Yelm football coach fired, details of old misconduct case cited
After two weeks on administrative leave during an investigation, Robert D. Shaw will be paid under a middle school coaching contract this month before he is let go, Yelm Community Schools Superintendent Alan Burke said Tuesday.
Shaw also has been a substitute teacher and assistant boys basketball coach since coming to this small town southeast of Olympia in 2002.
Under his direction Yelm went 6-4 last fall, the Tornados' first six-win season in two decades or more, and Burke said he had received no reports of untoward off-the-field behavior.
Shaw was fired because school officials learned more about his troubled tenure as a coach and teacher in Ellensburg after he was mentioned in a Seattle Times series, "Coaches who prey," the superintendent said.
According to a letter from Gerald Post, Ellensburg superintendent in 1996, Shaw was disciplined for "a long-standing pattern of behavior which includes inappropriate touching and improper and/or sexually suggestive comments directed toward female students."
In the case of one student, Post wrote, "while driving in your car you have placed your hand on her thigh, placed your arm around her shoulders, rubbed her neck, had her head in your lap, caressed her ears and lips, and kissed and nuzzled her forearm."
Shaw reached a settlement with Ellensburg school officials in 1996, then taught and coached in Idaho from 1998 to 2001, when his teaching certificate in Washington state was suspended for 24 months.
When he was hired in Yelm, "we were not privy to that information," Burke said. "We had general, but not specific, information."
School officials were unable to get a full account from Ellensburg or Idaho at the time, the superintendent said.
"Any time you do something employment-related, you're not made aware of misconduct," Burke said. "It's not public information."
In its series The Times reported that 159 coaches who were fired or reprimanded for sexual misconduct ranging from harassment to rape in the state over the past decade.
Since then the state Senate has passed three bills designed to alert state and local school officials and the public about coaches and teachers who sexually prey on students. The legislation is now before the House.
In a prepared statement, Shaw said he discussed the Ellensburg flap — including the suspension of his teaching certificate — with the School Board before he was hired in Yelm.
"Because of a newspaper article, the district was made aware of the specific allegations from my past," his statement said.
"The district is choosing not to stand behind their original decision to hire me. They are reacting to past allegations and some negative community pressure. I am concerned for fellow employees that a situation may arise and they, just like I, will not have the support of their school district."
School board member Ed Sorger said the panel knew of the accusation but not "the circumstances surrounding the exact accusation."
"Our research and his background showed that he had an excellent reputation after that," Sorger added.
Bonnie Garber, a member of the Yelm Booster Club, said school officials should have done more checking.
"As a booster, he's been a great coach," Garber said. "As a parent, I'm disappointed in the hiring. I'm a firm believer that you can't take chances with our children, and that there should be no second chances."