On September 7, the Agency cited Macias with six counts of alleged unprofessional conduct. He remains on the job and will have the right to respond to the allegations at a hearing to be scheduled within 60 days. Vermont Education Secretary Daniel French recommended that Macias’ license be suspended for 364 days if the allegations are proven.
Macias did not respond to messages seeking comment Tuesday.
Noel Green, interim BHS principal, told Seven Days that he continues to have confidence in Macias.
“He has been reliable, he’s been a team player and he serves students to the best of his ability,” Green said Tuesday. “I have nothing but, like I said, a stellar evaluation of him up to this point.”
Green said he had not participated in the investigation so far but planned to attend the hearing. He expressed doubt about whether it would be fair but declined to elaborate.
“I will say that I do not have confidence in due process in regards to this situation,” Green said. Asked why, he stated: “I don’t really think I can get into that.”
Macias was not at school Tuesday, but remains employed full time and is not on leave, Green confirmed.
The BHS student newspaper, the Register, first broke the news about the case against Macias. The story appeared online Monday, but by midmorning Tuesday, it was gone. Green said he told Register staff to remove the story from the website.
“In my opinion, it created a hostile work environment for one of my employees,” Green said. “I would react the same way for any of my employees.”
After news reports about the controversy, the Vermont Agency of Education opened an investigation last September into possible licensing sanctions involving Macias.
A nine-page affidavit from the investigator, Robert B. Stafford Jr., alleges a number of licensing violations. Stafford wrote the affidavit after interviewing current and former guidance counselors, students, teachers and other Burlington School District administrators.
According to the affidavit, Macias fabricated a transcript for a person identified as “Student 1” so the student could graduate in June 2017. Stafford investigated the matter after former guidance counselor Yvette Amblo-Bose, former BHS registrar Colleen McSweeney, and Lynn Kennedy, the retired director of alternative school program Horizons, told him they had warned Macias that the student in question had not completed the necessary credits to graduate. The student was also supposed to have received special education services but did not for a period of 18 months, according to the affidavit.
Stafford went to BHS on September 21, 2017 to request a copy of Student 1’s transcript from then-principal Tracy Racicot. She could not immediately locate it, and suggested Stafford return a short time later after a guidance department meeting had concluded.
Stafford returned and eventually was given the transcript, but learned “that Macias had in-putted data that morning to complete Student 1’s transcript, nearly three months after the student had graduated from BHS,” according to the affidavit.
“After reviewing what was purported to be Student 1’s final transcript, this writer determined that the transcript was inaccurate, manufactured and did not provide enough credits for Student 1 to graduate from BHS,” Stafford wrote.
Macias also allegedly behaved unprofessionally with a student teacher who was hired as a substitute. He texted and emailed the woman multiple times, asked her out for a drink, and visited her classroom for no reason, according to the affidavit. “She said his behavior was inappropriate for someone in his position and who was married. She said Macias ‘creeped’ her out,” Stafford wrote in the affidavit.
The document goes on to recount interactions Macias had with BHS senior Mary Markley, who was applying to college during the 2017-2018 school year. Macias was her guidance counselor and failed to submit some of the records she needed for college applications, and in other instances submitted inaccurate records, it says. He was not familiar with the National Merit Scholarship Program, and when Markley asked that he submit midyear transcripts to colleges that required them, he emailed her that BHS did not send midyear transcripts. She “eventually requested to not have Macias as her guidance counselor,” the affidavit says.
Markley, now 18, graduated in June and is starting at Stanford University this month. In an interview with Seven Days, she said it took intervention from her parents and other guidance counselors to get transcripts and other forms out to colleges because Macias failed to send them or sent them late.
Not every student would have that kind of support and it’s unfair to put them in a position where they don’t have confidence in their guidance director, she said.
“I’ve never felt so disillusioned in my school,” said Markley, who graduated in June with one of the three highest GPAs in her class and was named a Presidential Scholar.
The affidavit also makes clear that staff in the guidance office sought help from Racicot to assist with the situation. She initially urged them to work it out, and then went to Superintendent Yaw Obeng, who told her to give Macias one more year.
Racicot eventually put Macias on an improvement plan and placed a letter in his file about the inappropriate interactions with the substitute teacher, according to the affidavit.
This summer, Racicot moved out of the BHS principalship to return to her previous job in the district as director of the Burlington Technical Center.
Reaction to the allegations seemed to suggest a difference of opinion among the leaders of the Burlington School District.
Current principal Green defended Macias. Obeng declined to comment but released a statement about the matter.
“Mario Macias is still a licensed educator in the State of Vermont and remains employed by Burlington School District as the Director of Guidance at Burlington High School,” it reads. “We respect due process and believe everyone has a right to be heard before any conclusions are made. We await the process to be put forth by the Agency of Education.”
A statement Tuesday from school board chair Clare Wool sounded a more critical note. “This matter is of great concern to the School Board, the BHS Faculty and Staff, students, families and the Burlington community,” it reads.
The board has been aware of the investigation and directed Obeng to conduct a review of the BHS guidance department and BHS guidance director in June, according to Wool’s statement.
The topic could come up for discussion at the school board’s regularly scheduled meeting Thursday. The agenda includes a request to go into executive session to discuss a personnel matter.
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Well Im very impressed with Mary Markley. And very unimpressed with the principals reaction. Stellarperformance, really? Its hard to have confidence in administration that just doesnt seem to get how distressing this is. They arent taking it seriously enough. How depressing.
Molly, Could you please investigate whether Mario and Noel Green knew each other before BHS.
Molly, why didn’t you mention the fact that former school board members Mark Porter, Stephanie Seguino and Lauren Berizbetia – along with current board member, Liz Cury – were outright supporters of Macias when all of this was going on? They sat and listened to the guidance counselors testifying that they were bullied, and did nothing. Superintendent Obeng could do no wrong to them, and Macias and Obeng are part of the same boys club.
Incidentally, when Porter accused Commissioner Wick of misconduct, these same commissioners were outraged and spent thousands of taxpayer dollars to investigate a total non-issue.
What amateur hour telling the student newspaper to take down their study.
Refraining from hitting on student teachers, botching Presidential Scholar Stanford applications, and intimidating and bullying staff during the first couple weeks of school are certainly laudable, I remain unconvinced, however, that a two-week demonstration of great personal resolve, even if demonstrable, merits the stellar evaluation meted out by Macias’ chum, now boss, Noel Green.
Id be interested to know how long hes been in this job and where he came from. Were there problems before at other jobs? Also, interested to know how much he makes. Please explain what happens if he loses. Can he keep this job without a license? Is he entitled to it back after the suspension? It would seem to me that doctoring a transcript is a fireable offense (and also maybe a crime). Student 1 is walking around as a BHS graduate but hasnt really done enough to earn that?! That is a big deal. Why is this guy still employed? And, yes, please find out why this principal supports him. (btw, the principal should catch heat for censoring the student paper – that action shows really poor judgement )
WTF? That’s the column this belongs in. I have no confidence in a principal who lauds a man who may have done the many things he is accused of. How about withholding that praise until the investigation is done? And btw, I’m more inclined to take the word of the others who worked closely with him and the students he failed to help. A kid graduated with a falsified transcript. That doesm’t help the kid and certainly doesn’t reflect well on BHS.
The current principal should take the heat for this. His behavior is a slap in the face to the students and the employees who are trying to do what’s right. Guess what? The school is for the students, not badly behaving staff who don’t care about the students.
Note that all of this corrupt activity started with the shameful hire of amazingly incompetent Obeng. BHS has become a pathetic cesspool of political correctness at the expense of quality education One need only speak with the quality teachers who have departed or retired or the families of some of the best students whose lives and futures were irrevocably harmed or impeded by the injustice of political correctness run amok. Hopefully some good people will step in and disinfect this putrid school administration. But it may be too late.
1. Sounds like Macias could be charged with falsifying an official document for the student transcript changes. Have police been asked to investigate? Has the student whose transcript was doctored been interviewed? Common sense screams for an investigation to determine the creeps motive to change the transcript.
2. Even more disturbing: this creep stalked a student teacher WITH the full knowledge of the school board and has not yet been fired??? And enabler Green is standing by this Harvey Weinstein wanna-be?
This is absolutely outrageous, shameful, and disgusting.