Woodward Coach Resigns After Backlash From The Community

Just days after Woodward Public Schools announced a coach’s employment, the coach resigned from his position. An article had resurfaced from the 90s saying the coach had inappropriately touched a girl at a school he previously worked at.

“Whenever I got off work, I took [the article] to the superintendent and I handed it to him,” Vickie Henry, a parent, said. “I sat it on his desk and I said I was not okay with him. He just smiled at me and said okay okay.”

The article said Mark Ward resigned from Vici Public Schools after pleading no contest to the accusations.

Ward did not have to register as a sex offender, he just had to agree to not be employed in the public school system for two years.

Now, 25-years after the accusations, parents at Woodward gathered to protest the school’s decision to hire Ward.

“You cannot tell me these people did not do their homework. It was a simple google check and this article came up,” said Mandee Garcia, a parent.

Parents want to know how Ward got hired in the first place, let alone how he has worked in multiple school districts in the past decades.