Fired May River High band director sues parents, principal, Beaufort Co. schools
Nearly two years after her firing, a former May River High School teacher is suing school district officials and band booster board parents, claiming that she was set up to fail and can’t get a teaching job in South Carolina as a result.
Shelby Ledbetter was the band director of May River High School from July to November of 2019, when she was fired by the school board in a 9-2 vote.
Ledbetter’s principal, Todd Bornscheuer, and Superintendent Frank Rodriguez recommended that the board terminate her, citing “concerns with professionalism and a general toxic culture within the band program,” according to a 2019 letter from the district’s head of human resources that was independently obtained by The Island Packet.
Human Resources Director Alice Walton also 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.” Ledbetter has disputed that in multiple lawsuits, saying the student had an anxiety attack.
In December 2019, Ledbetter appealed her firing, claiming that the board’s vote was made without due process and “based upon false, misleading and incomplete facts.” According to the Beaufort County 14th Judicial Circuit Public Index, that appeal is still open, with the last action taken in February 2021.
Ledbetter is also suing the Town of Bluffton over a since-dropped DUI charge from October 2019, which made news around the time of her firing but wasn’t mentioned in Walton’s letter. That lawsuit, filed in July, is still pending.
What’s in the new lawsuit?
In a new lawsuit filed Tuesday, Ledbetter claims that band booster board parents were upset when she was hired over another candidate.
They went on to falsely accuse her of bullying students, direct their children to boycott practice and refuse to raise money for the band, according to the suit.
Ledbetter claims that the president of the band booster board sent a letter to Superintendent Rodriguez “falsely accusing Ms. Ledbetter of bullying students, using racial offensive language, discrimination in violation of Title IX, dereliction of student safety, misappropriating education time, and risking student’s security.”
According to Walton’s letter, parents sent 34 emails to Principal Bornscheuer about Ledbetter. The school held 11 face-to-face conferences and 15 phone calls to discuss the band; participation in the band went from 79 students at the beginning of the school year to 64 by an Oct. 19 competition.
Parents also took to social media to protest Ledbetter, with the vice president of the band booster board calling her an “adult bully” on Facebook. Several parents commented on the Island Packet’s coverage of Ledbetter’s DUI arrest, “implying she did not care about the students and that she (had) a drinking problem,” per the lawsuit.
Ledbetter also claims that one parent yelled at her for 25 minutes after a football game, saying that he “would have her f****** job” and that he was “going to leave before I do something I really regret.” Ledbetter had told his daughter and other members of the color guard to do push-ups as punishment for laughing and talking during a band tribute to a deceased student.
Ledbetter named 14 band parents, as well as Rodriguez, Walton, Bornscheuer, Beaufort County School District, the school board and eight individual board members as defendants in the Tuesday lawsuit.
She’s claiming that several of the defendants conspired to have her fired, and that she “has been unable to find a teaching position in South Carolina due to the communications of the Band Parents, Mr. Bonscheuer (sic), Dr. Rodriguez, The School District, and Ms. Walton.”
Ledbetter is asking for a jury to find the defendants guilty of abuse of process, breach of contract, civil conspiracy, interference with a contractual relationship, defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligent supervision, violation of unfair trade practices and violation of Section 22 of the South Carolina Constitution.
She’s also asking to be awarded damages and injunctive relief to keep defendants from defaming her further and “continuing their unfair trade practices.”
Ledbetter’s lawyer, Marybeth Mullaney, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.