A former Sandridge Elementary School principal secretly recorded in 2006 and 2007 having sex in his office with a teacher at school is expected to have a hearing on whether his education credentials should be suspended.
In response to a notice from the state superintendent of schools, Leroy Coleman asked for a hearing before action to suspend his teaching and administrator certificates, said Ray Wigell, Coleman's lawyer.
No hearing date has been scheduled and Wigell doubts the hearing will take place before the end of the year.
State Superintendent Christopher A. Koch notified Coleman his certificates are recommended for a suspension of up to two years.
In April 2007, an unauthorized DVD recording was made public that showed Coleman and then-teacher Janet Lofton engaged in sex acts at various times between December 2006 and January 2007 in the principal's office at Sandridge.
Coleman, Lofton, and a third Sandridge staff member shown being hugged and touched by Coleman on a separate occasion -- Anjayla Reed -- all resigned.
Lofton's teaching certificate was automatically suspended for a year, until this past June, by former suburban Cook County Regional Superintendent Robert Ingraffia.
Sandridge Elementary District 172 lawyers tried, but failed, to have Coleman's certificates suspended by Ingraffia's successor, Charles A. Flowers, prompting Sandridge Attorney Alan M. Mullins in December 2007 to ask Koch to conduct a public hearing and revoke Coleman's credentials, or suspend them for five years.
"It seems, finally, appropriate action will be taken regarding his certificate," Mullins said Friday.
Illinois State Board of Education spokesman Matt Vanover said the state hearing will be open but a hearing officer has not yet been chosen.
Wigell said he thinks the hearing should be closed.
"That is my belief and that was the belief at the regional level," he said.
Last year, the regional office of education dismissed the charges against Coleman after Mullins and fellow D.172 Attorney Anthony Scariano objected to the Nov. 30 hearing being held in closed session, refused to participate, and walked out.
At the time, Suburban Cook County Regional Deputy Superintendent Harry Reynolds, who served as the hearing's facilitator, said the disciplinary charges could be revisited if good cause was presented.
Flowers has said the issue was a disciplinary matter and he closed the hearing on advice from the state's attorney's office.
Scariano and Mullins argued the certificate suspension hearing should have been open and maintained Flowers violated the Illinois Open Meetings Act. But the offices of the Illinois attorney general and the Cook County state's attorney disagreed.
A Cook County judge in September dismissed the school district's complaint seeking a "writ of mandamus" to have the court order Flowers to immediately suspend Coleman's certificates or have a public hearing on the matter.
The school district's lawyers have since asked Flowers to revisit the disciplinary charges against Coleman and have a public hearing, but they have not received a response.
