Campus where teacher beat up a student also adds 2 security officers

By ERICKA MELLON
HOUSTON CHRONICLE
May 27, 2010, 8:36PM

The Texas Education Agency assigned a conservator Thursday to oversee Jamie's House Charter School, where a teacher was caught on video beating up a student while a co-worker watched.

The conservator, Shirley Johnson, a veteran administrator, will have the power to overrule the charter school's board, superintendent and principal. Johnson will join a state monitor, Jill Watkins, who has been at the north Harris County campus part-time since April because of problems with the special education department.

“Our investigation found material, systemic and pervasive weaknesses in their disciplinary system, highlighted by the well publicized beating episode,” TEA spokeswoman Debbie Ratcliffe said. “But the problem is wider than that. They just don't do a good job maintaining discipline or keeping adequate reports about what occurred and what they have done.”

At the TEA's urging, the school also has hired two licensed peace officers, Ratcliffe said. The previous security system at the campus, which serves about 100 middle and high school students, many with serious emotional problems, consisted of hiring seven so-called hall monitors, who didn't need police training.

It's unclear where the hall monitors were on April 29, when an uncertified science teacher, Sheri Lynn Davis, was recorded on a student's cell phone camera kicking, slapping and dragging a 13-year-old boy across a classroom floor. The school fired Davis, 40, after the video was aired on television.

The Harris County Sheriff's Office is investigating the incident but Davis has not been charged with a crime, according to Donna Hawkins, spokeswoman for the local district attorney.

Davis has apologized and said she was protecting a student who was in the same room and was being mocked by classmates. Her lawyer has said the school's weak student disciplinary practices put Davis in a bad situation.

Another teacher at Jamie's House, Gabriel Hahn Moseley, 33, also lost his job as a result of the incident. School officials said Moseley witnessed it but did not intervene or report anything. They initially said Moseley had resigned but later said they listed him as fired at the TEA's request.

Moseley's teaching license already was under review when Jamie's House hired him. He had recently pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor charges of having marijuana on campus while working in the Houston school district.

School picking up tab

Under state law, Jamie's House has to pay for the two state appointees. The cost for each is $85 an hour, plus travel expenses. They will remain until Education Commissioner Robert Scott decides to remove them.

The school's operating budget last year was $1.3 million, according to its state report. It had 33 employees — nine of them teachers — for 100 students, officials said.

The school's top officials — superintendent and founder Ollie Hilliard and principal David Jones — will remain on the job. Jones has only been working there since late April, a few days after the beating incident.

Staff ‘very cooperative'

“Clearly the TEA did not find that students at Jamie's House were in any danger or they would have taken action before the next to last day of classes,” Jones said in a statement. “The conservator that has been appointed will be dealing with mostly administrative/paperwork issues. Jamie's House is planning to hire a consultant to assist with the implementation of policies and procedures that would address any and all purported deficiencies.”

Hilliard, who got approval from the State Board of Education in 1998 to open the charter school, at one time operated a residential treatment center for foster care children that was shut down by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services. Hilliard repeatedly has declined to comment. Her annual salary is $60,000, state records show.

“The Jamie's House staff has been very cooperative,” Ratcliffe said. “They are anxious to make sure this school is run as it should be.”

The school and Davis are being sued by Alesha Johnson, the mother of the boy, who says his teacher gave him a knot on his head.

ericka.mellon@chron.com

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7024996.html

Emphasis added by H4K Editor