Former SLOHS teacher Jeff Brandow no longer occupies his former classroom. Photo courtesy of junior Jr Moctezuma. Freshmen Zach Wallace and Joel Delgado Macias and junior Valeria Moran contributed to this article.
Days before the start of school, Jeff Brandow was terminated from his position at San Luis Obispo High School. San Luis Coastal Unified School District voted to place Jeff Brandow on permanent unpaid leave August 15. In March of this year, he had been put on leave due to allegations of misconduct with an underaged student.
“I feel like the case was brought to light too slowly, and that the school could have been better if they put Brandow in his rightful place sooner,” said junior Cate Tucker.
Many are expressing frustration towards the school for not responding in a more timely manner to the allegations against Brandow.
The school district held multiple meetings in which the student testified in order to come to this decision. Brandow has also been said to have verbally abused members of the basketball team.
“You continue to send the message ‘see something, say something.’ Someone saw something, several people said something, yet the district did nothing for five months,” said the mother of the student at the school board meeting where Brandow’s termination was voted upon, according to KSBY.
However, others argue that the school terminated him as quickly as they were able to, and should not be held at fault for its perceived shortcomings in addressing the issue at hand.
“There have been a lot of rumors that we waited until the basketball season was over, but we didn’t have the texts until then. If we’d had the real proof, he would have been ejected from campus immediately. As soon as we had real proof, he was removed from campus that afternoon,” said San Luis Coastal Unified School District Superintendent Eric Prater.
Brandow also faced a sexual harassment claim in 2018 by a former KSBY employee in which a restraining order was filed against Brandow. Brandow repeatedly called, emailed, and waited outside this person’s home. The school district was unaware of this until the case was brought up at the end of last school year.
Brandow’s actions placed doubts in students’ minds about attending SLOHS.
“I was scared to go to high school because it was possible that other people like Brandow were on campus,” said freshman Gibran Covarrubias.
Brandow has thirty days to appeal to the decision made by the school district, and if so, the case would be taken to a judge for a hearing.
“School employees are held to a high standard, and we expect them to be role models, positive and trustworthy members of our community. If school employees fail in that regard, the District may take corrective action. Corrective action may include termination. However, our District must abide by the Education Code requirements for terminating a tenured teacher. Tenured teachers in California have strong job protections. Building a case for termination can be time consuming, costly, and requires the District be able to prove allegations against a teacher are true in an administrative hearing. We cannot simply act on allegations that lack corroboration. As soon as we have adequate corroboration, the District is able to act more swiftly. With that being said, we will always strive to do the right thing for our students,” said SLOHS Principal Rollin Dickinson.
As students and staff wait for the outcome, they continue to hope that nothing like this happens again at SLOHS.
Source: ksby.com
