Tabiona educator faces state probe

A Duchesne County English teacher who said a student's status as a rape victim disqualified her to object to a school assignment will be investigated for alleged professional conduct violations and could lose her teaching license after a review Friday by the Utah Professional Practices Advisory Commission.

"She will be referred to our investigator," said Carol Lear, executive secretary for UPPAC. "I don't know how soon she (the investigator) will conclude it, because she has a caseload of 30-plus cases in various stages. It won't be months, but it might be a week or two."

Friday's review came after Duchesne County School District Superintendent John Aland forwarded statements to UPPAC containing allegations of unprofessional conduct against Glenda Norviel, a first-year English teacher at Tabiona School. One of her students was a 16-year-old student who had been raped by a man now serving a lengthy sentence. The girl, who became pregnant and gave birth to the child in January, said Norviel assigned her to write about her experience after she objected to reading an assigned novel she called "filthy."

After the district removed the book, "My Sister's Keeper" by Jodi Picoult, from Norviel's English class, Norviel made statements to multiple newspapers justifying the assignment and criticizing the girl for questioning it. Norviel said the girl had "supposedly been raped" and "if she's been through all this, why can't she be allowed to read a little suggestive matter?" She stated elsewhere that the girl "is not an innocent" and "if she just had a baby six weeks ago, is reading the F-word going to cause her emotional trauma for the rest of her life?"

Most recently, Norviel wrote a letter to the editor of the Uintah Basin Standard defending the assigned book and implying the student had simply been lazy and trying to get out of work.

Jean Hill, the investigator for UPPAC and Democratic candidate for Utah attorney general, said she will soon begin contacting involved parties.

"It goes to me to investigate, which is calling those who are involved and willing to talk about it," Hill said. "Then I make a written recommendation. The options range from dismissing the case and letting the district handle it, to a letter of warning or reprimand, all the way up to suspension or revocation of license. If it's suspension or revocation, there would be hearings, giving (Norviel) further due process."

Lear said the district is not compelled to wait to take action of its own. The district's options are broad because Norviel is a first-year teacher without tenure, having only received her education degree in April 2007 from the University of Phoenix. But Superintendent John Aland said he is deferring the matter to the state.