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At a 4-2 vote, the Chambers County School Board approved the superintendent’s recommendation to terminate the employment of LaWendy Willis, the former counselor of LaFayette High School.

The decision came on Thursday night after close to nine hours of testimonies.

During the third installment of the personnel hearing, both Superintendent Casey Chambley and Willis were questioned about several of the same topics from the first two sessions. Other officials were questioned during the previously held hearings. The process was only scheduled for one day but was extended twice due to the duration of the testimonies.

The grounds for the termination included insubordination, failure to complete duties in a satisfactory manner and “other reasonable causes,” according to Meadows. Willis and her counsel denied the claims.

Willis was represented by Stanley Gray, an attorney based out of Opelika. The school board attorney, Bob Meadows, represented the superintendent.

Though Willis declined to comment, Ty Smith, a former LHS teacher and Equity Initiative member, gave a statement to the VT-N after the hearing ended. 

“This is a grave injustice and the advocacy will not stop here,” Smith said. 

Smith added, “If something like this can happen to someone who’s innocent like Ms. Willis, it can happen to anybody.”

The main claim against Willis was the erroneous naming of LaFayette High’s top three students last May. Chambley testified that it is the counselor’s responsibility to determine and verify the class rankings. 

The sequence of events, according to testimony, was the following:

On May 10, teachers were supposed to have their grades submitted. However, Brock-Johnson was out of town at Six Flags and asked Willis to ensure that teachers had them in. 

Brock-Johnson testified earlier that when she left campus, she often put Willis in charge in her place. Willis said that she told Brock-Johnson that she was not supposed to have those dual roles. 

On Monday, May 13, Brock-Johnson asked Willis for the top three rankings. That day, Brock-Johnson said that a teacher needed time to submit the rest of their grades. 

On May 14, Willis emailed Daniel Brooks, PowerSchool Administrator, and asked him to store the grades so that she could pull the class rankings, which he did. He responded that it was “complete.” That evening, Brock-Johnson asked Willis to pull the ranks. Willis said she gave them to Brock-Johnson, who then told her to send them to David Owen, assistant superintendent.

Willis said she was never told by Owen or Brock-Johnson that the rankings were “good to go.” 

That evening, Willis said Brock-Johnson told Willis to tell the parents about the rankings. 

On May 15, Willis discovered that the rankings had changed and alerted Brock-Johnson. 

When asked whether Willis was wrong to pull the rankings when she did, Chambley said, “She was not wrong for pulling the ranks when she did because she couldn’t have done it before Brooks.”

Chambley later stated that she should have waited to alert the parents until she verified the calculations. 

Brock-Johnson previously testified that Willis was insubordinate by refusing to call the parents to tell them Willis had made a mistake with the class rankings. 

Willis said she didn’t outright refuse to call the parents; instead, she asked to have a meeting with the central office to determine what happened beforehand because she did not think she was in error. 

“We needed clarity, I was not going to be unethical,” Willis said. 

Willis said she was never included in any of the meetings discussing the class rankings error. Testimonies from Owen, Brock-Johnson and Brooks during the previous sessions confirm that. 

A Facebook post by a parent included screenshots of the May 14 emails between Brooks, Brock-Johnson and Willis. Willis admitted she printed out the emails for a parent who wanted to know who else she could talk to about the error in class rankings. She said she didn’t know that the emails were posted to Facebook. 

She added that she didn’t think the emails were confidential and that teachers often print out emails as long as they don’t include student information. 

Brooks testified that the post made him “feel ill-at-ease” like he was being blamed for the class ranking incident. In response, Willis said, “This whole situation has made everybody feel ill-at-ease … I feel ill-at-ease.”

Willis testified that she felt Chambley was looking for reasons to terminate her because she was in the protest group Equity Initiative, formerly known as LaFayette Teachers Against Displacement (LTAD). Chambley said he only began reviewing Willis’ work history after Brock-Johnson told him “she didn’t trust her” in March. That’s when he decided to either transfer Willis to a new school or terminate her.

Chambley requested information about Willis’ performance from Brock-Johnson, Fran Groover, Director of Testing, and Michael Sanders, Technology Director, which he said is a duty of his job.  

“As superintendent, I should not make a recommendation regarding somebody’s employment without checking with the people that evaluate the employees,” Chambley said. 

“After the events in May with the class rank, as well as collecting other data of her job performance from people that had evaluated her, I made the determination that I did not believe that she should move back into another counseling position,” Chambley said. 

Gray asked Chambley if he requested positive feedback as well as negative. Chambley said he asked for everything, which Gray pointed out doesn’t concur with testimony from Groover who said that she didn’t submit positive comments because she wasn’t asked to. 

Chambley said that the conversations about the class rankings error initially were not focused on placing blame, but rather on fixing the error.

Chambley admitted that Willis never had a performance evaluation or received disciplinary action since she was hired in 2005. Owen and Brock-Johnson testified that, as her supervisors, they never reprimanded Willis because they didn’t want to create friction. Groover also testified that, as director of counselors, she never reprimanded Willis. 

Gray asked if the board uses progressive discipline when issues come up with employees. 

Chambley said that they would not reprimand an employee unless there was criminal behavior, adding, “We don’t have a discipline ladder for employees.”

Though Tolandra Harris, Valley High counselor, denied it in her testimony, according to Chambley’s testimony, the class rankings procedure was made the prior year due to a similar situation at Valley High School, in which the ranks were pulled too early in the quarter. 

The procedure indicates that — after the counselor calculates the weight and rankings — the math department head, the principal and either the assistant superintendent or the director of counseling must verify the calculations. 

Groover and Owen both previously testified that they did not verify the calculations. Owen said he “reviewed” them, meaning he looked at them. Brock-Johnson also said she looked at them only. 

Willis said she went over the new procedure for the class rankings with Brock-Johnson last year. Brock-Johnson testified that she had never heard of the procedure. 

When asked if the procedure by Gray, Chambley said, “[The policy] should’ve been followed.”

Gray asked Chambley if these employees received any disciplinary action for not following the procedure. Chambley said no.

Gray played an audio clip from a conversation between Willis and Chambley when he presented her with the letter of termination which lists the reasons for termination. In the clip, she asked, “So all counselors that make an error on a transcript, they get a termination letter? Or am I the only one?”