Evers ripped over teacher’s remarks
State schools Superintendent Tony Evers has come under fire from Republicans for not taking steps to revoke the license of a Middleton science teacher who viewed pornography on a school computer.
In the recent radio spot, GOP officials attacked Evers for his handling of the case against Andy Harris, now a teacher at Kromney Middle School — even if the ad overstated its case and was pulled from one station. Evers is one of more than a half-dozen Democrats running in hopes of challenging Gov. Scott Walker.
Now Republicans are saying there’s more to Harris’ case.
A redacted nine-page summary of the Middleton-Cross Plains school district’s investigation, provided to the Journal Sentinel, quotes an un-
school employee as saying Harris told a group of teachers that one female student “should brush up on her (oral sex) skills because that’s all she’ll be good at later in life.”
Harris and the staffer were assigned to the same team of school employees.
The staffer also said Harris made crude remarks to members of their school team about the appearances and chest sizes of other female students. Team members raised objections to his remarks, saying they were “just not right,” the report said.
Records show at least one former teacher and two parents sent emails to Evers’ office urging him to review the findings in the district’s report.
“Making derogatory comments regarding the sexuality of middle school female students?” wrote one parent in 2014. “This is completely unacceptable for a teacher’s behavior.”
Neither Harris nor his attorney returned calls. The district’s summary report says Harris’ attorney told the school district that these remarks were not “germane to the case.”
Tom McCarthy of the state Department of Public Instruction said Evers and the agency did review the district’s report. But McCarthy said neither the arbitrator nor DPI officials could deteridentified mine whether Harris actually made the sexually crude comments.
“None of that could be substantiated,” McCarthy said Thursday. As a result, he added, that information could not be used in deciding Harris’ case.
But Republican Party officials seized on the information to continue their attacks on Evers, considered one of the top Democratic gubernatorial candidates.
“These latest revelations are shocking and serve as further proof of how reckless and irresponsible Madison bureaucrat Tony Evers truly is — not even the dignity and safety of girls and women in our schools were enough for him to take action,” said Alec Zimmerman, a spokesman for the state GOP.
In 2010, Harris was fired by the MiddletonCross Plains School Board for viewing and sharing pornographic images, jokes or videos on district computers.
An arbitrator later found the school board overstepped its bounds because Harris’ behavior did not endanger students. The firing was reduced to a 15-day suspension.
Several courts upheld the arbitrator’s decision.
School officials, parents and even Walker asked Evers to initiate proceedings to revoke Harris’ license.
But the state superintendent declined to do so. A letter from his agency said Harris’ conduct was “highly inappropriate,” but that it did not meet the legal definition of immoral conduct as the law stood at the time.
McCarthy said Evers worked with state legislators to toughen the law for revoking teachers’ licenses. The new law redefined immoral conduct to include “the intentional use of an educational agency’s equipment to download, view, solicit, seek, display, or distribute pornographic material.”
Asked if Harris would lose his license to teach if his case came before the DPI now, McCarthy said, “You bet.”
Evers campaign spokeswoman Maggie Gau said the Democratic candidate was “appalled by the details of this case.” She noted the measure granting the state superintendent additional power to revoke licenses was called the Andy Harris Law.
“Tony saw a problem and he fixed it,” Gau said.
Zimmerman, the Republican spokesman, countered: “If Tony Evers had done all he could, why is the teacher the bill is named after still in the classroom?”