New Mexico Teacher In Trouble After Police Report

GALLUP, N.M. —

A Gallup teacher has been fired after school officials say they discovered he was allowing students to vape and use nicotine and THC, and was conducting private lunches with female students.

District officials called police after they learned what they say was going on in the classroom and filed a police report. The teacher, Sawyer Masonjones, has not been charged with any crime.

“We’ve considered it a form of child neglect by allowing underage students to smoke marijuana in class,” said Mike Hyatt, superintendent of the Gallup McKinley County School District. “We found it, we dealt with it, we handled it appropriately, we turned it over to the proper authorities.”

Deep dive: Target 7 Investigates

Masonjones said the accusations are not true. He was teaching a health class in which students could earn college credits.

“No, I was not letting students vape,” he said. “Students are clever. They hide things like vaping. I don’t know to the extent of which students were vaping in my class, but if I had known that there was for sure vaping, I would have intervened.”

He also said he never had private lunches.

“That is the craziest thing in all this, because that flat-out was not happening,” Masonjones said. “What was happening is that students would come eat their lunch by room. Multiple students, and I’d be at my desk eating my own lunch.”

Although a police report was filed, Masonjones says he was unaware that police were involved until Target 7 told him. He said no investigator reached out to him.

According to the police report, officers notified the state’s Children, Youth and Families Department.

“The teacher was sitting at the desk with his feet up on the desk; they weren’t receiving instruction,” Hyatt said. “Things like he was watching TikTok, laughing, cussing. There was just a host of things we started to discover as the investigation went on.”

After Sawyer Masonjones was fired, he appealed the superintendent’s decision to the school board. In this two-day hearing, he admitted he could have done a better job with his class.

He requested the hearing be made public.

“I needed to improve when it came to student discipline and enforcing the rules,” Masonjones told the school board.

The school board upheld the firing.

“He actually doesn’t deny it and tries to make excuses for some of it,” Hyatt said. “And then at sometimes he’s saying, ‘Well, I can get better. Please give me a second chance.'”

Masonjones claims that he was being retaliated against because he was recently elected president of the Gallup teachers’ union.

“Literally the day after I became union president and informed the district of that, they put me under investigation,” Masonjones said. “They went hard because they knew they didn’t have a case. They had to make things up.”

Hyatt says they started an investigation after the district found Masonjones sending union emails while he should have been teaching.

Follow us on social: Facebook | X/Twitter | Instagram | YouTube

Target 7 obtained the emails and found he was having conversations with the state union president. They were planning to write an op-ed in the local newspaper criticizing Hyatt,

They mentioned how he doesn’t like publicity.

“(The state union president) was talking about how to harm the district and Gallup McKinley County Schools with negative publicity,” Hyatt said.

State union president Whitney Holland said an investigation should not have been launched over Masonjones’ emails.

“You’re making the choice to remove someone from the classroom because they sent an email,” Hyatt said. “And I refuse to believe that anyone in any professional capacity has not done some level of personal or union work during their workday.”

More came up about Masonjones’ background during the investigation.

Hyatt said they found out that he was fired from his previous teaching job in Florida for “performance issues.”

“We found out that he had lied in the hiring process when he applied for Gallup McKinley County Schools. He had stated that he simply just left Florida,” Hyatt said.

Mason Jones said he resigned.

“I was not terminated from that school,” Mason Jones said. “I was offered resignation or non-renewal, which is pretty common for a first-year teacher.”

“Whether or not charges will be filed against Masonjones is yet to be seen. Target 7 reached out to the Gallup Police Department. They have yet to respond.

The district and Masonjones are going to arbitration to see if there can be a compromise. In the meantime, Masonjones is still the union president.

Action 7 News On The Go: Download our app for free