Judge Gregory Frost had this to say about the use of the Tesla coil (4-06-10):

“Freshwater had been applying the Tesla coil to his student’s arms for approximately 21 years, with not one reported injury. Over 600 students, in Freshwater’s classes alone, had the Tesla coil applied to their arms without incident. Moreover, two other science teachers engaged in the same Tesla coil experiment with their students, one for over 20 years. These teachers too never had a reported injury resulting from the experiment.”

Judge Frost wrote, in describing the background to the federal case, that (4-6-10):

“On December 7, 2007, the day after the incident, ZD’s parents met with the Superintendent of the Mount Vernon School District, Stephen Short. They indicated to Superintendent Short that they wanted an investigation of the Tesla coil incident, but were adamant that they did not want Freshwater legally prosecuted or terminated. ZD’s parents stressed that their goal was to prevent Freshwater from demonstrating the effects of the Tesla coil on any other students.‚Äù

Interestingly, the Dennis family got everything for which they initially asked. The school instructed Freshwater to not allow any further students to touch the spark from the Tesla coil.

Freshwater excelled as an eighth grade science teacher. According to Judge Gregory Frost (12-08-09):

“During the 2007-2008 school year, Freshwater’s students, as a group, earned the highest proficiency scores on the standardized Ohio Achievement Tests when comparing Freshwater’s students’ scores to all of the other eighth grade groups taught by any other teacher employed by the Board of Education. Freshwater was the only Mount Vernon Middle School science teacher who achieved a ‘passing’ score on the Ohio Achievement Test despite Freshwater having the most students with individualized education plans. Eighty-nine percent of Freshwater‚Äôs students achieved a passing score on the topic of ‘Evolutionary Theory,’ a topic within the ‘Life Science’ curriculum.”

http://www.topix.net/forum/source/columbus-dispatch/TTC99MLICRGGU265G

“right wing god hounds”

“gun toting militia inspired rhetoric”

somewhat on point. embarrassing, too.