BOARD SETTLES TEACHER'S DRUG CASE

Employee Who Was On Cocaine Will Resign Instead Of Being Fired

PENSACOLA -(AP)- School officials agreed Friday to let a teacher resign
instead of being fired for coming to work high on cocaine, resolving a legal
case that had been going the teacher's way.

The Escambia County School Board directed its lawyer to negotiate a
settlement with Robert K. Sites III, a middle school technology coordinator,
rather than appeal a court ruling that the fired teacher be reinstated.

Sites and his lawyer, Tom Brooks, have agreed to the deal in principle.

Board members called that a victory.

''Parents in Escambia County can sleep soundly knowing the School Board will
ensure the safety of their children,'' board member Cary Stidham said in a
statement issued after the panel met in executive session.

Brooks accused the board Friday of trying to make political points by
appearing tough on Sites. He said the earlier ruling that would have
reinstated Sites was the right combination of punishment and rehabilitation.

Brooks wouldn't say specifically why Sites decided to resign.

''This case was about letting Mr. Sites decide what he wanted to do rather
than having the School Board dictate what he was going to do,'' Brooks said.

He did not know if Sites has any career plans, but said there is nothing in
the deal that would preclude him from teaching.

Sites was fired Sept. 19 after testing showed he had 50 times the cocaine in
his system needed to register a positive result.

The tentative agreement calls for Sites to resign retroactively to his
firing, losing all pay and benefits from that date. The dismissal would be
erased from Sites' employment record, but he would be barred from again
working for the school district.

The board plans to vote on the settlement at its Aug. 20 meeting.

Sites was drug tested after arriving at Brentwood Middle School in an
agitated and nervous state last Aug. 10 to prepare for the opening of the
fall semester the following week. No students were present.

Circuit Judge Nickolas Geeker on Tuesday upheld an independent arbitrator's
decision in March that Sites had to be reinstated, but Geeker said the panel
had the option of giving him a job outside the classroom.

Arbitrator Tom Young found firing was too extreme a penalty because the
board's contract with the teachers' union calls for ''progressive
discipline'' that would be achieved by completing a nine-week drug
rehabilitation program.

Geeker wrote that prior administrative and court decisions on such contracts
left him little choice but to uphold the arbitrator.

The board on Wednesday authorized Paul to seek negotiations with the union
to change the contract.

''This problem was created by contract language,'' district spokesman Ronnie
Arnold said. ``While the battle's over, the war ahead is getting that
contract renegotiated.'