As far as the majority of the Pulaski County School Board is concerned, Dan Price will not be returning to Pulaski Central Alternative High School as principal.

After six days of hearing testimony and seeing evidence, in a hearing that spread out over a period of three weeks, the board ruled late Wednesday night to uphold Price’s demotion, received in November in the wake of allegations of grade-fixing and attendance record-altering.

The board voted 3-2 in favor of Superintendent Steve Butcher’s decision to demote Price, with Phillip Wilson, Jim Wilson, and chairperson Cindy Price on the prevailing side, and Olivia Minton and Edwin Sellers in the minority.

Pulaski Central is a special high school within the county school system for at-risk students, who are referred there from their home schools, which may also include institutions outside Pulaski County. Students that may be on track to drop  out or fail to graduate at other schools are taught in a special environment at Pulaski Central designed to maximize their chances of success.

It was the uniqueness of Pulaski Central’s mission that Price, both in testimony and through his attorney, Jerry Cox of Mt. Vernon, stressed before the board, in a setting much like that of a courtroom. 

Price and the witnesses called by his counsel testified that many students were hardship cases, including bad home lives, that meant they needed to be handled differently than students in a normal school setting.

For instance, one witness, Raymond Keith Braun — a former teacher and one-time principal at Pulaski Central —testified that he had given kids rides home after school in opposition to the rules because he felt it was the right thing to do, and he did not use missed attendance to punish a girl who left school with her boyfriend one day because she claimed that her mom had threatened to “beat her” when she got home off the bus.

Price repeatedly claimed that he did not change any grades or attendance records, and that he did not have access to the system to do so. When asked about attendance records that clearly had false or altered information on them bearing a stamp signifying Price’s approval, Price said that the individual serving as his secretary had used the stamp and that he didn’t have know about the information on the records. When asked by Pulaski Schools attorney Larry Bryson whether he had given that individual the authorization to use his name to stamp and approve those documents, Price had to be asked the same question repeatedly in order to get a direct answer.

In his first round of testimony on Tuesday, Price broke down in tears while on the stand as he described the toll that the investigations by the Kentucky OEA (Office of Education Accountability) took on operations at Pulaski Central last September.

“My staff was my family,” said a choked-up Price. “They were hurting because I couldn’t help them.”

Among the school system’s witnesses were four students who claimed that they’d had final exams given to them to take that would change their assigned grade as claimed in the allegations, and that their attendance had been wrongly recorded. The students were not all hostile toward Price; in fact, some stated appreciation for what Price had done for them, even while acknowledging that the treatment they received included actions that were outside the rules.

These actions reportedly included taking students out of school for a supposed work program that they did not necessarily attend, and then counting them as present.

Price’s witnesses included school personnel who stated that Price had never asked them to do anything wrong or illegal, while Bryson presented documents showing apparently inaccurate or altered information that was recorded.

Teri Marcum, a teacher at Pulaski Central, was the one who reported the allegations of changing grades so students could graduate, and marking students as being in attendance when they weren’t, to the OEA, a state office. She testified on behalf of Butcher and the school system.

The OEA conducted an investigation at Pulaski Central and determined that the alleged alterations to the student records had taken place. They also recommended that Butcher and the school district do their own investigation, which led to Butcher removing Price from his position as principal and reassigning him to a teaching position at Southwestern High School.

Following the reassignment, Price went on medical leave for the rest of the school year and has not yet taught his assigned classes at Southwestern.

 Price has also filed a lawsuit — separate from the demotion hearing that wrapped up Wednesday night — claiming that Butcher “arbitrarily, wrongfully and illegally attempted to reduce (Price’s) salary, to demote him and to transfer him to another school.”

The lawsuit also claims Butcher’s actions “are in retaliation against (Price) for (Price’s) political activities in running against (Butcher) for the office of superintendent.”

Last March, the finalists for the superintendent’s position — which is not actually a political office — were Butcher, an assistant superintendent under departing schools chief Tim Eaton; Carol Christian; and Doug Roberts, a former principal at Southwestern High School.

But during the March meeting, school board member Olivia Minton — the wife of former Pulaski Superintendent Bert Minton — attempted to nominate Price for the position. That nomination was not accepted by the other board members.

In April when Butcher was hired, Olivia Minton again tried to nominate Price for the position, but the motion died for lack of a second.

Bryson believes that the decision by the board will make “moot” the claims in the suit that Price was wrongly demoted, since the board came to an official decision that the demotion was fair.

“This will likely make it a lot harder (for Price’s lawsuit to be successful) since the board upheld the decision,” said Bryson.

After testimony concluded late Wednesday night, the board retired to private chambers to deliberate. It was decided that the board could provide a written decision to the parties without returning to open session.

Phillip Wilson made the motion, seconded by Jim Wilson, to uphold Butcher’s decision to demote price as a result of the district’s and the OEA’s investigations. As a teacher, Price would have a corresponding reduction in pay, extra days of employment, and stipend and all of his administrative duties.

Cox was contacted by the Commonwealth Journal for comment on his client’s behalf, but did not respond by presstime on Thursday.

The first nights of the hearing were on January 16-19. The board discussed resuming the hearing on Saturday, January 21, but the day before that, Cox phoned hearing officer Michael Owsley and advised that he couldn’t get enough witnesses to attend at that time to fill two hours. As such, the hearings were scheduled to reconvene on Tuesday, and were held that day and Wednesday of this week.

Bryson noted that the results were “bittersweet,” since the school system’s initial decision was upheld, but at a cost to those involved and the reputation of Pulaski Central and the school system.

“We were required to go through a public hearing because Mr. Price asked for one,” said Bryson. “I don’t think it’s good for a school district to air these sorts of problems in public, but we did not have a choice about that.”