Christian school fires principal

Unusual spanking incident stirs controversy among parents

By JOEL DAVIDSON-Frontiersman reporter

PALMER -- Matanuska Christian School principal Steve Unfreid was officially fired after letting two high-school students spank him with a belt last month in the school basement, school board members announced Monday night to an audience that packed the school's chapel.

A fellow school staff member, Joe Brost, who was also present in the basement at the time of the spanking, resigned Monday.

In a phone interview Wednesday, the former principal said the spanking occurred about one month ago as a disciplinary action in response to discovering that the two older high-school boys were kissing freshman girls at the school.

"We are a Christian school, so we emphasize living a pure life," Unfreid said.

According to Unfreid, the boys had just returned from a schoolwide retreat that emphasized Christian purity. Unfreid said he felt pressure from students to do something to put a stop to the boys' actions, but he didn't want to expel them.

"I didn't want to lose these boys," Unfreid said.

In the weekend following the kissing incidents, Unfreid said he prayed about what he should do and decided to take a drastic measure.

"We had held parent-teacher conferences in the past over this issue but it never changed anything," Unfreid said.

Over that weekend, Unfreid remembered an incident, years before, when he allowed one of his own children to spank him after the child lied about spilling some milk.

"When I spanked him, nothing changed; but when he spanked me, that changed his life and he never lied to me again," Unfreid said. "That was in the back of my mind."

The following Monday, without notifying the boy's parents, Unfreid took the two boys down into the school basement along with Joe Brost, a former school board member and teacher for the private school.

"I told the two boys to discipline me with my belt," Unfreid said. "A board member was there and I told him that as soon as the boys said it was their fault, we would stop."

Unfreid said the discipline was not gruesome, but did go on for a while.

"I explained to them that this was partly my fault," Unfreid said. "There wasn't a lot of verbiage but it finally got through to them."

The next day, Unfreid asked the boys if he could briefly share what happened with a Bible class he was teaching. According to Unfreid, the students in the class approved of his actions and the boys ended up changing for the better.

"The young boys became men of honor," he said.

Unfreid said there was one student in the Bible class, however, who disagreed with his method.

"He started talking and it ended up getting back to the school board president, who had a problem with it," Unfreid said.

Scott Richardson, school board president at Matanuska Christian, said he told Unfreid that he needed to explain himself to the school board on Monday, Nov. 1.

"The board was very disturbed and, in questioning Mr. Unfreid, he defended his actions," Richardson said. "He seemed to be very proud of what he did."

Richardson said the board wanted to talk about the incident further before making a decision regarding Unfreid.

On Nov. 4, Richardson said a police officer came to the school to investigate, and at that point the board decided to put Unfreid on administrative leave. Last Friday, the board decided to dismiss Unfreid and this past Monday the board members announced the decision to parents during their regular meeting.

Unfreid said police did not charge him with any wrongdoing and he said he felt that the school board did not give him full due process.

"In hindsight this was a really bad mistake, but I would have liked the opportunity to resign," Unfreid said. "That was not afforded."

Richardson, who has taken over Unfreid's duties until a replacement can be found, said Unfreid's actions were clearly outside the bounds of the school's discipline procedures, which do not allow corporal punishment of any kind, either by students or staff.

"We have guidelines for discipline," Richardson said, "and this clearly violated board policy."

Unfreid said he was only doing what he thought was best at the time.

"I may have misread my authority on how to discipline properly," he said. "I felt I chose an option that was within my authority, but in hindsight, it was a bad mistake."

Contact Joel Davidson at joel.davidson@frontiersman.com.