A would-be open hearing for a Lowndes County School District teacher trying to keep her job was largely held behind closed doors Wednesday as much of the testimony dealt with private matters involving at least two students.
The contract for Melissa Suddith, a Lowndes County Alternative School teacher, will expire at the end of the school year after the school board voted in April not to renew it. The decision was made after Suddith and two other teachers sued the district in chancery court, citing harassment and a hostile work environment. Among the three, only Suddith’s contract was not renewed.
Suddith requested a hearing under district policy to appeal the board’s decision. She appeared with her lawyer, Preston Rideout of Greenwood, for the first of a scheduled two-day affair before LCSD Superintendent Sam Allison, attorneys Jeff Smith and Corky Smith, as well as hearing officer Perry Sansing, prepared to hash out her grievances in a public session.
But after Jeff Smith cited the possibility of discussing details of student matters and privacy concerns, Sansing ruled Wednesday morning to allow witnesses to testify on student matters in a closed setting. The hearing was mostly closed to the public after the first witness — Assistant Superintendent Susan Johnson — revealed an incident where Suddith left her phone recording a video in her classroom with a student and several school officials present. Suddith, she said, was absent.
“The student was moved to Ms. Suddith’s room in the afternoon,” she said. “Ms. Suddith left the room but left her phone on record on the desk.”
Mississippi is a one-party consent state, Smith said, which means no one should be allowed to record a conversation they are not part of unless one party gives consent.
Suddith, however, told The Dispatch she had started recording to protect the student and herself. The student, she said, was irate and started screaming, which made her panic. A school official in the room turned off the recording, she said, so nothing was ever saved.
“As soon as they came in, they said, ‘Ms. Suddith you need to leave.'” she said. “I got scooted out of there. I just forgot about it.”
Suddith said the incident was one of many LCSD cited that resulted in her contract nonrenewal, which she believed to be retaliatory. She was also allegedly criticized for writing up a student for yelling at her and for talking about wine-drinking during class, according to court documents.
Smith didn’t directly address the incidents but said the reasons to let Suddith go were “self-explanatory.”
“There is overwhelming evidence that the lady was properly not renewed,” Smith told The Dispatch.
Allison, when approached by The Dispatch, offered no comment on the details of the case but agreed with Smith’s argument.
Suddith’s testimony
Suddith, however, complained against the district citing those incidents against her, arguing a series of hostile events from LCSD led to the nonrenewal.
Over the past two years, Suddith and two other teachers filed multiple grievances against former school administrators, including then-Assistant Superintendent Robert Byrd and Caledonia High School Principal Andy Stevens, alleging misconduct, bullying and hostile work environment. Suddith told The Dispatch she filed her first grievance in August 2018 against Byrd, who she said “exploited a child.” She could not divulge the details of the incident, but said a student came to her with the issue and she had to report it.
While Byrd was forced to resign in February 2019 and Stevens was suspended for a week without pay (and retired at the end of this school year), Suddith told The Dispatch she was reprimanded several times and harassment against her and her friends continued. The three teachers were transferred from Caledonia High School to other campuses after the incidents, she said.
During the hearing Wednesday, Rideout said school officials sent threatening messages to Suddith via email. Then-superintendent Lynn Wright — who held that position from 2011-2019 — threatened disciplinary action in a letter addressed to Suddith, Rideout said, after she had filed several grievances.
“Superintendent Wright told you that filing venting and frivolous complaints could not be tolerated,” he read out a letter to Suddith during her testimony. “Did you take that as a threat?”
“Yes sir, I did,” she said.
During another email exchange with Smith last year, Suddith questioned why the board would not hear her appeal to disciplinary actions after she had been reprimanded, according to her readout of exhibits. Smith told her the board would only hear disciplinary actions that “resulted in termination.”
“I said, ‘You are saying that anyone can be given a letter of reprimand based on false information, which can be proven false, and an educator has no recourse but to allow that in the personnel file?'” Suddith read.
“He said, ‘An employee has two opportunities (to address the issue), one is with the principal, the other is the superintendent,'” she kept on reading. “‘If the board has to hear every disciplinary action, nothing will be accomplished.'”
Smith refused to comment on the nature of the email correspondences.
Suddith said she will keep fighting to make her case, even though all the administrators she filed grievances against are no longer with the district.
“The bullying has continued against me,” she said. “They never addressed the real cause — the exploitation of a child by an administrator. And they are constantly harassing and bullying me because I won’t shut up about it. They are just trying to get me to go away.”
The hearing will resume today at the LCSD office. When the hearing is concluded, Sansing, at the board’s request, will provide a recommendation for the board to consider regarding Suddith’s nonrenewal.
Yue Stella Yu was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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