Teacher’s firing raises ire in Many Farms

Posted by Cindy Yurth | Mar 22, 2018 | News |

MANY FARMS, Ariz.

About 40 teachers, students and parents mobbed a school board meeting at Many Farms High School March 13 to protest the firing of a popular math teacher who had refused to change the grade of a school board member’s grandson so he could play sports.

According to school board minutes, Corvina Boyd’s contract for next school year was approved on Feb. 13, but because the vote took place in executive session, which is against policy, the board called an emergency meeting on Feb. 26. This time, the board voted not to renew her contract.

Boyd’s non-renewal letter from Head Teacher for Academics Don Stryker states that she had been insubordinate and abused the school’s leave policy, but her supporters believe the real reason behind her dismissal is her refusal to make an exception to her grading policy for a student athlete who happens to be related to both school board Vice President Luke Deswood and Principal Carmelia Becenti.

A group of faculty members who support Boyd told the Times Stryker arrived at the school last semester and immediately started implementing a “dictatorial” management style, especially toward the women teachers, including writing them up for being two minutes late to campus or leaving a few minutes early after the students had already been released.

“It felt like he was making a list and trying to get enough on it that if we ever did something he didn’t like, he could claim there was a pattern and fire us,” said one teacher. (All the faculty members spoke on the condition of anonymity, since they’re prohibited from talking to the media as federal employees. All said they had never violated this policy before, but felt the situation was important enough to risk it.)

According to her supporters, Boyd is a well-respected teacher who had been with the school since 2009. She was head of the Math Department, part of the leadership team and the curriculum committee, and was the school’s teacher of the year for the 2013-14 school year. She is a Many Farms native and a mother of four.

She has one quirk, and that, say the teachers, is what led to her firing.