Fired May River band director appeals Beaufort Co. schools decision after DUI exoneration
Two days after being exonerated of driving under the influence, former May River High School band director Shelby Ledbetter has taken legal action to reverse Beaufort County Board of Education’s decision to fire her in the aftermath of her October arrest.
In an appeal filed with the 14th Judicial Circuit on Thursday afternoon, Ledbetter says the board’s 9-2 vote to terminate her contract effective Nov. 6 was made without due process and “based upon false, misleading and incomplete facts.”
Ledbetter was arrested Oct. 19 on S.C. 170 and charged with DUI and improper lane change. Her blood alcohol content, though, was discovered to be far below the legal limit to drive in South Carolina, according to previous reporting from The Island Packet and The Beaufort Gazette.
Both charges were dropped Tuesday in Bluffton Municipal Court.
Two days after her arrest, the district placed Ledbetter on administrative leave.
The arrest, however, was not mentioned in a Nov. 1 letter from district HR director Alice Walton, notifying Ledbetter that May River principal Todd Bornscheuer and superintendent Frank Rodriguez planned to recommend her termination to the board.
Instead the district cited ongoing “concerns with professionalism and a general toxic culture within the band program” under Ledbetter’s direction as reasons for the recommendation.
In the letter, which was obtained independently by The Island Packet and The Beaufort Gazette, Walton wrote that a student had been treated for “heat-related injuries” by EMS and taken to the emergency room because Ledbetter had “failed to follow state guidelines for hydration in practice.”
Walton also included parental concerns that resulted in 34 emails to Bornscheuer, 11 face-to-face conferences and 15 phone calls along with a sharp decrease in band participation, from 79 students at the beginning of the school year to 64 by an Oct. 19 competition.
In an 18-page Nov. 4 letter to the school board, Ledbetter refuted the district’s assertions, saying the school “set us up for failure” and that band boosters and parents were sabotaging her and undermining her instruction.
Her examples of this included a student sit-in she believed booster members initiated, “5+” Facebook posts “slandering” her made by an ex-board member whom she does not name, and a board member who cursed at Bornscheuer during a meeting with “over 50 parents and their students present.”
She said band boosters and parents had “their own agendas including trying to derail the first competition, getting rid of hired band staff help, and publicly shaming Ledbetter online.”
She disputed the district’s claim that only 64 active band members remained by Oct. 19, and noted that some were absent from the competition for medical or disciplinary reasons.
Further, the student treated by medics, she wrote, “had a performance anxiety attack as confirmed by EMS, and was able to go home on her own later that evening.” Ledbetter added that the student was a part of the color guard, which practices separately and is supervised by another instructor.
“There has been a problem with the band culture ever since the program started,” Ledbetter wrote. “Removing Ledbetter will not solve the underlying issues as only symptoms are being attacked.”
In a three-page memo of concern to the district, Ledbetter expressed anger and raised questions about whether the school’s coaching staff would be treated the same way she was being treated.
“In an activity of 77 students, is a band director denied the use of yelling at misbehaving members?,” she wrote. “If this remains a concern, what can be done to ensure monitoring all football and soccer coaches alike to ensure that they are also not yelling at students?”
On Nov. 21, the school district denied Freedom of Information Act requests from the Packet and the Gazette for Ledbetter’s termination letter, Walton’s letter to Ledbetter, Ledbetter’s Nov. 4 letter to the board, a three-page “issues of concern” memo Ledbetter sent to the district, as well as a copy of a performance evaluation of Ledbetter done by Bornscheuer.
District spokesman Jim Foster called the information “very private” and said it was subject to “employee protections.”
Neither the board nor the district would say whether Ledbetter was the employee, referred to as “Employee A,” who was terminated in the Nov. 5 vote.
“I cannot vote yes on a potentially career-ending decision such as this with the amount of evidence that to me does not rise to the level of termination,” board member John Dowling said before the vote.
Ledbetter confirmed her firing to the Packet and the Gazette on Wednesday.
In her appeal, Ledbetter is seeking “reinstatement to her teaching position, back pay and benefits and any other remedies available by law,” according to the appeal.
“Could several situations have been handled differently by the band director? Sure, they would have,” she wrote in her Nov. 4 email to the board.
“The problems that initiated last summer and ultimately led to Ledbetter’s termination are complex,” she wrote, “and would take a third party to figure it all out.”
This story was originally published December 6, 2019 at 2:03 PM.