Pioneer Peak principal loses job

March 8, 2005

JOEL DAVIDSON/Frontiersman reporter

MAT-SU - Pioneer Peak Elementary School has a new acting principal, after the Mat-Su Borough School District placed former principal Patrick Mayer on leave of absence for the rest of the school year.

The district's decision came after an internal review of reports that Mayer punched a Colony HIgh School Student, Josiah Moffitt, in the mouth in January.

The district would not release the details of its review, citing personnel confidentiality, but Mayer was notified Thursday morning of the district's decision. Chief School Administrator Bob Doyle met with Pioneer Peak staff later that day and a letter from Doyle was sent to parents Friday.

The purpose of the district's review was to evaluate the incident based on professional standards and expectations that the district has for its school leaders.

"Based on our review, I am not returning Mr. Mayer to Pioneer Peak," Doyle stated in the letter.

Josiah Moffitt's father, Tracy Moffitt, said his son was on his way to a bonfire party on Finger Lake with his girlfriend, Amy Stoppa. Josiah and Stoppa were on their way down to the lake when they received a call on a cell phone, telling them not to come down to the lake because Patrick Mayer's teen-age son, Vincent Mayer, had been in an accident on the lake and was injured.

According to Tracy Moffitt, Vincent Mayer came up to sit in Stoppa's parked minivan in the parking lot of the Elks Lodge. The youths called 911 and were waiting for police to come for help, when, according to Tracy Moffitt, Patrick Mayer arrived down at the bonfire, looking for his injured son. He eventually found him sitting in Stoppa's van.

An angry Patrick Mayer closed the van's door on Stoppa's leg, according to an Anchorage Daily News account of the incident. When her boyfriend, Josiah Moffitt, expressed concern, Patrick Mayer reportedly began wrestling with him and then punched him in the mouth.

The punch reportedly broke out the back of Moffitt's front tooth, bruised the root around it and cracked a bottom tooth.

The incident is unusual, from a discipline standpoint, due to the fact that it occurred off school property and not during school hours. Mat-Su Information Specialist Kim Floyd said guidelines for district employee behavior are not all-encompassing and the district is taking into account three separate reviews in deciding Mayer's future employment.

Apart from the district's own internal review, the others are an investigation by the Alaska State Troopers and an ongoing investigation by the Alaska Professional Teaching Practices Commission.

According to the teaching practices commission, an educator may not engage in physical abuse of a student.

"We've never had a situation exactly like this," Floyd said.

Mayer was first hired by the Mat-Su School District in 1997 as a fifth-grade teacher at Cottonwood Elementary School. In 2001 he took over as principal of Pioneer Peak.

Palmer Junior Middle School teacher Chris Jones has agreed to serve as acting principal at Pioneer Peak for the remainder of the year. Jones is a certified administrator. The district will soon begin advertising for a permanent principal for next year.

Contact Joel Davidson at 352-2266, or joel.davidson@frontiersman.com.