Miyamura teacher ousted after allegations of misconduct, neglect
By Molly Ann Howell
Managing Editor
A good teacher can be the difference between a student passing or failing a class, particularly an advanced class that can give them a leg-up in college and beyond. Several Miyamura High School students trusted their teacher to guide them through college-level coursework with this in mind.
However, most of them now believe he did just the opposite.
Gallup-McKinley County Schools officials say that a teacher’s students suffered greatly after he allegedly spent a majority of time sitting behind his desk with his feet up, ignoring students and their needs. The teacher, Sawyer Masonjones, reportedly allowed students to vape, use their phones, and even skip his class altogether.
After school officials discovered the long list of Sawyer’s inappropriate behaviors, he was eventually fired from his position.
THE LEADUP TO FIRING
The investigation into Sawyer Masonjones’ behavior began after he allegedly accidentally sent an email regarding teacher union business to the Miyamura High School principal Nick Garro. Garro noticed that the email was sent during Masonjones’ contract hours, when he should’ve been working. Masonjones was officially elected the president of the McKinley County Federation of United School Employees union in early January.
Garro alerted Gallup-McKinley County Schools Superintendent Mike Hyatt, and Hyatt sent a letter of reprimand to Masonjones Jan. 17.
The district placed Masonjones on unpaid leave beginning Jan. 22, and scheduled a personnel hearing to discuss his employment status at the district in front of the school board for May 17. The hearing was split into two meetings, with the second meeting held on June 18.
During the meeting school officials laid out their concerns regarding Masonjones and his conduct within the classroom, while he defended his actions. Masonjones chose to make the meetings public.
For the 2024-2025 school year, Masonjones was responsible for two classes: a credit recovery class and a dual credit course where students split time between the University of New Mexico-Gallup campus and his classroom.
The dual credit program was a part of Miyamura’s “School of Health.» Masonjones’ responsibilities were reportedly to basically chaperone the students on their way to the college campus, sit in on the class, and then provide support during their time back at the high school as students completed their assignments.
STUDENT TESTIMONIES
School officials became aware of other problems (i.e. vaping, skipping class) after Hyatt and Garro learned about the union email.
Once they became aware of the situation in February, former GMCS Assistant Superintendent K’Dawn Montoya and the district’s investigator Darren Soland interviewed 13 of Masonjones’ students about their teacher’s behavior in the classroom.
Multiple students reportedly told them that Masonjones let students vape in class, that he often sat at his desk watching TikToks and reacting to the videos by exclaiming profanities, and that he let students wander around the school during his class.
“The first concern I had was the safety of the students,” Montoya said during the public hearing. “I felt like there was no oversight of the classroom. Every student told us that [Masonjones] sits in a pink gaming chair with his feet up on his desk on his phone a majority of class time. If students asked for help, they were told to just email the university professor.”
During his time in front of the school board at the hearing, Masonjones rebutted all the districts’ claims, starting with the idea that he only sat in his chair and didn’t provide any support to the students.
Masonjones claimed that he had severe asthma, which flared up during the cold, dry winter months. He said that he only began sitting down at his desk at a regular basis during those months to prevent asthma attacks.
He said he typically is an extremely attentive teacher. He walked the school board through his classroom management style, saying he implemented a 10-minute walk through procedure in the dual credit classroom, meaning that he would do a walkthrough of his classroom every 10 minutes, making sure to check on every student to see if they needed help on an assignment or had questions.
Masonjones also said he had a problem with the class’s material.
“The assignments were not to the level of a college student, which was very sad to me because this was supposed to be the higher-level class,” he said. “… This was an opportunity to kind of push these students to be able to do college-level work, to be able to go in-depth, and it’s an opportunity our school doesn’t normally have.”
Masonjones said that instead of the higher-level assignments he was expecting, the UNM-Gallup professor had students completing crosswords and organ diagrams that Masonjones said didn’t even have extensive labeling on them.
So, Masonjones allegedly took matters into his own hands. He began assigning his own projects for the students. One such example was a “diet diary” in which he wanted students to think about the different diets of individual cultures, and how although people may eat something different than their neighbors, they all eventually get the same nutritional value to live.
“Frankly, I find the accusation that I wasn’t doing anything with my students deeply insulting,” he said.
As for the vaping accusation, Montoya said that students told her that when Masonjones caught someone vaping in his classroom his response would be “put that away, don’t do it in here.”
Masonjones said he only remembers catching one student vaping, and with that situation he wasn’t even sure if what he saw was a vape. He allegedly only saw something in the student’s hand and asked them to put it away and not do that in his classroom. But he allegedly didn’t know what it was, and he said that’s why he didn’t report the incident to the principal.
“Students can get crafty,” Masonjones said when discussing the issue of vaping. “They hide things. They’ll blow [the vapor] into their jackets.”
Masonjones also said he only used profanity once in his classroom, and he claims it was an accident. A student was allegedly showing him his football highlight reel, and he allegedly let out an “Oh f***” in response to the student’s interception.
“There was an expletive, but that was an accident,” Masonjones said. “[Watching the video] was a way for me to bond with the student.”
SKIPPING CLASS
A large portion of the hearing was spent discussing the fact that many students allegedly skipped Masonjones’ class, and would instead visit school counselors, other teachers, or their friends.
The dual credit course was held over a three-period long block. Masonjones said he would only allow students to leave his classroom during the five-minute period when other students were moving to other classes or if they had a valid reason. He said he would always use the school’s e-hallpass system when a student left.
He said he had problems taking attendance, partly because of the longer class period. He claimed that he couldn’t mark if a student left in the middle of class. The school’s representative at the hearing said that the system would’ve allowed him to do that, but Masonjones said he was never properly trained on how to use it.
Masonjones said the larger problem came from when he would take students to the UNM-Gallup campus.
Students would allegedly wander off and walk around campus instead of being in class. They would then return at the appropriate time to get on the bus to go back to Miyamura High School.
Masonjones said a fellow teacher, Valerie Scott, advised him to record the times students skipped class, and he said he did that.
AN UNSTRUCTURED CLASS
Throughout the hearing, Masonjones said the district didn’t prepare him for teaching the dual credit class. He said the course didn’t come with a syllabus; he was only given a course description. In comparison, he said the credit recovery class laid out his responsibilities neatly.
Masonjones’ fellow teacher Scott backed him up on this, saying that the school wasn’t prepared to introduce this new course.
Scott is a fellow science teacher. She was the head of the School of Health during the 2023-2024 school year.
She explained that the dual credit concept was brand new during the 2024-2025 school year. In previous years, only the students with a 4.0 GPA were allowed to participate in the dual credit class. This number made up less than 5% of the senior population.
Before the 2024-2025 school year, the district decided to change that policy and required all seniors who were a part of the School of Health to take the dual credit class in an effort to prepare them for college.
Scott said she was initially wary about the change, and she allegedly voiced her concerns at an early planning meeting for the course.
She explained that the previous years’ success rates for the course weren’t ideal with many students failing.
Ultimately, the school decided to change one thing for the new school year, hoping to see a change: they would assign a teacher to accompany the students to UNM-Gallup. This teacher would sit in on the class, follow along with the professors’ lectures, and assist the students with their assignments and overall understanding.
Scott said she originally thought she would be the teacher assigned to the course, but then the school brought in Masonjones.
TRYING HIS BEST
As a whole, the district strives for an 80% pass rate in each of its classes. Masonjones maintains that he had an 82% in the dual credit class.
But, numbers don’t lie. Of the 33 students who originally registered for the class, 20 of those students eventually dropped Masonjones’ class.
Masonjones said part of the problem stems from the fact that many of the students were placed in the class when they really didn’t want to be there. He said many of them told him they wanted to participate in an internship or another class entirely.
At the end of the hearing, Masonjones admitted he could’ve done a better job, especially when it came to discipline.
“One of my biggest frustrations with myself from that first semester is that I could’ve handled discipline a lot better,” he said. “In my attempts to build relationships with the students I think I let them walk all over me, which, of course, is not the right way.”
The school board ultimately decided to uphold Masonjones’ discharge from the district.
In an email to the Sun Hyatt denied any allegations that Masonjones was fired due to his connection with the MCFUSE teacher union.
“[GMCS has a long history of working productively with our local union, MCFUSE, and we continue to support unions that focus on improving outcomes for students and supporting the needs of staff,” he said. “While we have maintained a generally positive relationship with union leadership over the years, recent challenges have emerged due to the conduct of McFUSE President Sawyer Masonjones.
“Mr. Masonjones was recently terminated from the district following a pattern of unacceptable behavior that included serious professional gross misconduct and a clear disregard for student safety and instructional responsibilities. His actions do not reflect the values of the dedicated and hardworking educators in our district, and we believe MCFUSE members deserve leadership that upholds the highest standards of professionalism and puts students first.”
Sawyer’s position with MCFUSE remains unclear. A call to his representation remained unanswered.
