Grady incident 'not swept under rug'

GRADY – A schoolteacher who allegedly told students they would burn in "the embers of hell" for various behaviors remains on the job, Superintendent Keith Durham said last week.

Durham declined to say whether any disciplinary action was taken against the teacher, but he assured concerned parents the matter was "not swept under the rug," which he repeated several times.

"I wish I could tell you what we did, but I can't," he said during the Dec. 19 school board meeting in the board's meeting room at Grady School.

"I doubt that it's ever going to happen again," Durham said at another point in the meeting. "We get better."

Durham told the crowd of 10 to 15 parents that "mistakes were made" at an Oct. 26 meeting in which the teacher allegedly told volleyball players that their sinful acts could bring eternal damnation.

The sins include being gay, having premarital sex, starting drama and spreading rumors, according to parents whose children were in the meeting.

The parents allege school administrators also attended that meeting and did nothing to stop it. They said their daughters were traumatized by the teacher's remarks. One said her daughter called for a ride home because she was afraid to drive her own car home.

One student's grandparent, Vickie Windham, said she would challenge the school district's decision to keep action involving the teacher confidential with a complaint to the New Mexico Public Education Department.

At one point, board member Gerald Garland asked the parents, "What do you want us to do?"

One parent responded, "We don't want her to get fired," but others said they want to know what consequences the teacher faced.

Windham said she has family members who attended the October meeting with the players. She said they told her the teacher started her presentation with the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, two cities that God destroyed because of their wickedness in an Old Testament account.

Windham then said the teacher singled out a volleyball team member to warn her that, according to the Bible, homosexual behaviors would bring death, and, according to Windham, "burning in the embers of hell."

Other team members, Windham said, were called out for other alleged sins and warned of condemnation.

Parents identified the teacher, but school officials would not confirm her identity. The teacher did not attend the meeting and could not be reached for comment.