Parents at Henderson Mill Elementary School learned their beloved physical education teacher James O'Donnell has decided to ask a tribunal to weigh his future with DeKalb County Schools.
The suspension of O’Donnell – known as Coach OD – over how he disciplined 10-year-old in November outraged hundreds of Henderson Mill families who argued the incident was misrepresented and the district reaction was over the top.
The district has not reinstated the 39-year DeKalb veteran with the full vindication he desires, despite an unprecedented outpouring of support. O’Donnell has chosen to take his case to a tribunal of three to five educators who will make a recommendation to the district.
A mother alleged OD forced her son to stand outside the school gym – which is connected to the main school building by a covered walkway -- for spinning on the floor during class. When her son came home from school, the mother said his clothes were soaked.
Parents said O’Donnell told the student to stand outside the gymnasium under the covered walkway, but the boy chose to run around in the rain. An issue that likely weighed in the review by DeKalb Superintendent Steve Green: Why was the student put outside the gym to collect himself?
O’Donnell’s supporters contend the gym was packed and there was no place for the student to stand. “People should know that if the boy was standing where he was told, he would be in the direct line of sight of an adult at all times,” said Kirk Lunde, a Tucker parent who was a paraprofessional under O’Donnell in 2012. “The coach can have an entire grade in that gym. There is no room for a child to stand on the sideline or against the wall in the gym because kids are standing along that wall waiting for their turn in the game. I have absolute comfort in what the coach did – there is no alternative as the coach can’t leave the other students to take the child to the principal’s office.”
Lunde predicts the tribunal will vindicate O’Donnell, but says that’s no guarantee the coach will end up back at Henderson for the rest of his career with DeKalb. Other teachers who have been cleared by tribunals end up sometimes being transferred to a different school as a result, he said.
But few other teachers at odds with DeKalb Schools have spurred such a high-profile public campaign, and the transfer of O’Donnell to another school would anger parents.
Supporters and Henderson Mill Elementary alums have packed two school board meetings to defend O'Donnell, whom they credit with instilling lifelong healthy habits in his students. They've held a rally, a fitness event and sent hundreds of emails. They also have raised $20,000 for O'Donnell's legal fund, which he will likely need now.
Henderson parents condemn what they deem a rush to judgment on a longtime employee with an impeccable record at the same time DeKalb is hiring new teachers with serious blemishes on their records, blemishes easily discovered in an online search.
As my AJC colleague Marlon Walker has reported:
District officials have come under fire for hiring practices as several missteps have come to light, including a teacher hired over the summer who lied on his resume apparently to hide a 2013 arrest for meth possession, a teacher hired in 2017 after being fired from her previous district in Toledo, Ohio, for allegations she verbally and physically assaulted students.
In both instances, the offenses were found through internet searches.
In another case, a teacher was forced to retire in late 2016 after several of her students claimed she made threatening comments just after President Donald Trump was elected about getting them deported. She was brought back to the district as a substitute teacher in 2017, though a letter in her personnel file said she was ineligible for further employment with the district. When contacted about the alleged hiring snafus, district officials said in a statement that they stand by their current hiring practices.
Here is the posting on a Facebook page created by O’Donnell supporters about the upcoming tribunal:
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