A teacher fired in 2010 by the Middleton-Cross Plains School District for viewing pornography in school is scheduled to return to work in the district. Andrew Harris was teaching at Glacier Creek Middle School at the time of his firing. His new assignment will be teaching seventh grade science at Kromrey Middle School.
District superintendent Don Johnson said Harris will replace a science teacher who is being promoted to a newly created dean of students position, the Wisconsin State Journal reports. Harris returns to work Friday and will begin teaching students Monday, the start of the second semester.
Harris’ reinstatement ends a lengthy appeal by the district’s school board of an arbitrator’s 2012 ruling that said Harris had been unfairly fired, when less severe punishments were given to other teachers who also looked at explicit materials while at work or on work computers. The district spent some $900,000 on the appeal process, which ended last week when the Wisconsin State Supreme Court declined to hear the case.
Some parents of students at Kromrey said they were upset to hear the news. But the district said it would not transfer students out of Harris’ new class.
