AC school board fires two teachers
The Anderson County Board of Education recently voted to dismiss two teachers at Clinton High School, Rachel Jones and Clay Turpin.
It fired them based on charges related to manipulating students’ grades and test scores, but only if the charges are true, allowing for a dismissal process to go forward.
Documents in the agenda for the meeting from Director of Schools Tim Parrott explain the charges, officially listed for both instructors as unprofessional conduct, insubordination and neglect of duty, in more depth.
Parrott said the state of Tennessee gave Clinton High School a “Reward School” status for the 2022-23 school year.
“As the 2023-24 school year progressed, however, it became more and more clear to me as the director of schools, and to other central office administrators, that something was amiss at CHS,” Parrott said.
He and a group of office administrators investigated CHS this spring, and discovered some students who had not taken end-of-course tests for credit recovery tagged as if they had.
They also spotted students on track to graduate who hadn’t completed the necessary coursework, and some who may have graduated last year without taking the end-of-course exams.
Jones, Parrott said, accepted a suspension after hearing the accusations against her, while Principal Dan Jenkins resigned.
After that, District Attorney General Dave Clark began an investigation.
Jones reportedly confessed to changing a student’s scores at Jenkins’ request so the student could complete remaining classes quickly.
She also said Jenkins asked her to put courses in pre-test mode, “skip all the assignments,” or “take out” assignments, much of it during the 2022-23 school year.
She said she’d eventually told Jenkins she didn’t want to do those things anymore. So Jenkins approached Turpin to take over credit recovery.
Turpin reportedly said in interviews in April he began credit recovery work in 2023. He admitted to changing student grades because he believed others were doing it. He said it was his impression Jenkins wanted to get “bad kids” out of CHS.
Andy McKamey made the motion and John Burrell seconded to dismiss Jones. Don Bell made the motion and Andy McKamey seconded to dismiss Turpin.