Four employees at the Temple High School Accelerated Academy, better known as Temple High South, filed a grievance claiming the campus was turned “into a dumping ground for students” last school year.

In the grievance filed in February, employees described TH South during the 2007-08 school year as having a student-to-teacher ratio of 60-1 for some classes. The grievance said enrollment was around 180 students and “the facilities cannot support this population.”

“Furniture is being destroyed. Graffiti has begun to appear on restroom walls and furniture,” the grievance said.

Absenteeism and truancy reportedly was rampant, especially in the afternoon, “with classes having as high as 98 percent absenteeism.”

The grievance says teachers confiscated illegal drugs from students, some of which had a “history of criminal activities, police records and are on probation.”

One teacher filed police reports including $250 worth of vandalism to a vehicle and three Class C misdemeanors for serious student misconduct.

The grievance says TH South became highly segregated during the school year, with a student population of around 90 percent African-American students, 8 percent Hispanic students, 2 percent other races. According to the grievance, TH South is suppose to serve a small population of at-risk students, who elect to attend the school.

The new TISD superintendent said the issues are being addressed.

“I think there was a lot of transition between staff last year, with new people coming and going, and the communication between the employees and administrators suffered,” said TISD Superintendent Dr. Robin Battershell, who was not with the district at that time. “Somewhere along the line, things were dropped as to what was suppose to be happening on that campus, in terms of letting students in. I think the district lost focus of its original intent with the school.”

According to the grievance, in January staff at TH South was notified there would be about 100 at-risk students attending the school, a number that ballooned.

“We didn’t have good enough criteria setup for students entering the school,” Dr. Battershell said. “It kind of let things get off track, and the criteria that was set up was moved away from.”

Dr. Battershell admitted a number of students at TH South had yet to receive high school credits before they were admitted to the school last year.

She said administrators are working with teachers who filed the grievances, noting there will be numerous changes at TH South for the upcoming school year.

“We’re going to have tighter admissions criteria at the school,” Dr. Battershell said.

“We recently approved the purchase of self-paced computer learning programs for students, which should help our flexibility out when it comes to classroom time,” she said. “It should help students obtain credits at their own pace.”

Dr. Battershell said comparable types of schools are places where students, for whatever reason, can’t go through the regular school day, and need to go have a place to obtain credits.

“We were not treating the school with that respect. We lost that focus,” she said.

Addressing safety concerns, Dr. Battershell said that she could not comment on what took place last year, but said the district is implementing changes in that regard.

“There is a buzzer-system at the school which was not being utilized,” she said. “… students looking to come in throughout the day are going to have to be buzzed-in, because the doors will be locked.”

Dr. Battershell said she expected safety issues to alleviate with changed admissions criteria.

“If we have a tighter entrance criteria, we’re going to get a different caliber of student at that campus, because they’re going to be coming in for academic reasons,” she said.

A full-time administrator will be at the campus, and “they will have a strict discipline” policy, she said.

“From what I’ve taken in, I believe that we had a number of kids with pretty severe discipline issues who didn’t belong at the campus,” Dr. Battershell said.

A lawyer representing an employee who filed the grievance did not return Telegram phone calls.

Dr. Battershell said the grievance is currently at a standstill, as administrators work with employees to remedy complaints and adopt new policies.

Several e-mails between employees who filed the grievance and Temple High School principal Jason Bullock, assistant principal Jennifer Graham and interim Superintendent Dana Marable were obtained by the Telegram.

In one e-mail, an employee told Ms. Graham of concern for another employee because of an increased workload brought on by courses and job stress.

Dr. Battershell said that as of Wednesday, all of the employees involved in the grievance were scheduled to work at the TH South campus in the fall.

In April, seven seniors from the TH South campus were indicted on felony charges of tampering of a government record. A police officer said the students used stolen and forged class credit slips to indicate they had passed courses they did not.