PORT ALLEGANY—Robert N. Haskins, 56,
a longtime social studies teacher and coach in the Port Allegany School
District, is facing two misdemeanor charges and one summary charge, based on an
alleged incident in Mercer County Friday, March 29.
Mercer-based Pennsylvania State
Police charged Haskins with indecent exposure, a second-degree misdemeanor;
open lewdness, a third-degree misdemeanor; and careless driving, a summary
offense.
The police report states that at
8:18 a.m. Friday, Haskins was driving in the left passing lane of U.S. 80 in
Wolf Creek Township, when the operator of a truck tractor in the lane next to
him saw him “expos[e] his genitals while conducting a sex act upon himself in
full view of the operator of the truck tractor.”
Haskins is scheduled to appear
before Magisterial District Judge D. Neil McEwen on April 24.
Port Allegany school officials were
tight-lipped about the situation Wednesday. Superintendent Tony Flint said “no
comment” when a sports writer asked him about the matter. School board
president Dave Mensch indicated to another reporter that Haskins is suspended
with pay, pending a hearing, presumably before the board.
Haskins is a native of the Port
Allegany and Roulette area, and has taught for the local school system more than
30 years. He has been head football coach and is still on the coaching staff
for football and for baseball.
In March the system placed a letter
of reprimand in Haskins’ permanent file because he had shown a student-produced
video in his classroom, with content a board member and administrators
considered inappropriate.
Three students in Haskins’ freshman
history class had written the script, acted the parts and edited the video,
portraying hillbilly moonshiners and government enforcers in the days of Prohibition.
Haskins had given them a high grade on the humorous video, in which the
youthful producers had inserted bleeps to simulate the rough language of the
moonshiners. The administration had directed that their grade be lowered to 85
or less. Some of the students were angry about the reprimand for the popular
teacher, and the teacher’s union was said to be providing or offering support.
Haskins had an earlier brush with
the law in July of 2007 when he was arrested for DUI on Route 219. A Kane-based
PSP officer had arrested Haskins at 12:40 a.m., July 28, and charged him with
violation of two DUI measures, the second because his blood alcohol
concentration (BAC) was .20 percent, placing his DUI in Tier 3, the most serious level of the offense.
Also, Haskins was charged with not
staying in the proper lane and with careless driving, in the 2007 incident.
He applied for the Accelerated
Rehabilitative Disposition (ARD) program at that time, and was accepted. His
license was suspended for a time. Assuming he completed his ARD program
successfully then, those offenses would not count against him in any criminal
proceedings now.
In the 2007 incident, high school
principal Marc Budd said he and Flint had addressed the issue with Haskins, and
provided no other information at that time. He was not suspended from teaching
or coaching.
