Friday, November 20, 2009 East Central Illinois

Document could affect court ruling in Jon White case

By: Amy F. Reiter

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Tuesday, January 06, 2009

URBANA – How long did Jon White teach in Normal schools? Legally, that's become a matter of interpretation. The answer could help decide if Urbana school district victims of White should receive money from White's former employer, the Normal school district in McLean County.

On Aug. 29, 2005, the Urbana schools received a "verification of teaching experience," document stating that Jon White had worked at Normal schools for the full 180 days of the 2004-05 school year.

The document was signed on May 27, 2005, by John Pye, the Unit 5 district's assistant superintendent for operations and human resources, who is one of the five current and former Normal school administrators named in a federal lawsuit.

Ellyn Bullock, the Champaign lawyer representing one of White's victims – called Jane Doe-2 – in federal court, said the court had not yet considered the document when Magistrate Judge David Bernthal made a Dec. 17 recommendation to dismiss Normal schools' liability for the Urbana victim.

Bullock said she hoped the document – "a new piece of information (that) showed up in Urbana personnel files for White," she said – would change the court's recommendation.

Bullock contends that White did not teach the full year since he was disciplined – including a suspension – for looking at pornography on his school computer in the fall of 2004. In the spring, after complaints about his conduct from parents, he agreed to resign with a recommendation from district administrators.

Bullock said that information shows "McLean made a false statement to Urbana," she said. "I want to show that McLean is responsible for its own bad act."

But Jim Kearns, the Urbana laywer representing the Normal school district, said that though White was not teaching 180 days, his interpretation of the document is that it only shows that White was employed for that full school year, not that he taught every day.

"What if he was sick three days?" Kearns said. "I interpret (the verification) to be he worked full time for the full year. Whether he was sick or suspended ... he was still employed."

Kearns said that as part of the agreement between White and Unit 5 administrators, "they said 'OK, you'll be employed until the end of the year, but you'll resign.'"

As well, Urbana had already hired White by the time it requested the verification, Kearns said. "They didn't even ask for it before he'd been working here two weeks."

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