The Bartow County schools superintendent Friday said he will appeal a state commission’s recommendation to revoke his professional license.
“I am innocent of the false and slanderous allegations made against me as a result of a political vendetta and smear campaign by a couple of former board members,” said Superintendent John Harper, who will remain on the job pending the appeal. “I want to emphatically tell the Bartow community that I have done nothing wrong nor would I ever do anything to violate the public trust given to me by this community.”
Matt Shultz, the former school board member who brought the allegations to the attention of the Georgia Professional Standards Commission, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Harper covered up sexual harassment complaints by two teachers against a principal in 2012. The board, Shultz said Friday, covered up a sexual harassment complaint against Harper.
The Georgia Professional Standards Commission’s Educator Ethics Review Committee recommended Thursday that Harper lose his teaching certificate.
Shultz said a former principal recently won a civil lawsuit against the school system which contended she was demoted for reporting the sexual harassment allegations regarding the other principal. That lawsuit is what provided the initial documentation against Harper and recently retired principal Donald Rucker, Shultz said.
The lawsuit revealed a top administrator in the system’s main office forwarded the sexual-harassment complaints to the board of education chairman instead of Harper because she contended Harper had sexually harassed her, Shultz said. The board chairman forwarded the allegations to Harper who did not investigate them, Shultz said.
“The biggest issue is we have people who are out of control. There is no accountability and they feel like they can do whatever they want,” Shultz told The AJC. “In the last three or four months the school system has lost a civil case that all this began with and two of the principal parties have a recommendation to have their certificates revoked. So I think it is fair to say that the school system didn’t handle this well in 2012.”
Attempts to reach Rucker for comment were not immediately successful.
Cartersville Patch reported the accusations were spelled out in letter dated May 9, 2014, from the commission to Bartow County School Board's vice chair, notifying the system of its plans to investigate the case:
It is alleged that the educator (Harper) has been dishonest regarding meetings of the BOE where finances were discussed. It is alleged that the educator has falsified documents by back dating an agreement for use of school facilities by a private business. It is alleged that the educator failed to investigate, report or take action regarding complaints of sexual harassment made by school system staff members pertaining to a school system principal. It is alleged that the educator has engaged in sexual harassment of school system staff members. It is alleged that the educator conspired with others to withhold information from members of the local board of education.
Shultz, 41, declined to outline the specifics of the sexual harassment allegations. He said another board member brought the charges of financial improprieties.
Shultz, who ran for state school superintendent in the last election, is a former teacher who works in pharmaceutical sales. He also served on the school board from 2004 to 2010 and returned to the board in 2013 to fill the unexpired term of a board member who had resigned, he said.
“Essentially when I came back in 2013 I started to hear rumblings about sexual harassment issues that went back to 2011 and another board member tried to figure out what was going on to no avail,” he said. “I am not on the board any more and I’m not teaching. I’m just a private citizen and a parent.”
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