By: Associated Press//May 23, 2011//
MIDDLETON, Wis. (AP) — The decision to fire a teacher for viewing porn at school has cost a Middleton school board about $300,000 in legal fees.
A teachers’ union filed a grievance after the seventh-grade teacher at Glacier Creek Middle School was dismissed.
The president of the Middleton-Cross Plains School Board is Ellen Lindgren. She said the board hates spending its limited cash on lawyers, but it’s doing so because the community supports firing teachers who view porn at school.
Union leaders tell the Wisconsin State Journal they’re not defending the teacher’s behavior. They say the issue is that the discipline was unjust and based on unclear standards.
Union lawyer Willie Haus also said the district went after the teacher because he was a union leader and a critic of the School Board.
Information from: Wisconsin State Journal, http://www.madison.com/wsj