A Stevenson High School science teacher whose firing-squad-style disciplinary method came to light last week will keep her job.
The district announced on Thursday that a third-party investigation into Kemberly Patteson, 41, has come to an end. Patteson came under scrutiny after a parent filed a formal complaint against her last week.
Her disciplinary method involved a “Wheel of Misfortune,” as described by a statement from the district. For “low-level misconduct” in the classroom, Patteson’s students could spin the wheel to see what their punishment would be.
Some of the choices included: failing an upcoming exam, buying Patteson a bottle of water, passing the punishment on to a classmate and lining up for a firing squad of rubber “Koosh” balls. In that punishment, students took turns throwing the balls at their classmates; afterward, Patteson would get the last throw, said Wendy Zapfe, the parent who filed the complaint.
After student cellphone videos of two of the incidents surfaced last week, the Stevenson-Carson School District put Patteson on administrative leave. The videos showed two students shielding their faces behind textbooks as their classmates lined up to get a throw in.
The wheel has been removed from the class, and the investigator recommended letting Patteson come back to work Thursday morning, the district said.
The investigation boiled down to interviews with students, staff and Patteson, the district said. It concluded that the wheel was a well-intentioned but misguided disciplinary tool, and that safeguards should be put in place to maintain an appropriate classroom environment.
“As required by the new Teacher Principal Evaluation Project, we evaluate all of our teachers’ classroom instructional practices using rigorous criteria,” the statement reads. “We expect the best of our teachers and that they model only the best practices and behaviors.”
Zapfe said Patteson’s Wheel of Misfortune violated the district’s anti-bullying policy, which prohibits any form of harassment or intimidation in the classroom. The district said Patteson used poor judgment and never intended to embarrass or harm any of her students.
