Phoenix school may fire teacher with hearing disorder for removing intercom
The Wilson Elementary School District in Phoenix is trying to fire one of its teachers for lying about having been fired from another school district and taking an intercom system off his classroom wall.
The teacher says he has hearing disabilities and that he complained about the noise level of the intercom system to the district for months without acknowledgment.
In February, Wilson Elementary School fourth grade teacher Darin Meyer removed an intercom system from his classroom wall in front of students “because he was irritated by the school announcements,” the district's superintendent wrote in a letter recommending Meyer's dismissal. Meyer threatened students not to tell anyone what he did “or they would have consequences," covered the hole with a poster and told a student to hide the intercom system, the superintendent wrote.
Four days prior, Meyer had used a megaphone to yell a response to a staff member’s announcement, according to the letter.
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Meyer initially denied the allegations about the intercom system when confronted, according to the letter. He then “yelled at the school’s administrators” while they searched the classroom for the clock. Later, he admitted to removing it but “refused to reveal its location despite being directed to do so.”
He attempted to “negotiate the disclosure of the location of the intercom system with administrators to allow him to keep his job,” according to the superintendent's letter.
Meyer, whose contract with the district began in October 2023, said he has tinnitus, a condition that causes someone to hear sounds like ringing or buzzing without an external source, as well as hyperacusis and misophonia, hearing disorders that decrease an individual's tolerance for everyday sounds.
"There isn't a cure for any of these," Meyer said in a statement to The Arizona Republic. "If I put earplugs to help with the hyperacusis and misophonia, the ringing from tinnitus gets louder."
Meyer removed the public address system "to try to make the administrators aware of an ongoing problem because of my hearing disabilities," he wrote. "I was very stressed at this point."
Meyer said that he was playing a "simple game of hide and seek" with the intercom system after he took it off the wall. "I've never threatened a student or child in my life," he wrote. He's been teaching for 20-plus years, he said.
The Wilson Elementary district also found that Meyer resigned in lieu of termination from the Kingman Unified School District in 2021 and was fired from the Bullhead City Elementary School District in 2022 for a number of reasons including “unprofessional conduct,” but falsely answered “no” on his application to the Phoenix district when asked whether he had been involuntarily terminated or resigned in lieu of termination from another school district.
"My work experience includes issues I've had with my disabilities and does not have to be added to my work experience," Meyer wrote in his statement. "Also, I was hired before my application was turned in and Wilson never asked for references."
After being placed on administrative leave, Meyer stood next to school property during student dismissal on April 1 and “yelled through a bullhorn derogatory comments about district leaders,” according to the superintendent's letter. In his statement, Meyer wrote that he used a loudspeaker to invite parents to his employment hearing.
"It might have been against the 'administrative leave' policy, but I was no longer under that policy because I wasn't getting administrative pay anymore," he wrote.
As of Thursday, Meyer was still on leave and awaiting a hearing regarding his employment, according to the district. He said he was not resigning because he cared about the well-being of the students in the school.
Reach the reporter at mparrish@arizonarepublic.com.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: School may fire teacher with hearing disorder for intercom removal
