask.
The board met Monday night to address the teachers’ request for reinstatement.
They were each allowed 15 minutes to present their cases. After the teachers
spoke and a discussion among the board members, the vote was unanimous to
reinstate Amelia Lovett Morrison and Kellie Davis Mask to their positions at
East Side and give them back pay. Both teachers will be back in the school
system when school starts in January.
Haywood County School Board Chairman Harold Garrett said, “Action will be taken
to insure that our testing security training is bought up to par in order to
protect the integrity of the test as well as the teachers.”
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