After a recommendation that his teaching certificate be suspended for three years by the state Professional Administrators Practices and Standards Commission, former Langford Area Superintendent Ryan Bruns later had his license permanently revoked. The decision was made April 21 upon review of the case by Dr. Joseph Graves, South Dakota’s new Secretary of Education. Documents about the case were publicly released last week.
Bruns was hired in early 2022 by the Langford Area District and was previously the superintendent at Northwestern.
Last fall, Bruns was placed on a short administrative leave, but returned to work within a couple weeks. Bruns was later suspended with pay by the LA School Board in February. The Practices and Standards Commission then recommended a three-year suspension as noted in documents signed March 14. The LA Board subsequently decided to terminate the remainder of Bruns’s contract.
The lengthy filings from the South Dakota Professional Administrators Practices and Standards Commission’s case against Bruns detail several instances of concerning behavior. Despite the recommendation for the three-year suspension, in his April decision, Secretary Graves noted that he found “the conduct disclosed in the commission’s findings …. particularly egregious and immediate revocation is necessary.”
Graves’s order cited five reasons for the decision.
At the beginning of the school year, Bruns had moved the school start time from 8:15 a.m. to 8 a.m. prior to consulting legal counsel to determine whether changing the start time would violate negotiated agreements. The secretary found this to be violation of law.
Various instances of Bruns consuming alcohol were brought up in the original filings. Though the commission determined that there was “no evidence” that Bruns had become intoxicated in those cases, Graves’s decision noted “upon examination, Bruns admitted he drank alcohol, became intoxicated, and missed programming due to his condition at [professional conferences].” The secretary also found this to be a legal violation.
In other concerns that the decision pointed out, Bruns admitted to terminating a Langford Area employee in retaliation for that employee filing a valid complaint against him and admitted he should not have done so. The former superintendent also requested that the principal “write up” a teacher who allegedly complained about him to the Department of Education. These instances were found to be violations of law.
Finally, Bruns’s decision to post on his own Facebook page a student-made YouTube video and disparage the students for not reciting the pledge of allegiance was noted by Graves to violate law making “the wellbeing of students the basis of decision making and action.”
Based on Graves’s review, he then ordered Bruns’s teaching certificate “immediately and permanently revoked.”
The full decision and findings of the case can be viewed on the Department of Education’s website: https:// doe.sd.gov/professionalpractices/ EDA.aspx. After the Secretary’s decision, public court records indicate that Bruns filed an appeal of the decision with the sixth judicial circuit court out of Hughes County, naming Graves and the South Dakota Department of Education as the Appellees. In a order signed on Monday, Circuit Judge Christina Klinger denied a motion by Bruns for a stay of the revocation of his teaching certificate.
