Immediately after voting to retain a high school teacher who had a confrontation with a student on Sept. 1, the Ignacio school board voted without discussion to put the teacher, Harris Murphy, on paid administrative leave.
Murphy, who was starting his second year as a science teacher at IHS, had challenged a recommendation from Superintendent Rocco Fuschetto that he be fired. The issue went to arbitration with local Magistrate James Casey. Casey recommended on Dec. 8 that Murphy be retained because the district’s grounds for dismissal for insubordination were not substantiated.
Board member Luke Kirk cast the only dissenting vote on the motion to place Murphy on administrative leave for an undetermined amount of time. The board met in executive session for an hour before taking the action on Dec. 10, and gave no indication of what might happen next.
In September, Fuschetto recommended the firing in connection to the confrontation Murphy had with a 15-year-old boy, “which resulted in Mr. Murphy tackling the student in the hallway. Mr. Murphy was subsequently criminally charged with misdemeanor child abuse. Mr. Murphy’s conduct violated district policies regarding teacher conduct and student discipline, the IHS Code of Conduct, and state and federal law. Mr. Murphy’s conduct constitutes insubordination, neglect of duty, and other good and just cause for dismissal.”
The boy was in Murphy’s science class and refused to remove earbuds when Murphy told him to, Fuschetto wrote. The boy pulled his sweatshirt hood up. Murphy grabbed the hood and started pulling the boy out of his seat, Fuschetto wrote. The boy tried to pull away, but Murphy kept his hold, and they ended up in the hallway where the struggle was recorded by a surveillance camera.
The boy’s pants fell down, and Murphy tackled the boy as he tried to pull his pants up, Fuschetto wrote. Murphy was placed on administrative leave after the incident.
The Ignacio Police Department told the Pine River Times this week that the misdemeanor charge was in process.
Casey’s nine-page recommendation recounted the information in Fuschetto’s firing recommendation. He focused on the hallway video and said what he saw didn’t match Fuschetto’s version. He also cited lack of follow-up by Assistant Principal Rocky Cundiff or Principal Melanie Taylor and failure to hear Murphy’s side of the story in his decision.
Casey wrote that Murphy had forced the boy to hand over his cellphone, and the confrontation started when the boy tried to take it back. Teacher Jessica Musch, seen intervening in the video, testified that it was the boy who continued to be confrontational, demanding the return of his phone, cursing at Murphy and threatening to get him fired, Casey wrote.
Casey continued, “Mr. Murphy testified that his hand was injured by S.F.’s attempt to retrieve his cellphone from him, and that in the seconds that followed, he feared that S.F. was reaching for a weapon. The teacher testified that it was only at this point that he placed his hands on the student.”
Casey said Ignacio Police Sgt. Wes Crume testified that Taylor and Cundiff did not follow up on his request to interview students in the classroom, so the investigation was incomplete.
Under state law, Casey said the burden of proof was on the school district to prove “that the recommendation for dismissal ... was for the reasons given in the notice of dismissal and that the dismissal was made in accordance with this article.”
He ruled that the district has not proved the basis of insubordination, neglect of duty, or other good and just cause.
“The district rushed to judgment in this case,” he wrote, and Murphy was suspended without “the simplest task of asking Mr. Murphy what had occurred. The district’s attempt to learn Mr. Murphy’s version of the events occurred only after the police were called and Mr. Murphy, upon advice of counsel, refused to discuss the matter.”
Casey concluded that the student initiated the altercation when Murphy wouldn’t let him have the phone back, and that the 67-year-old teacher could have reasonable fear of physical harm from the “significantly larger” student, or that the student had a weapon.
“Why Mr. Murphy should have even thought there was a need to defend his actions to anyone is lost on the hearing officer,” Casey wrote. The Times has not been able to reach Murphy to ask him to comment.
