Commission charges wound-licking coach.

Byline: Karen McCowan The Register-Guard

SALEM - The Oregon Teacher Standards and Practices Commission on Thursday charged teacher and coach Scott Reed with "gross neglect of duty" after probing allegations that he licked the bleeding wounds of several Central Linn High School athletes.

Reed, a science teacher who is the Halsey school's head football coach and dean of students, can request a hearing before the commission. If the TSPC votes to uphold the charges, he could face sanctions ranging from a public reprimand to license revocation.

He did not return calls from The Register-Guard on Thursday. He said last week that he is eager to tell his side of the story but had been advised by his attorney to wait.

The panel began investigating Reed in July, when the parents of a student athlete filed a letter of complaint with TSPC Executive Director Vickie Chamberlain, charging "a pattern of willful, repeated inappropriate behavior which has threatened student safety and health."

The letter said Reed had licked blood from their child's bleeding knee, and that several other students had reported similar incidents. The parents charged that Reed's "willful disregard for body fluid exposure" violated state and school district policies. (The Register-Guard does not publish names or other information that could identify students in such investigations.)

During investigations by the Linn County sheriff's office and the Central Linn School District last summer, Reed acknowledged licking blood from the knee of one student and said "it possibly happened" that he licked other students' wounds. The alleged incidents reported by parents involved athletes of both sexes, coached by Reed on either the football or track teams. Reed resigned last month as a track coach, for what Central Linn Superintendent Max Harrell described as unrelated reasons.

Linn County Sheriff Dave Burright called Reed's behavior "bizarre," but not criminal, since the contact "wasn't forced or necessarily unwanted." Two students who reported licking incidents and another who witnessed an incident said it seemed that Reed was "just joking around."

The school district placed a letter of reprimand in his file, put him on a one-year probation period with "zero-tolerance" for further incidents, and required him to take a bloodborne pathogens test. Some district parents have criticized the discipline as inadequate, noting that Reed already received annual training in bloodborne pathogens under the district's own policies.

Reed is among four current or recent Central Linn educators investigated by TSPC over the past year. Three others, including Harrell, were targeted in complaints filed by Caring Citizens for Kids and Community, a group of district residents upset with the current administration. One complaint, against Central Linn Elementary School Principal David Bolen, was dismissed in January for insufficient grounds. But the commission in November charged Harrell with gross neglect of duty for allegations that included employing former Idaho colleague Ed Sansom as Central Linn High School principal before he obtained an Oregon administrative certificate.

And Sansom, now principal at Lebanon's Seven Oaks Middle School, was also charged by the panel Thursday with gross neglect of duty. His charge stems from his failure to obtain proper Oregon certification before beginning work.

Reached Thursday, Sansom described the situation as "an inadvertent error on my part" after his certificate application was delayed when state officials decided his fingerprint card was smudged and needed to be redone. He noted he had worked as a principal and even a superintendent elsewhere, and thinks Oregon should have temporarily honored those credentials as a matter of "reciprocity."

"To charge someone who's been in a position of school leadership for 28 years with gross negligence over this seems a little bit ludicrous," he said. "It sends a message that, if you come to work in Oregon, you'd better have that certificate on the table in front of you before you start."

Caring Citizens for Kids and Community spokeswoman Shaunna Schukis issued a statement Thursday night after learning Sansom had also been charged.

"This is a positive step in the right direction," she said. "Our hope is it will bring community awareness about the outrageous behavior of the district leadership."