Justification

Under current district and state rules, building principals hold the unilateral decision-making authority to suspend a student, with no system of oversight or checks and balances.  While we respect district leadership, a single administrator (especially a new one) must understand that this authority is intended to be a shield to protect the students.  It can never be used as a weapon to inflect harm upon our kids.  Matthew Jordan did just that to Liam Greene on the 7th day of this school year. 

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Liam is an eighth-grade student at Hastings Middle School. What Mr. Jordan failed to learn about Liam is that he is an extremely dedicated student who has never missed the Honor Roll, is enrolled in multiple advanced classes, and participates in the Interact Rotary Club. Most importantly, Liam has a completely spotless disciplinary record. In his eight years in this district, he has never been written up, never received a detention, and has always demonstrated exemplary behavior. Yet, without rational justification, Matthew Jordan issued our son an unwarranted out-of-school suspension.

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On August 26, Liam was playing basketball at intramurals.  Another boy that was not included in the game began targeting Liam with verbal insults.  This other boy stole the ball from the game and ran, hurling the ball over a fence.  Liam went to retrieve the ball, as it was his personal property.  The other boy repeated these actions 2 more times.  After the 3rd time throwing the ball, Liam pushed the kid, the kid pushed back and they scuffled for a few seconds.  No punches were thrown, no one had to pull them apart or break it up.  Liam just went to get his ball and the other boy just hung around the game until the period ended.  No staff member witnessed this and there is no video footage.  About an hour later, a student that was part of the basketball game went to find the intramurals  attendant to inform them about the incident.  That staff member brought the student to Principal Jordan.  From the information we gathered, we believe that student was complaining about the other boy’s actions, and not our son’s.  But we can’t know for sure because Mr. Jordan failed to write anything down from that conversation.  This was the only witness Mr. Jordan interviewed.  He spoke with the other boy involved in the scuffle as well as my son, and again wrote nothing down.  Liam was called to the office at roughly 2:45pm to give his statement, the suspension paperwork is time stamped 2:55pm. This heavy-handed suspension was enforced based solely on the unverified statement of a single student witness in less than 10 minutes.  When asked, Mr. Jordan also stated that he didn’t look at my son’s records or consult with any teachers, counselors, or the Assistant Principal, Megan Lippert.

 

Parents in this district should know that your only option after an unjust suspension is an appeal request.  This appeal hearing will take place after your child has already served their suspension. We expected this process to be fair, it was not.  We requested all the evidence Mr. Jordan collected prior to suspending Liam.  He had no evidence to submit, he could only email us his paperwork(just 3 identical single page documents).  We submitted over 500 pages of supporting evidence.  We were sworn in by a notary and this meeting was recorded.  Mr. Jordan provided false information in his opening statement.  When questioned about the details he collected but did not write down, Matthew Jordan contradicted his own documented account, admitting his account had inaccuracies.  Yet crucially, despite all the problems with it, his 5 line description of the incident on the suspension report only lists my son’s actions as he "shoved” and “pushed”.  The code violation listed by Mr. Jordan was “Fighting.” 

 

See the Upper Arlington Discipline Code description of fighting:

 

30. Fighting
Engaging in adversarial physical contact (differentiated from poking, pushing, shoving or scuffling) in which one or the other party (ies) or both contributed to the situation by verbally instigating a fight and/or physical action. Promoting or instigating a fight (i.e., contributing to a fight verbally or through behavior) is
prohibited.

 

Despite our over 500 pages of supporting evidence we submitted at the appeal to Mr. Jordan’s none(other than his suspension report that was riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies), as well as the code violation not being relevant to the incident,  and him taking less then 10 minutes to make this decision that massively negatively impacted my entire family’s lives, the school sided with their colleague.

 

We feel resolute that Matthew Jordan came into this school year with the preconceived mission to suspend the first kid that he felt reasonably justified in doing so, regardless of the individual circumstances. This is an egregious betrayal of trust to the students and their families as well as a dangerous misunderstanding of the negative impact these actions have on the well being of impressionable students. It is our firm belief based on the facts we’ve collected that Mr. Jordan’s primary objective is to curate an image of himself as a feared disciplinarian. Fairness, due process, and student wellbeing are clearly not included in his core values, or at least do not supersede his own personal superficial image goals. This is unforgivable and this school district deserves better, and must do better. For these reasons we ask that Mr. Jordan be removed as principal effective immediately.  We nominate Megan Lippert to serve as interim Principal until the school board can determine who best is worthy and qualified enough to hold this tremendously impactful position on our kids’ lives.

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Matthew Jordan just doesn’t meet the standards we should demand of the Upper Arlington School District.  If you want better for our Golden Bear students, please sign the Petition.