CHS teacher suspended after altercation with assistant principal

Jul. 15—A Cullman High School teacher has been suspended after a verbal altercation with an assistant principal. According to a public records request obtained by The Times, on June 30 teacher and coach Ken Gleaton allegedly made a verbal threat to Cullman High School Assistant Principal Aaron Sparks. Kallhoff recommended that Gleaton be suspended for 10 days. The incident occurred after Gleaton allegedly made statements to CHS Principal Allison Tuggle saying that Sparks had "crossed a line" and Gleaton would be unable to "keep [his] cool."

Gleaton said the outburst was the result of Sparks using a "malicious form of supervisory actions and harassment" during his wife, and fellow teacher, Amy Gleaton's end-of-year classroom inventory.

In a letter presented to the board of education, and obtained by The Times, Gleaton describeds his version of the incident.

"Upon my drive home from summer school, I called my wife to discuss how her check-out went with our assistant principal Aaron Sparks. Immediately, I discovered she was under distress from the constant snide remarks and accusations during the walkthrough. Once arriving at my house, Amy informed me that she had to go back up to take two items back to the school that were left during the insanity of a medical emergency with our oldest daughter thirty minutes prior to her walkthrough. Since she was feeling threatened and entrapped, I decided to go with her to ensure this type of actions and behaviors did not continue. I will admit that I was upset to the complete disregard of professionalism towards two school employees that have a combined 28 years in Cullman City Schools," Gleaton wrote.

During Thursday's board of education meeting, Gleaton admitted to confronting Sparks and confirmed his account laid out in a letter presented to the board.

In the letter, Gleaton stated he asked Sparks, "Do you feel big? This is not how you should treat people. People that have over a decade of service in your school.

"It should be a common courtesy to actually verbally communicate before you send a hit list via certified mail with a paragraph of board policies regarding termination."

When asked by board member Joey Orr if Gleaton had apologized for his actions, he said that he had apologized to Tuggle, but under her recommendation had not yet reached out to Sparks — but felt that while he handled the situation poorly, he stood by his intentions.

In the letter, Gleaton stated, "I regret the way this transpired, but this situation was directly caused from the lack of professionalism, respect, courtesy and communication. Mr. Aaron Sparks chose to use deception, harassment and accusations. During this incident, I never used profanity or verbally threatened anyone. I was intent to just let it be known how poorly this was handled. Nothing I stated was a threat nor untrue."

After an executive session, the board agreed to follow Kallhoff's recommendation to suspend Gleaton without pay for 10 days. Despite appearing on the agenda to voice her concerns over pay discrepancy between CCS administrators and educators, Amy Gleaton was not present at the time for public comments.

When asked if allegations of harassment by Sparks were being investigated, Kallhoff said, "There hasn't been anything submitted to me about that. I can't help how people feel and that's OK."