BELCHERTOWN — A high school teacher who had been placed on paid administrative leave following an inappropriate Facebook post will retire later this month, according to a school official.
Superintendent Karol Coffin said the teacher, whom she declined to identify, will retire effective Jan. 26 and remain on paid administrative leave until that time.
The teacher was placed on leave Jan. 4 after the district became aware of a Dec. 30, 2016, Facebook post in which the teacher appeared to be commenting on a post about the history of slavery made a day earlier by a former Belchertown High School student.
At the time of the teacher’s suspension, Coffin said the post “absolutely raised red flags” for the district. School Committee Chairwoman Dawn French told the Gazette earlier this month that parents had sent her multiple screenshots of the Facebook post, which she described as “disturbing.”
The Dec. 30 post is under the name of Mark Horan. On his Facebook profile at the time of the incident, Horan identified himself as a Belchertown High School mathematics and computer science teacher. Belchertown High School’s website lists Mark Horan as a mathematics teacher, though his Facebook profile no longer contains that information.
The post under Horan’s name, and reviewed by the Gazette, claimed that slavery always has existed and implied that it is still practiced by Muslims. The post, which used vulgar language, ended with the remark: “you are to f—ing stupid to be allowed to breed.”
A phone message left for Horan in Windsor Locks, Connecticut, which is the community listed on his Facebook page, went unreturned Tuesday evening.
Coffin said Tuesday that no other action is being taken against the teacher and that his retirement will conclude the matter. No severance agreement comes along with the retirement, she said.
“Right now we are looking for someone who will take that class permanently until the end of the year,” Coffin said.
She said the teacher had been thinking about retirement prior to the incident.
Horan’s retirement is listed in a Jan. 10 personnel update presented to the School Committee.
“In Belchertown we have standards for our professionals and we have excellent teachers here who do operate on a very professional basis every day,” Coffin said. “When we have a staff member who is not at our level of expectation, we try to help that person improve because our students deserve the best that we can give them.”
Emily Cutts can be reached at ecutts@gazettenet.com