Stagg Cheer Coach Fired for 'Misconduct'

PALOS, IL -- The CHSD 230 Board of Education fired the part-time Stagg High School cheerleading coach after deliberating for more than five hours in closed session during a special board meeting on Tuesday. The board members voted 7 to 0 to hand Bridget Guzior her walking papers on the basis of a “profane” text they claim she sent a student in August. In a written statement issued after the meeting, board members decided to terminate Guzior’s employment effective Dec. 12 and to pay her through that date.

Guzior has been suspended without pay since Aug. 30, when Stagg’s administration said the part-time coach violated a “written administrative directive” from a year ago warning her about direct text communication with students. After she was suspended, Guzior filed a complaint with the Illinois Department of Human Rights alleging she had been sexually harassed by Stagg High School athletic director Terry Treasure.

The board also said in its statement that Guzior ignored a request for an investigatory conference on Oct. 11 with district administrators, and kept inadequate records of the cheer program’s accounts, although no evidence of “financial improprieties have been alleged or found.” Finally, Guzior’s claims of sexual harassment by Treasure were deemed “unperfected” by the "department" because she “failed to sign and verify the complaint.”

“The evidence provided to the board clearly shows that the athletic director did not play a role, or otherwise impact in any away the decision to recommend termination of Ms. Guzior’s employment,” the board’s statement read. “The decision to recommend termination was made by other administrators well before either the administration or the board had any knowledge of her harassment claims … nor does any alleged misconduct by the athletic director excuse the conduct for which she is being disciplined.”

Guzior and her attorney Thomas Skallas were not present at the meeting. Skallas issued a searing response to the district’s claims of misconduct based on a partial text, calling it a “deliberate misstatement.” Regarding Guzior's text message, the student’s mother said she was the original recipient, who decided to include her son in the texted conversation. Included in the text was the word “bitch,” which the team and parents said was coined to describe the previous season, when they were not able to repeat their 2015 success in the IHSA state cheer finals.

Prior to the closed session, a statement by the parent of the student who was party to the “profane” text was read to the board in support of Guzior. The parent alleged that the partial text, which the district has publicly stood by as the reason for disciplining Guzior, was doctored by a third party to make it appear as though it was a private conversation between the coach and student. The parent said she also sent copies of the full texted conversation from her phone, explaining the text, its content and parties in letters sent by certified mail to Stagg principal Eric Olsen, D230 Superintendent Dr. James Gay and Treasure. The cheer team and parents also met with the board in closed session in September, to address the text exchange.

“It is exacerbating that the district is still using the manipulated text exchange as cause for dismissal of Ms. Guzior. I am insulted and offended that despite irrefutable proof to the contrary, the words of a third party, a party whose only motivation is to cause the dismissal of Ms. Guzior, is being accepted over mine.”

The parent said she did not want her name used because she is trying to protect her 15-year-old son from further embarrassment.

Michael Orloff, whose son is on the Stagg cheer team, also read a statement in support of Guzior before board members went into closed session. He said the board’s unanimous vote to fire Guzior set a dangerous precedent.

“I think they made a bad decision because they started a precedent that’s going to affect every coach in Dist. 230,” Orloff said. “Every coach does communications with student athletes the same exact way, so if they’re going to be terminating every single coach [who texts a student] or if not, that’s discriminatory plain and simple.”

Skallas also questioned the time the board spent deliberating whether to fire a part-time coach proves “that there is more to this story that what the school district has told the community.”

“The fact that the school district continues to omit the fact that the group text message included the student’s parent should give the board pause,” he said. “Our hope is that the board is examining why Terry Treasure recommended in March of this year that Coach Guzior remain head coach, as she now faces termination.”

Facebook Live video and photo by Patch Editor Lorraine Swanson