Clatskanie board may discipline shop teacher
Friday, November 4, 2005 8:34 AM PST
By Venice Buhain
Printable version
E-mail this articleCLATSKANIE --- Clatskanie School Board officials are considering a disciplinary action against Clatskanie shop teacher and ex-coach Chip Waisanen and may make a decision by next week.
But neither the district nor Waisanen would say Thursday night what the board is deliberating.
Waisanen, 54, and his attorney, John Bishop, were present at a specially convened school board meeting Thursday, along with about five supporters who sat outside the meeting and in the audience. No one else was present at the meeting.
The board met privately for about two hours before reconvening and voting to meet next Thursday to continue considering the matter.
Waisanen deferred a reporter's questions to Bishop, who said it was "not my policy to comment on personnel matters."
Waisanen came under fire earlier this year with two district investigations and has not been in the classroom since the beginning of the school year.
The first investigation occurred in April, when he was removed as coach of the softball team, but was allowed to stay in the classroom as a shop teacher. No one will confirm what the complaint is, but the state's licensing board, the Teachers Standards and Practices Commission, started an investigation shortly after his resignation from the team.
At the beginning of September, Waisanen was put on paid administrative leave from his classroom duties while the district investigated "allegations made by a former student."
Last month, the district submitted a second complaint against Waisanen to the Teachers Standards and Practices commission officials reported. The commission will not comment on either complaint.
The district has been investigating an allegation by a 44-year-old woman who said that she and Waisanen had sex at Clatskanie High School when she was 16. He would have been about 26 years old at the time.
She said after-school conversations turned into invitations for sex, and they had sex four or five times in the gymnasium.
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