Written by Julia Shannon-Grillo

On February 14, 2019, the Vermont Agency Of Education confirmed that Burlington High School Director of Guidance Mario Macias’s license has been revoked.

A statement from Vermont Secretary of Education Daniel French reads:

“The decision in this case demonstrates the strengths of Vermont’s licensing investigations process, where protecting our students is balanced against due process and transparency. I want to thank and commend the work of the licensing hearing panel for their careful deliberations and thank my staff at the Agency of Education for their diligent investigation.”

Macias was originally charged with six counts of misconduct in September, 2018, followed by a seventh charge. French’s initial recommendation was for a one-year suspension of Macias’s educator license. After the seventh charge, French recommended that Macias’s license be revoked.

The hearing panel found three of the seven charges to be substantiated: willful misconduct that unreasonably impaired Macias’s colleagues’ ability to perform their professional duties, incompetence related to the basic functions of the guidance department, and a single egregious act of willful misconduct that caused a student severe emotional distress.

According to the hearing panel’s final decision, these three charges were enough to establish a “broad pattern of unprofessional conduct as contemplated by 16 V.S.A 1698.”