Woke Portland school board says dodgy dance teacher can’t be fired for being black

Portland’s awakened school board has refused to fire a black dance teacher who was caught calling in sick to take private lessons and judge a competition – after claiming it would be racist.

School administrators who lost by a 4-3 vote to keep Damon Keller employed at Ockley Green Middle School called last week’s result “extremely troubling.”

Keller repeatedly faked his illness so he could skip work for his gig as a dance teacher.

After being told his contract did not allow him to take Wednesday off to teach private lessons, Keller called in sick several times that day.

He is also accused of calling in sick after his request for unpaid leave so he could judge a dance competition in North Carolina was rejected. Keller eventually attended and judged that match.

His behavior led to a furious clash with school officials that led Headteacher Julie Rierson and Superintendent Guadalupe Guerrero to fire him. The Oregonian reported.

But board member Michelle DePass admitted she made sure Keller didn’t get fired because of his race. DePass, who is black, told the voting assembly, “The district has been documenting Keller for eight years. They’ve been waiting for him to screw up.

“I have never seen a white person investigated for so long and then fired. We shouldn’t hold black people to a higher standard of behavior than everyone else.’

The successful votes of DePass and three other board members — two of whom were black and one white — were overturned by fellow board member Andrew Scott.

He countered, “I’ve never heard any comments based on race in these kinds of settings.” We filed a future lawsuit at that point… It was extremely disturbing.”

Keller will be punished for his absence, although details of his punishment have not been shared.

The teacher — hailed as an extremely talented man whose former students have gone on to dance with Justin Bieber and Rihanna — has a history of disciplinary problems, including physical misconduct involving students and neglect.

Keller’s students, however, reacted furiously to his firing and staged a strike in April to protest the loss of one of the school’s few black teachers.

They also claimed plans to fire him were racist.

After the students’ strike, Keller requested a public hearing, in which school board members went head-to-head over whether firing the black dance teacher would be racist.

In the end, the 4-3 vote came down to a tiebreaker vote by a white school board member, who was forced to side with either three white members who voted to fire Keller, or three black members who tried to have him apprehended.

Portland is notorious for being one of America’s most progressive cities, with many of its residents and officials proudly proclaiming their hard-left credentials on issues of race and gender identity.

And while Keller is one of the few black teachers at Ockley Green Middle School, his student cohort is 60 percent black, Latino or multiracial, according to Oregon Live.

At his hearing, a parent from Ockley Green Middle School said he is “a rare African-American male role model” for students in the largely white area.

After the move to fire Keller, many complained that his loss would be especially upsetting to black students, despite a long criminal record of disciplinary issues.

His seven years at the school have reportedly produced a number of behavioral problems, including in March 2016 when he allegedly pushed a student to the floor after a dodgeball game.

He then claimed it was an involuntary reflex after the student hit him when he expected a high-five.

In 2018, he also reportedly faced allegations of throwing shoes at students to get their attention, and harassing students for changing their menstrual products while trying to rush them to class.

In 2021, the state’s Teacher Standards and Practices Commission placed him on two years’ probation for “gross dereliction of duty” after an investigation.

At the time, Keller did not dispute the allegations against him, insisting it was only because he wanted to keep his job.

While still on probation in Spring 2022, a fight also reportedly broke out when he left his class to talk to a student without permission, resulting in him being suspended for a week. When he returned, he asked to take Wednesday afternoon off to teach private lessons – the issue that led to the vote last week.

One of the issues at the heart of the controversy is the high turnover of principals at Ockley Middle School, with current administrator Julie Rierson starting last fall as the third principal in three years.

When Keller asked to take each week off for his private lessons, Rierson refused, citing his union contract that prohibited teachers from holding second jobs during school hours.

Despite being turned down, an investigation revealed that he went anyway, but tried to cover it up by calling in sick.

When he was brought up about the obvious pattern, he reportedly tried to turn the time off into unpaid leave.

In March, he again infuriated school officials by flying to North Carolina to act as a paid judge for a dance competition, including during school hours.

Keller claimed he was sick and did not go to North Carolina until school was out Friday night, but was unable to provide flight records to prove it. An official at the dance event reportedly told school officials he was there all day.

When Rierson wanted to fire him, Guerrero agreed.

But now that all school boards had to sign the Oregon law, the public hearing followed.

Andrew Scott, one of the school board members who voted to fire Keller, told Oregon Live that he initially saw the hearing as an open and closed case.

He felt he had clearly violated his union contract, lied to his bosses, and was paid double while students missed out.

But at the hearing, he was furiously challenged by black school board members, who argued that racial discrimination has a long history of firings.

“Disciplinary action is disproportionately imposed by race,” said Michelle DePass, whose comments Scott dismissed as racist.

“Surveillance of black employees in our public institutions falls disproportionately on black men. Those outcomes affect retirement and end in the loss of black wealth. I think shooting is too severe a punishment.’

After school board member Julia Brim-Edwards sided with her black colleagues and voted to keep Keller, cheers erupted from the audience at the hearing.

But while students will be glad they kept their favorite teacher, school principals and school officials expressed concern about the precedent that had been set.

“The board has some repair work to do with principals so they know we’ll support them through the tough decisions they have to make as they run their schools,” Scott said.

“The precedent-setting nature of this is of great concern to me. As a board, we have limited ourselves in dismissing future teachers who display similar behaviour.’