Former May River band director can’t appeal her firing, Beaufort Co. schools says
Beaufort County School District has responded to former May River band director Shelby Ledbetter’s legal action, saying she can’t appeal her firing under state law, court records show.
Ledbetter, who was fired in a 9-2 vote by the board of education on Nov. 5 after a since-dropped DUI charge, appealed the district’s decision on Dec. 5, claiming it was “based upon false, misleading and incomplete facts.”
According to the district’s Dec. 20 response, Ledbetter is ineligible for the appeal process as a teacher hired with an “induction contract,” which the state authorizes school districts to use for teachers with three or less years of experience.
Ledbetter declined to comment Monday when reached by The Island Packet and The Beaufort Gazette.
Ledbetter’s lawyer Marybeth Mullaney said Monday that the state statute the district references in their response “refers to induction teachers who are terminated at the end of the year during the three-year induction period.”
“That is clearly not the situation here,” she said.
District spokesman Jim Foster said Monday that Deborah Hamner, a former Marine Corps conductor at Parris Island and band director at Bridges Preparatory School, started work as the new band director at May River High School on Monday. Foster declined to comment further on the district’s response.
Ledbetter filed her appeal two days after being exonerated of driving under the influence in Bluffton Municipal Court.
Ledbetter was arrested Oct. 19 in Bluffton 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.
Two days after her arrest, the district placed Ledbetter on administrative leave. However, a Nov. 1 letter from district officials to Ledbetter to notify her that the Board of Education would take a vote to terminate her did not mention the DUI arrest.
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 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.”
This story was originally published January 6, 2020 at 4:10 PM.