Jennifer Davis complained to the school district, demanding an investigation of what was happening in class. The investigation found that Mr. Freshwater had burned at least one other student with a Tesla coil branding the shape of the cross into the child's skin and he had taught intelligent design in class.

Freshwater said he had done the same science experiment to hundreds of students before Zachary Dennis, using a Tesla coil, which gives off an electric spark. The teacher said it was painless and harmless – although a doctor would later testify that Dennis had second-degree burns – and that he had made an X, not a cross, on the boy's skin.

The investigation produced damning testimony.official report -PDF

A teacher who was present in Mr. Freshwaters’ classroom on a substitute basis for one period in either 2006 or 2007 (The teacher could not recall which year) stated in a written statement (Copy as Attachment 15): "The lesson of the day had been on the creation of the universe. John talked about how the textbook could be wrong. He said, ‘Let me give you an example of how science can be wrong.’ He then went on to say that an article in Time magazine a few years back stated that scientists had found a genetic link to homosexuality. ‘In that case science is wrong because the Bible states that homosexuality is a sin’ and so anyone who is gay chooses to be gay and therefore is a sinner. My reaction was one of disbelief that he was saying these things to eighth graders. I thought of how those two or three students in that classroom who might be struggling with their sexual identities would be feeling, hearing that they were sinners from a teacher. ... I was surprised at how comfortable John was talking about the Bible stating that homosexuality is a sin, and that anyone who is gay makes a conscious choice to be so. ... He had no problem declaring that not only can science be wrong by the example he gave, but heavily implied that the students’ textbook was wrong as well on how the universe was created." .................. The investigators found the following material in the second cupboard in the front of the room

during a walk through of Mr. Freshwaters’ classroom on May 15, 2008:

· A book titled "Refuting Evolution"

· A video tape titled "Lies In The Textbooks, Part A 4 Of 7, 10 Lies Of Evolution"

· A book titled "Evolution Of A Creationist"

· A book titled "The Real Meaning Of The Zodiac"

· A book titled "Icons of Evolution" .................. When asked if he has ever engaged in prayer with students he said that I’m praying all the time. He said that he had never led prayer at a meeting. When asked if he had ever asked students to lead prayer, he said I may have. When asked if there was an incident this year where the FCA group had gathered in a circle of prayer around a non-school speaker, Mr. Freshwater said that such an incident had occurred about a month to a month and a half ago. The speaker was Pastor Zirkle who had commented during the meeting about a personal medical issue. He or the students initiated a circle of prayer around Pastor Zirkle. He said another teacher also participated in the prayer. Mr. Freshwater said that he needed to end the prayer because the lunch period was ending, so he said "Amen." Mr. Freshwater said that he had been involved in discussions regarding a trip to an abortion clinic, however he could not recall if it was in an FCA meeting or his class. He said that he did not initiate discussions or propose a trip.

The investigation lead to the school district issuing a notice of intent to terminate employment. Three years later on January 22, 2010, after taking a full year and spending a five hundred thousand dollars, the appeal hearing was finally completed.

Mr. Freshwater and his supporters want to turn this into an opportunity to attack science and to promote teaching of religion in the classroom.

"Freshwater’s supporters want to make this into a new and reverse version of the Scopes trial," said David Millstone, the lawyer for the Mount Vernon Board of Education, referring to the Tennessee teacher tried in 1925 for teaching evolution. "We see this as a basic issue about students having a constitutional right to be free from religious indoctrination in the public schools." Mr. Freshwater, who declined to be interviewed, has said he did not mean to burn a cross on any student’s arm. Instead, he said he intended to leave a temporary X on the skin using a device called a Tesla coil during a science demonstration. He says he had done that, with no complaints, hundreds of times in his 21 years as a teacher at Mount Vernon Middle School. In a radio interview in 2008, he said he had been a target for removal since 2003, when he proposed that the school board adopt a policy to teach evolution as theory, not proven scientific fact. "I ruffled some feathers," he said.

The appeals hearings revealed that Mr. Freshwater was one of a number of teachers using the school as a mission field, apparently for the Assemblies of God church. Blogger Richard Hoppe of Panda's Thumb reported from the hearings on the testimony.

Lori Miller is a middle school science and math teacher – she used to teach science and now teaches 7th grade math. Her daughter had Freshwater in 8th grade science some unmentioned time ago. She is also (I think) a member of Freshwater’s Assemblies of God congregation. First, the shocker of the day: Miller testified that after the Freshwater issue arose last year, she began surreptitiously taping meetings she had with administrators. ("Surreptitiously" here means the taping was done without the knowledge or permission of the other participants in meetings.) She said she did it in order to assure herself that she understood clearly what she was to do and understand. We didn’t learn about the taping until part way through her testimony, so there’s more on this below. As noted, Miller is a co-religionist and strong supporter of Freshwater. She said she supports and encourages him. She testified that she hadn’t read all of the independent investigator’s report because it sickened and disgusted her. She said that she did all the things Freshwater was being disciplined for – she had a Bible and four devotional books (exhibited to the hearing) on her classroom desk, used a Tesla coil to shock students when she taught science, was an FCA faculty monitor, and had religious materials displayed in her classroom, but she wasn’t being disciplined. She named four teachers who have Bibles on their desks in addition to Freshwater. She said she thought Freshwater was being specifically targeted. Displaying a picture of her desk, she showed that the Bible and devotional books were plainly visible, piled on a corner of the desk. She described religious materials displayed on one quadrant of her classroom bulletin board. They included a cross given to her by a student (roughly 8" high by 5" wide), a "Faith" card, and notes from her husband with Bible verses on them. She had removed those items on instructions from Bill White, middle school Principal, and Superintendent Short before the start of the 2008-2009 school year. In her testimony she also said that another middle school teacher, Wes Elifritz, a health teacher, had more elaborate religious materials than hers displayed in his room and had not been requested to remove them. She repeated that several times.

..... The main topic of the meeting was the display of religious items in her classroom and the necessity to remove them. She testified that despite asking, she never got a clear idea of what a "display" was, and she asked specifically whether it included her Bible on her desk. She testified that she told Short that she wouldn’t take it off her desk, and Short told her that he wasn’t asking her to remove the Bible, but the Board might require it and then she could file a grievance. Hamilton asked if she knew whether Freshwater had ever been advised that he could file a grievance (she had accompanied him to one meeting with Bill White), and she said he had not. In extended testimony she showed pictures of the religious materials displayed in Wes Elifritz’s room, including several verses from Psalms 37, a poster on memorizing the 10 Commandments complete with mnemonic advice, a poem about Christians and Christ, and the lyrics of the chorus of a "praise and worship song." She said as far as she knew the display was still there. When asked, she said the items were grouped together for a purpose, a religious display. Also when asked if one had no exposure to Christianity would one know it’s a religious display, she replied "yes." She testified that she asked Superintendent Short why she had to take her "less obvious" materials down when Wes Elifritz didn’t have to take his down. She said she didn’t get a clear answer to that. Miller testified that she had never had any instruction on the First Amendment Separation Clause. Asked if she had encouraged students at school to embrace Christianity before the Freshwater affair began last year, she readily responded that she had done so. She gave examples in an excited voice. She had prayed over students in the halls and lunchroom, had counseled them to seek Christ, and so on. She said, "I honestly didn’t think that was wrong." She was very enthusiastic in voice and manner about her proselytizing in the public schools. Questioned about FCA, she said that she had been a monitor up until this last year, when FCA has not been meeting. She, Wes Elifritz, and another teacher whose name I missed have had several meetings this year with administrators, seeking a way to have FCA meet so that teachers could take a more active role, praying with the students and singing with them, rather than being passive monitors. She said "We wanted to be part of it rather than just stand by. We wanted to pray with the kids and be involved." She testified that several parents had written to her at the end of the school year thanking her for being a Christian in a public school. She testified that she never thought that sharing her Christian faith with students in the school was a problem.

Mr. Freshwater told the public that he was being fired for keeping a bible on his desk. He called in the Minute Men, a group he belonged to that advocates militant Christian theocracy.

One of Freshwater’s move vocal supporters, Dave Daubenmire, is the creator of the town’s Minute Men United, a militant organization that endorses Christian theocracy. Two years ago, according to the Columbus Dispatch, Minutemen led protests at religious services of two local churches that embraced the gay community. Until the branding incident, Freshwater had been an active participant at Minutemen anti-abortion events. Daubenmire has characterized the Freshwater case as a war and has accused the district superintendent Steve Short of doing the devil‘s bidding.

Mr. Freshwater is playing the martyr and many of the townspeople believe he is being fired for keeping a bible on his desk. However, there was no mention in the original complaint of the bible on the desk. Many in the Christian community became hostile to the Dennis family, even though they are Christians too, forcing the Dennis family to move to another school district.

Tired of the comments made to their sons in school by students and being singled out by one teacher, the Dennis family put their house up for sale and moved to another district. Today, Zach is a sophomore and plays hockey. "I just have to have the attitude that it’s never going to end," Jenifer Dennis said. "Otherwise, it can drive you nuts." The lawsuit is an Establishment Clause case, arguing Freshwater violated Zachary’s First Amendment rights by proselytizing religion and teaching creationism in the classroom. But it also raises the separate issue of battery because of the cross burn, which, Mansfield notes, feeds back into the Establishment Clause issues. Freshwater has filed a counterclaim against the Dennis family, as well as a separate lawsuit against the district, alleging religious discrimination, defamation, conspiracy, and breach of contract.

Then, on February 2, the case got weirder.

A strange story is circulating in Mt. Vernon, Ohio. According to the story, John Freshwater, currently the subject of an administrative hearing on his termination as a middle school science teacher, received a call from an unnamed person on Thursday, Feb 4. The caller purportedly told Freshwater that the school had discarded some documents in a dumpster at the high school and that the documents contained information that would exonerate him. Sometime during the night of the 4th or morning of the 5th, Freshwater, his lawyer R. Kelly Hamilton, and his pastor Don Matolyak are said to have gone through one or more school dumpsters, removing some documents and taking them to Matolyak’s church, Trinity Assembly of God, to go through them.

Then the story turns even more bizarre. $45 in cash was found discarded with materials that had been in Mr. Freshwater's classroom. No one discards cash. It looks like an inside job by a church supporter.

From Panda's Thumb.

In picking up the materials Matolyak was accompanied by a man named Charles Fisher. According to Matolyak’s account, Fisher accompanied him at Freshwater’s suggestion: John asked me to get Charles Fisher and go check this out since he [Freshwater] was in Dover [Ohio]. Charles is very trustworthy and has his Conceal Carry (sic) permit so he would be armed in case of trouble. Now think about that last sentence for a moment. That’s an indication of the paranoia that is characteristic of the conspiracy theorists in this affair. And contrast it with another passage from the next paragraph of Matolyak’s statement: As I drove to the home of Charles Fisher I questioned whether we should contact the police. I wondered if we would be facing some kind of danger as the person who did this would be expecting John Freshwater to be the one to follow up on the voice mail message. But I decided it wouldn’t be necessary to contact the police because we were just on a factfinding mission. He takes an armed escort, but decides not to contact the cops. The materials were not in a dumpster at the high school, but were by a trash can in an area near it, in an "old black computer bag" inside a plastic bag. On top of the bag was a letter addressed to Freshwater. The police report does not contain the contents of that letter. The bag contained a 3"-4" stack of papers and a "large number of photographs of items from John’s room." It also contained three stopwatches, a whistle, and $45 in cash. Fisher and Matolyak took the bag and contents to Matolyak’s church, where they rummaged through the materials, describing them to Freshwater on the telephone and photographing them. "One letter was placed in a sealed envelope and left for Pastor Paula Powell to scan and E-fax to Kelly Hamilton when she got to the office Wednesday morning." Matolyak then locked the material in his office. One Wednesday evening, Matolyak, Hamilton, and Freshwater went through the materials. Freshwater identified all but about 300 photographs as having come from his room. Fisher came by and showed them the photographs he had taken at the original scene and later. Hamilton then informed the others that they might need to make a police report. Hamilton and said he’d instruct them later on what to do. The complaint/report was made by Matolyak at 1536 on Thursday, February 4, and notes that the PD took custody of the property and place it in evidence for safekeeping. I presume that means in the PD evidence room. Steve Short, Superintendent of Schools, was notified of the report number.

To be continued.

Update from the Comments

Mount Vernon is a lot like many towns in America.