Cairo Association of Teachers - Newsletter

CAT Tracks for May 24, 2006 STATE HEARING FOR KY TEACHER

From the Paducah Sun...

Tericka Dye's attorney says she hopes public pressure will lead to her rehiring.

Brian Peach bpeach@paducahsun.com

A tribunal hearing for Tericka Dye has been approved by the Kentucky Board of Education, and a meeting to discuss proceedings will take place Friday morning.

Dye hopes to gain enough public support through the hearing to pressure Reidland High School into rehiring her, Attorney Mark Blankenship of Murray said Tuesday.

Dye taught science and coached volleyball at the school until a month ago, when McCracken County Schools Superintendent Tim Heller suspended her with pay after an 11-year-old adult film featuring Dye surfaced and circulated among some students and parents.

Subsequent letters between Heller and Blankenship noted that Dye appeared in at least 11 adult films under various screen names.

Now, the state board of education is granting Dye the chance to plead her case to a tribunal consisting of a teacher, school administrator and someone not affiliated with the school system. All three would be from outside McCracken County.

"They have agreed and assigned a hearing officer to the case, and his name is Scott Majors, from the Attorney General's Office," Blankenship said of the state board's decision to step in.

Majors works for the Division of Administrative Hearings within the state office. He will call representatives of both parties for a pre-hearing telephone conference at 9 a.m. Friday.

The pre-hearing discussion will include witness subpoenas, the length and date of the tribunal hearing, and general discussions of hearing procedures, among other items, according to Vicki Glass, director of communications for the Office of the Attorney General.

In a letter from the state to both parties, the tribunal date was tentatively scheduled for June 26-28, but McCracken Schools Board of Education attorney Gorman "Butch" Bradley said three necessary attendees, including Heller, will be out of town on school business those three days.

Still, Bradley doesn't see the point of the hearing. "I don't know what they're fighting over. I really don't," he said Tuesday.

Normally, the state-appointed tribunal rules on whether a teacher was wrongfully fired, but Bradley said that doesn't apply here. "The only thing the tribunal could say is "pay her," and we've already paid her," Bradley said. "Mr. Heller did not fire her. She was suspended with pay. He did it to protect his students."

Dye's side contends it goes deeper than that.

"We are going to request that it be an open hearing so if the media wants to follow it, they can," Blankenship said. "I think she wants everybody to know what happened on this, and that it was a long time ago. The public pressure might work in her favor, and the superintendent may offer her another chance."

Blankenship also noted that, after talking with Dye further about the multiple adult tapes, she told him that she filmed for approximately two hours a day for four days.

Following Dye's May 3 press conference, Blankenship said she spent one day filming in Los Angeles.

"She filmed for eight hours, and I assumed that was one day," he said, noting it was instead over four days. "I think the public feedback was that she was much more involved in pornography than she really was."

Dye admitted to suffering from bipolar disorder, also known as manic-depressive illness, but it was not diagnosed until 1999, after she left the Army. She also said the tapes were made before she joined the Army and went back to college.

Bradley has repeatedly said Heller doesn't intend to renew Dye's contract, which means she will have to reapply. The decision on her fate will be solely in the hands of Reidland High School's site-based council, which includes Reidland Principal Glen Ringstaff.

Bradley and Blankenship said they will participate in Friday's pre-hearing. If one side doesn't attend, the hearing officer could rule immediately or continue the hearing, according to state law.