Josh Hamilton
Josh Hamilton says district fired him for telling students he is gay
Tammye Nash | Managing Editor
nash@dallasvoice.com
A Fort Worth man who says he is being fired from his position as a teacher with the Grapevine-Colleyville ISD because he is gay has filed complaints with both the EEOC and the Office of Civil Rights challenging his firing.
The Grapevine-Colleyville Independent School District has denied Josh Hamilton’s claim that he is being fired because he is gay. Kristin Snively, the district’s executive director of communications, provided Dallas Voice with this written statement:
“To be clear, Mr. Hamilton’s sexual orientation has absolutely nothing to do with the reason Mr. Hamilton has been proposed for termination. Mr. Hamilton has been proposed for termination for good cause due to violations of the district’s electronic communications policy, violations of student privacy, failure to follow written directives, and violations of the Texas Educator’s Code of Ethics. In GCISD, we hold all employees to high standards for their interactions with our most important people, our students. His conduct is not acceptable for an educator in GCISD.”
Hamilton has a bachelor’s degree in communications, a master’s degree in education and a Ph.D. in language and literacy. He started working at Grapevine High School as the oral interpretation teacher/coach and professional communication instructor in August 2017, beginning with a team of eight freshman that later became seven.
“Those seven have been with me since the beginning,” Hamilton said. “My first day at Grapevine High School was their first day there. They are juniors now.”
Those seven plus one senior, the team captain, comprise the Grapevine High School team that last year continued the school’s winning tradition by claiming state and national championships. That, Hamilton said, is what he was hired to do.
“My very first day of training, the superintendent came in and asked what I was teaching. I told him and he said,
‘Ooooh, that’s a big program, a lot of pressure.’ He was telling me coming in that the expectation was ‘Coach these kids and win, just like we’ve done for years.’”
But Hamilton’s place in that winning tradition ended in September, the day after he mentioned to his team that he was gay.
It was a Thursday, and Hamilton was giving his team a pep talk, trying to get them stoked and ready for the “huge” debate tournament Grapevine High was hosting, beginning the next day. The students, he said, weren’t prepared for the tournament, and he was trying to motivate them.
“I told them, ‘We’ve all been through this before, and you know you can do it. I mean, look at me. You guys watched me last year have the worst year of my life, and you’ve seen me come out the other side as a happy, functioning gay man.’
“It was a big hype session, and it worked. They told, ‘Yeah Hamilton! You’re right!’”
Hamilton said he spent the afternoon on the phone with parents, working to secure the final details for the coming tournament. He also met with a couple of students who were, he said, struggling before finally leaving for home about 5 p.m.
“That was it,” he said. “A normal day.”
But the next morning, about 6 a.m., Hamilton received a text from the GHS principal, Dave Denning, asking him to come to Denning’s office at 8. Hamilton said he assumed that he had missed some detail. But when he walked in, he found himself facing not just Denning, but two representatives from the district’s HR office, too.
“I was like, what the hell?” Hamilton said.
The three began questioning Hamilton on whether he had taken the district’s training on communications with students and texting, asking if he had ever texted students and, when he said yes, asking which students he had texted and why.
Hamilton said he told them that it was the eight students on his competition team that he texted about competition and debate information. “I traveled with those kids. I spent 46 days and nights, total, with them,” Hamilton said. “I was their caregiver, the adult who looked after them. I took them to the doctor when they got sick; I held them when their mother died when they were out of town for a competition.
“That was me, taking care of them. They were like my own children. In fact, for every hour I spent with my own children, I spent six with those kids,” he said. “I’m not talking about Little Suzy that I might see in class every other day. These are my own children. I would do anything for them.”
Hamilton said he even handed over his phone and let the principal go through all the texts before, about 45 minutes into the meeting, he finally asked outright.
“I said, what are we getting at here? And the HR lady — I’ll never forget it — she says, ‘Have you told the kids anything about your personal life changes?’ I said, ‘Are you asking me if the kids know I’m gay?’ and she said, ‘Do they?’” Hamilton recalled. “I told her yes, sure they do. Just like they know I was married. Just like they know
I have kids. And immediately, the paperwork came out.”
Hamilton said the HR representatives said he was under investigation for sharing too much personal information with students and that he was on leave effective immediately.
“She tells me I’m on leave, and I just break. I start crying, and I can’t get it back together,” Hamilton said, adding that the HR representative expressed concern about where he would go and what he would do when he left the office, and that the principal offered to drive him home.
But Hamilton declined, telling the principal he would be ok to get home and that he was going to turn his phone off to give himself time to process what had happened. He gave the principal his ex-wife’s phone number so they could reach him that way if necessary.
Hamilton said Denning instructed him to respond to the allegations in writing by the end of the day, something he found difficult to do because he wasn’t clear on what it was he did wrong, especially since they wouldn’t tell him what texts in particular were problematic.
Finding himself in “a pressure situation,” Hamilton said, he wrote a statement in which he acknowledged having texted students, apologized for doing so and pledged to be more circumspect moving forward.
“I didn’t have an attorney then, and I didn’t think anything was really wrong. In my mind, they’d be like, ‘Hey, don’t text the kids. Use this app instead.’ And I would be back at work, no problem,” he said.
Hamilton had also been directed not to communicate with any of the Grapevine High School faculty or any of the students while the situation was under investigation, unless he had a familial or social relationship with that student and the student’s family.
The following Monday, Hamilton received a text from the principal, Denning, instructing him to be at the district’s HR office at 3:30 that day. “I still wasn’t sweating it,” he said. “I figured if there was something seriously wrong, I would have gotten something from the HR department. I figured I would get written up then sent back to work. I even went dressed to go to Meet the Parent Night afterwards.”
He arrived early then at 3:30 was called in to the office. “Their first words were, ‘Ok Josh, we’ve done an investigation. We’ve reviewed the texts and we are no longer continuing your employment.’
“I was stunned,” he continued. “I had no idea what had just happened.”
Hamilton said when he asked to see the texts in question, the HR representative refused, saying they were protecting the student. Even when he pointed out that the texts were his own texts, they refused. “I knew immediately that I would be getting an attorney, so when they refused to show me the texts, I said, ‘Ok, then you’ll have to give them to my attorney.’ And that’s when she stopped talking. They took my keys; they took my badge, and they told me I was done.”
Hamilton said that as far as he understood, the investigation was over, and he was no longer an employee, which meant directives about not communicating with students or faculty were no longer applicable. So when the debate team captain, the student that had babysat his children, called him that night asking what was wrong, Hamilton responded, saying he didn’t know and giving the student some instructions on wrapping up loose ends from the debate tournament that had just taken place.
Hamilton later discovered that was the student whose parents had complained, prompting the investigation, even though the student wasn’t aware. And it was that communication that prompted the charge against of him “failure to follow written directives.”
Hamilton said he immediately contacted a friend, Seth Phillips, to be his attorney, and that he and his attorney just recently received copies of the texts that apparently prompted his termination. There were, he said, eight texts. In one instance, which Hamilton asked the student to babysit, and when the student asked why, Hamilton told him he had an appointment with a counselor. In another, Hamilton was explaining to the student that he and his wife were separating because Hamilton was gay. And in a third instance, Hamilton was discussing a “problematic” team member with the team captain.
In addition to school officials having “proposed [him] for termination,” giving him 15 days to appeal, Hamilton said the district also sent a notice to the Texas Education Agency, although no state or federal law required them to do so in this instance. As a result, he said, TEA has flagged his teaching certificate, which keeps him from being able to find another teaching job until the flag is removed.
“The EEOC says that is definitely retaliation,” he said. “That’s why the EEOC took our claim.”
Hamilton said that he and his attorney filed complaints with the EEOC and the ORC primarily on the basis of “lack of accommodation for mental health requests,” because that even though he asked Denning, the GHS principal, on three separate occasions to either reassign him or provide him with help on an issue causing him problems, Denning did nothing.
Hamilton said that the district received notice of those complaints on Monday, and that afternoon, he has been told, Denning began calling his former students into the office, “trying to dig up dirt on me.”
Hamilton said he intends to continue fighting what he sees as GCISD’s anti-LGBT prejudice, and he adamantly disputes the district’s claim that his sexual orientation is not at the root of him being fired.
“We just won the state and national championships last year. The kids find out I’m gay, and now I’m gone,” Hamilton said. “Thursday the kids heard the word ‘gay.’ Friday, I am on leave. Monday I am gone. For the district to say me being gay has nothing to do with it is bullshit.”
This is Texas. Welcome to it. Change it or leave, why don’t you? Why stay in a place that offers you little in the way of respect for your personal lives?
I agree with your comment Tom. I would also add that his termination was “for good cause due to violations of the district’s electronic communications policy, violations of student privacy, failure to follow written directives, and violations of the Texas Educator’s Code of Ethics.” That and in itself are grounds for termination, and Mr. Hamilton broke those rules for his employment.
Hey, Tom. I don’t respect you or your bigoted bullshit. Time for you to go, I guess.
You know, maybe people don’t like being treated like this because it’s de-humanizing and hypocritical. Texas is Josh Hamilton’s home as much as it is yours, and he should NOT be forced to leave because of something that has no affect on anyone’s life but his own. How would you like to be told you can’t work somewhere because of a personal fact that has nothing to do with your job?
He’s taking them to court,, so yeah he is trying to change it. Why tell your neighbors to leave instead of standing up against disrespect? Oh right, I almost forgot – it’s Texas.
flood their phone lines and tell them how evil they are 817-251-5200
Just shut up snowflake. He broke the rules plain and simple. If he were straight and this happened, nobody would say Jack sh**.
Evil? Since when did morality become evil? IMO, students shouldn’t be exposed to a teacher’s sexual proclivity. It is NOT a part of a school’s curriculum. It is a form of child abuse!
Not the full story…
This article leaves me with mixed feelings. As I read it twice, I am not under the impression that this is entirely about being gay. As I interpret the article, the thing that stands out the most to me is the very wide (loose?) boundaries. From having students babysit your children, to telling your students you have an upcoming counseling appointment, to texting students about other students (on the team)I think the conditions were set for someone to think that this was inappropriate. A teacher’s students are just that- their students. Not their friends. Not their social pals. As a medical provider, my patients are not my friends. We do not babysit each other’s children, nor communicate via personal cell phones. I hope he is able to get his job back w/ some coaching/training on the boundaries. It seems he likes his job and his students like him- which are good starting ingredients for a great learning opportunity. But the boundary violations seem to the bigger problem than him being gay, from my interpretation of the article. BTW, I felt the article was written very well in sequencing of events and quoting. I hope the Dallas Voice does a follow up article on this once the situation is resolved.
Dallas Voice will be following up.
I am not admonishing or defending the district, as I don’t have enough information to do that, but I do want to provide my experiences as a former employee with this district. First, they are no nonsense about electonic communications with students and parents. When I was there, we received very in depth training in regards to this. The directive was very clear; do it and you will be in violation of district policy. I also have experiences working with several colleagues in GCISD who openly identified as gay. Some of these professionals held higher positions within the district. I can’t speak for their experiences as employees, but several had long histories in the district. Again, I am not defending the district or speaking against this teacher. I don’t have enough information to do that, but I do think people reading this article should have as much information as possible before coming to a conclusion.
While I understand your point of view, it’s actually wrong. My mother is a speech coach. She spends one 90-minute class period with these kids a day, then a couple hours almost daily after school. These kids come to her classroom to eat lunch. She attends their graduation parties, recitals, and sporting events. They talk to her about things they could never discuss with their parents. On Saturdays, she is with them from 5:30/6 a.m. till sometimes midnight, or even longer if it’s an overnight meet. During the summer, there are two National meets they attend that last a week each.
So yes, I understand boundaries , but your medical patients are very different from students who build personal relationships with their mentors.
Yes, I’d agree that he needs to set boundaries with the babysitting and talking to students about his marriage, but even with those two issues I don’t see cause to fire him. Everything else isn’t even an issue.
Giving a vague response that he has an appointment with a counselor is pretty normal. It’s not like he detailed what he talked about during the appointment. Would it be weird if he said he had a dentist’s appointment?
If he was a math teacher texting students would be weird, but as a debate team coach it would be hard for him to do his job effectively if texting was completely off the table. Email is too slow, and calling can be inconvenient.
If there’s a problematic student, he definitely should be discussing with the team captain first before deciding how to address it. Having the discussion over text instead of face to face is a little awkward to me, but it’s only a preference. Maybe they couldn’t meet up in person or do a call.
His biggest mistake, honestly, was leaving an electronic trail of texts and voluntarily showing them. It’s so easy for them to comb through and try to nitpick. Politicians do calls only when they need to discuss anything of substance because their texts are public record and it’s impossible to be perfect.
Having also coached both High School and College debate, I think that you miss the unique character of this work. It is a 24/7 type of job, and the relationship you have with your debaters is qualitatively different than your other students. You don’t have 10-hour van rides with your regular students, nor do you have to care for them when you’re on the other side of the country and a family member dies or the student starts having a panic attack. Reflecting on my own time coaching, I think it would have been weird to have a random student watch my house or kids, but wouldn’t think twice about having one of the debaters do the same thing if I were out of town. I would give them that responsibility because we had built a relationship during thousands of out-of-the-classroom hours working and travelling together. This is doubly true at a national-circuit team like Grapevine where the hours are longer and competitiveness fuels comradery. Knowing over a hundred active debate coaches both inside and outside of Texas, I’d be surprised if more than 5% of them keep the sanitized doctor/patient “we don’t talk about our actual interests or share anything about ourselves” during those 10-hour drives.
You are welcome to argue the merits for this approach, but if that is the legal expectation, expect hundreds of firings of people who teach and coach debate, football, basketball, theater… really any program that has you as a teacher invest time in the growth of a person outside of the classroom.
I am so sorry this happened to you. It sounds like you have a great deal to offer, so the students are also getting shafted. I hope you have a good attorney who can find justice and make you whole.
I am GHS alum class of ‘97. It’s been over twenty years but there is a history of anti-lgbtq incidents as I recall. It was a strong Southern Baptist community. They would repeatedly cross the line in use of religion in a public school.
I can’t speak for the HR staff but I do know the principal personally and have for 25 years. He is very honest and has high integrity and is not anti lgbtq or homophobic. In fact, he’s very accepting of these kids.
There’s an easy test you can run. Switch the teacher’s orientation to hetero, and rerun all his action: discussing with his students that he’s married and has kids, arranging babysitting jobs, mentioning a breakup, etc. Would any parents have been upset by this? If not, then you bet it’s because he’s gay, and he should sue the ever-lovin’ crap out of them.
While on the one hand I agree that there are some boundary lines that are being crossed, I also have been both the student and teacher in similar programs and the communication and relationships as a whole are not uncommon. Having your student babysit your kids? Definitely not uncommon. Texting a student about another student teammate *especially when the student you’re texting is the captain? Definitely not uncommon. Should he have said what the appointment was for specifically? No. But ultimately with the relationship being presented here, it’s not uncommon in any way as the teacher and coach of a small competitive team to be in communication with his students in this way. I graduated from a high school in a very conservative district literally next door to this district with a director that was also gay and the few students that were in specific roles within the program were given the directors personal number for communication regarding events and traveling, etc.
All of that being said, I believe it’s also pretty clear that none of the communication was ever considered a problem until the parents found out that he was gay and then complained to the extremely conservative district that then sees the evidence from the parents and admittance from the gay teacher, so off with his contract. Honestly if he didn’t have the texts with any students about anything and parents like this found out he was gay, they would be looking for any possible other way to get him terminated. But also, if they still thought he was straight and all this was still happening they wouldn’t give it a second thought.
Those of you commenting on the “loose boundaries” and communications with students must have never been on any highly competitive academic or sports team. During competition season you spend more time with your teammates and coach than with your family. All the rules , according to the article, Hamilton is accused of violating would gotten every coach I had back in high school fired 20 times over.
I’m a teacher. I’ve never given out my number to students, yet I will get texts from them. I use the apps when replying but the students won’t. That’s the first problem with only using approved apps. If the students want your number, they will get it. Fire me too because my students know that I’m married, go to dr visits, that my kids make me insane, all kinds of ‘personal information’. If he is being fired for this then I suggest you go to EVERY coach in the district and every club sponsor in the district and see what they are telling their students. I’ve seen teachers put students in their car! I’ve seen teachers posts to students on snap chat. They all need to go. You’ve started a witch hunt.
What I think some in the comments are not grasping is would this man have been under the microscope SO much if he didn’t say publicly to his students that he is gay? Probably not. If him being gay isn’t an issue then why did they ask him if he had said anything about it? Why ONE DAY after he mentions it is there this huge inquisition? If this was a straight woman who mentioned to her debate team she had gotten divorced and gone through a lot as part of a pep talk NO ONE in that office faculty would have bat an eye.
Also to Tom P. who commented here saying “this is texas, like it or leave it. why stay somewhere that doesn’t respect your personal lives”. People should be allowed to be themselves no matter where they live. They shouldn’t have to move to get the same respect as others. It is legal in ALL 50 states to be gay, gay marriage is legal, and no one should be harshly treated for openly saying so.