My introduction to Douglass High School in Oklahoma City came in a roundabout way. If I were naïve, I would have assumed that my having won my case in District Court that had agreed with my contention that I had not been dismissed for legitimate reasons but because I was an openly Gay teacher wanting Gay students expressly included in students policies, advocacy that might die if the advocate was removed, and later prevailing in the Appellate Court decision against the District‘s appeal to this original win, would have had the district leave me alone. But reality was that they didn‘t give me a break and didn‘t rest in attempting to save face by making it appear I was a bad teacher who just happened to get lucky. Harassment would continue at this one last school before I thought it best to just take the wins and move along, not knowing there was one more to come.
The first school to which I reported, the one to which I was assigned because the judge ruled the district’s games with putting me back in a classroom was contempt and there would be consequences if my assignment were further delayed was on the district’s failing schools list that had one year to save itself or be taken over by the state. It struck me as a rather strange assignment to give a teacher who the District claimed was inefficient.
It also called for removing a newly hired teacher to make room for me in spite of the district having claimed it could not put me back in my original position because, obviously, assuming they would win the District Court trial had hired a teacher to replace me and it would not be right to remove a newly hired teacher so I could totally be made whole.
In spite of good evaluations at this school and having had to explain certain approaches to other English teachers who had seen me use them so they could too, at the end of the year, having not reached the desired objectives as a whole to show improvement regardless of any progress by individual teachers including myself, the district fired all the teachers while up to half of the faculty could be hired back leaving the other half to find another school, become an in-district substitute teacher, or go elsewhere. Having the least seniority at the building, I was among those who had to find another school in the District.
Since the principal had begun his principal career at Taft Middle school at which I had taught when first hired by the district and knew me from there and, as he knew me as a teacher, I was glad that he hired me and spared me the other options available to those who were not hired back at the previous school.
I eventually left the District because it was painfully obvious to me, other teachers, the majority and GLBT people in the city, and the local media, that the District would do what it could to show the public that I had been lucky to have won my case and the Board’s appeal, an opinion unfortunately agreed to by the Union President who missed the opportunity to use the basis of my case to prevent any teacher from being harassed as I had been for any reason. He informed me that if I was to be accused of incompetence a second time, and the Board voted to dismiss me, the Union would not come to my defense.
He had never really supported the first case, was reluctant to pursue it, and when called to did so reluctantly and with disinterest. His suggesting the win was a mater of luck, dismissed and discounted the case as presented by the attorneys and struck be as rather insulting to them.
To leave on my own terms I made an offer to the School Board at the meeting in the principal’s office attended by the Union and the district’s attorney at which I was informed that anything accumulated against me would be used to have me dismissed. They were not aware of the information about grades and attendance I had and went ahead as if they had the upper hand.
I had won my case initially and upon their appeal, and should not be the one to agree to concessions. Any agreement to leave the district would be on my terms not theirs. Among their demands were that I never teach in the district again, not enter any district property without an invitation, not tell my story and reveal all of the dirt, and accept a minimum pay off.
My counter offer was more of a demand that if not agreed to would have me stay and put on a show. I would leave the District if they accepted my departure as if I were retiring, allowing me to receive a pension, and that, instead of the usual buy back of unused sick days for 15 dollars each, I receive a buy back equivalent to 75% of my daily average salary as I had saved them that much by not requiring they pay for subs as evidenced by my attendance record and the additional 25% they would have had to pay a sub for the number of accumulated sick days I had after having only used three out of a possible 15 every year from 1994 to 2011, seventeen years in all, totaling over 200 hundred days.
In exchange for this they wanted me to agree never to teach in the District again.
The agreement was made, and the state’s teacher retirement system had to set up a special program for me as this sort of retirement arrangement had never been done before.
“Sexual Orientation” and “Gender Identity” were now in the District’s policies, so there was no need to stay to see it through.
A year or so after I had left Oklahoma, while sitting on the deck of a cottage on Cape Cod, I received a phone call from an attorney in Oklahoma City who had gotten my number from a former administrator I knew who had been supportive of my advocacy for GLBT students. Some former administrators and some students who had graduated from Frederick Douglass High School had filed a complaint with the Department of Education claiming they had been denied a proper education, and the lawyer was told that I might have helpful Documents. Because of the previous years’ experiences, I had habitually saved all documents and emails I got from the principal at Douglass as some of his actions with teachers’ computer grade and attendance records, mine included, seemed to change them if you took the time to carefully examine them.
I had been printing hard copies of my weekly grade and attendance pages from the district’s website and had noticed grades and attendance changes on a few occasions that had students who did not work or where habitually absent having high grades and good attendance thus being eligible to play on the basketball team which had won the city championship the previous year. I had presented this to the Union president who simply dismissed it as my just, once again, trying to cause trouble.
I forwarded copies of whatever documents I had kept in storage in the leather satchel of documents in my bedroom closet. I had had no use for them and they were just one of those things I never got around to throwing away, something I thought of doing each time I came upon the sachel.
The students’ main complaint that was that when they finally got to college, many found they were not as prepared as they should have been, and one student remembered I had often had to fight with my students to learn as much as they could while the principal would claim any complaint was my being unreasonable, and would simply continue to change grades. She and other students had seen what I meant as they sat lost in college classes and saw that what the professors assumed they knew were those things they had refused to learn and were encouraged in that by the Principal. Another student who had never been present in my class but was told by the principal not to worry had found she graduated with a B in my class even though she had never met me nor I her.
Having heard nothing for two years, I had assumed the issue had just died, until I received two phone calls. One was from the attorney who had originally called me and to whom I sent copies of my documentation telling me that they had been extremely important and determinative in the Department of Education’s investigation that had resulted in the principal’s dismissal and loss of certification meaning he could never be employed in any state public school system because of how he lost it.
The other call was from the administrator I knew thanking me for helping the students’ case and extending the apologies of those students who, in spite of having treated the Gay teacher who had arrived at their school very disrespectfully, were helped by someone who could have understandably chosen to ignore them but had chosen to help and had done so from over 1800 miles away when he was no longer connected to the District.
Their win resulted in a District wide examination to find how common this practice of manipulating grades and attendance was and dismissing any administrators guilty of it.
A State Education Department audit of the Douglass seniors after the principal was removed found that 87 students the year of the audit did not meet the requirements to be able to graduate, most of that class. District leadership blamed violations of policies and procedures, but did not explain whether that involved grade changes or alterations of the attendance of students and further declined to blame the former Douglass principal following a several month long investigation ordered by the school district when the allegations were raised. School district officials also admitted that audits are carried out every year in the district, but none had been conducted in some time at Douglass.
Whatever benefits come from this, at the time of the audits, prior graduates, the students I knew and tried to help, were out of luck as the district concentrated on those about to graduate who could be helped now that what they had been told turned out to be true
While district leadership chose not to lay any blame on the principal and the way he ran the school, findings of the State department audit clearly indicate that is where the blame belonged.
I had accomplished what I had originally thought would be a quick and easy objective, I.E. adding GLBT students openly in school district policies, which obviously took longer than it should have and then later helped these other students.
Six years after I left the District, things had moved on after the administrators and Board members I had had to battle with and who had consistently refused to do the right thing by the Gay students had moved on to jobs elsewhere, retired, or died, and the Oklahoma City Public Schools had a presence in the June Pride Parade complete with marching teachers, students, administrators, Board members, and a school bus decked out with rainbows.
The single teacher who had marched in the Parade carrying the sign announcing “Gay Teacher” had been rightfully replaced by the presence of the District.
In 1997 when I had delivered the results of six months of research to justify professional development dealing with the existence and needs of Sexual Minority Youth in our schools just as was done for Hispanic, Asian, and Black students, and suggested lesson plans, instead of even the appearance of consideration such as asking for time to consider, promising a meeting to discuss the packet even though none would actually happen, or employing any form of deniable avoidance which would have been met with patience until the ruse could no longer be ignored and tolerated, in less than 24 hours the suggestion was denied, not because it would be illegal, against state policy, or would violate district policy, but because, as important as this might be, local norms would not allow it with those norms being based on the personal, religious, and political beliefs of, at that time, the Republican party and the Southern Baptist Church.
Because of that cavalier and dismissive response to the safety and well being of students, events were put in motion that not only corrected that wrong but, because of the petty response to my court win and the machinations to get rid of the Gay teacher and his presence, the reminder of the district’s embarrassing loss, my being moved around to either frustrate me and have me leave, or manufacture my incompetence for a second and possibly effective attempt for my dismissal resulted in my collecting the information I never would have found, lack of which would have allowed the status quo to continue.
In the long run, the attempt to help the Sexual Minority Youth in the district led to a system-wide shake up, and the principal whose role was to get rid of me was gotten rid of by me.
I went back to Douglass while at the 2025 OKC Pride Festival and Parade on 39th Street a little nervous as I knew what had happened, much behind the scenes, and was not sure if I was seen as a hero or the villain. I walked away pleased with the outcome of the visit and to let the school know that from Douglass High School I ended up by happenstance in New Bedford, living within three blocks of where Frederick Bailey became Frederick Douglass.
I need to walk around the corner to Abolition Row Park, sit by the statue of the young Frederick Douglass and have a talk with him.
