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Parent urges review of Walden Grove hiring after state-censure audio surfaced
Summary
At a Sahuarita Unified District board meeting, parent Tracy Johnson asked the board to review the district's 2024 hiring of English teacher and coach James Simmons after she located audio of his Arizona State Board of Education hearing describing a letter of censure and allegedly inappropriate communications with female students.
Tracy Johnson, a parent and writer for Valley Friends and Neighbors magazine, told the Sahuarita Unified District governing board that she found audio from an Arizona State Board of Education hearing she says details a letter of censure for James Simmons, a teacher hired by the district in 2024 and serving as Walden Grove boys basketball coach.
"My number one concern and what brought me here tonight is concern over a teacher at Walden Grove, James Simmons," Johnson said, and told the board she had located a recording of Mr. Simmons’ hearing before the state board. She said the audio contains information she believes was not fully reflected in written summaries and that several girls between the ages of 14 and 17 reported receiving messages they considered inappropriate from a 57-year-old teacher. "I strongly encourage you to listen to it," she told the board, and offered to email the board members links to the audio and the written synopsis.
Johnson said she raised the matter with board members during the hiring process and was told some disclosure had occurred, but she told the board ‘‘it appears that administration may not have been fully aware of the nature and substance’’ of Mr. Simmons’ communications with female students.
Under the Arizona open meeting law, board members at this meeting did not engage in back-and-forth discussion of the matter because Johnson’s concern was raised during the public-comment period on an item not on the agenda. The transcript records no formal response from district administration or a board directive during this meeting to re-open or refer the hiring review; Johnson requested the board review the matter in light of what she said is available in the public record.
The district did not announce any formal action at this meeting related to the hiring or to the records Johnson cited. Johnson’s allegations at the meeting were presented as her account of public records and her concerns for student safety; they have not been adjudicated here and remain unresolved in the meeting record.
Ending: Johnson closed by asking the board to review whether the full nature of the earlier censure was disclosed during hiring and by offering the board access to the audio and transcript she located.
