KAGMAN High School science teacher Jim Fauls says he respects Board of Education Chairman Herman Guerrero’s advice, but he also believes in freedom of speech.
Guererro earlier said that Fauls should have explored the “administrative channel” before going to the media to complain about the alleged irregularities in the recently held Science Fair at Marianas High School.
“I respect their advice but I believe in freedom of speech,” he said, adding that as far as he knows, there is no clear cut administrative policy in handling “internal grievances.”
Guerrero and Fauls will meet next week to discuss the issue.
Fauls insists that the organizers of the science fair are trying to cover up their alleged purposeful alteration of scores.
Fauls, who has been teaching for the past 16 years, said the teachers involved “can’t accept adult criticism at all” and were “just making up excuses because Kagman won a lot of categories at the science fair held last May 25 although it doesn’t have a laboratory.”
Five teachers involved in the science fair told education officials that the scores of 81 entries were re-evaluated because there were not enough judges at the time of the event. The judges were also “under pressure” to immediately vacate the venue of the fair—the MHS gym.
They denied Fauls allegations that they purposely altered the scores in favor of their students.
They claimed that they invited Fauls to be more involved in the event but he refused.
According to Fauls, however, “that’s totally false. I was not bored. I was there. I was doing my fair share. In fact, I was the one who got the recommendation from the judges last year and I gave it to Mr. Mike Giordano.”
He added, “When you change the scores, that in itself is wrong. Our students are very angry.”
Fauls said he tried talking to all MHS science fair leaders about the problem but he was not given the opportunity to do so.
Fauls said MHS science teacher Mike Giordano even insulted and called him names. Variety tried but failed to get Giordano’s comment.
These circumstances pushed him to voice out his opinion on the issue through the media, Fauls said.
