GREENVILLE — Fired Greenville teacher Jon Ross took the stand in his own defense Friday, the fifth day of testimony in his appeal before the state Labor Relations Board in Pittsburgh.

Ross claims he was wrongfully fired from his job as a third-grade teacher for issues he brought to the attention of school administrators and board members, while he was president of Greenville Education Association, the teachers union.

Greenville Area School Board April 20 fired Ross for sexually harassing his colleagues.

Friday, under questioning from school district counsel Diego Correa of Pittsburgh, Ross testified he did exchange sexually related jokes with his female colleagues while he taught at Hempfield Elementary School. During his three hours of testimony, Ross wasn’t asked if he believed those jokes qualified as sexual harassment.

Board members have said three female employees complained in March 2008 about sexual harassment from Ross, but Ross said Friday he wasn’t told about the allegations until October that year and then he was suspended without pay.

“I’m still confused,” he said of what board members were thinking when they fired him in April after nine hearings with the board.

Most of Ross’ testimony focused on what he believes could be the real reason he was dismissed.

Ross, who was hired in 1988, said he applied for a track coach position at the high school several times and was always turned down for an interview. He said he believed his union activity was the reason he was never given a chance at a coaching slot, so he filed an unfair labor practice complaint. That case never moved forward, he said.

Ross testified that he met in 2007 with some high school teachers in 2007 who were “at wit’s end” with the way administrators were running the school. “They wanted something done,” he said.

In February 2008, Ross said, he wanted to speak at a school board meeting held at Hempfield Elementary and to invite the board to his students’ reading program.

Before the meeting, he said, board President Michael Downing and then-high school principal Dr. John Ziegler entered his classroom.

Downing told him he needed to listen and shut the door behind him. Ross said he was intimidated by the pair, who advised him against speaking at the meeting.

Ross said he spoke anyway and invited the board to the reading program.

Later, he said, Hempfield Elementary Principal Nancy Castor told him Superintendent Dr. Patricia M. Homer thought he was out of line for speaking at the meeting.

Ross said he told Mrs. Castor many teachers speak at board meetings, to which she replied, “You’re not other teachers.” She also told him to watch what he was doing because the board had talked about him in an executive session.

Ross said administrators didn’t make much of an attempt to resolve the teachers’ concerns of 2007, and on May 1, 2008, the union took a vote of no confidence in the high school principals and Dr. Homer.

In other testimony:

• Barbara Henning, a representative of the Pennsylvania State Education Association, said Charlie Steele, the board’s labor relations attorney, called her several times about Ross’ plan to speak at the school board meeting, saying it wasn’t a “good idea.”

She also reviewed notes from multiple phone calls she had with Steele, in which she believed he was telling her things he hoped she would relay to Ross to upset him, like the sexual harassment allegations.

During a conversation in July 2008, Steele told her Ross might be accused of sexual harassment and she responded it sounded like retaliation for the no-confidence vote two months earlier.

Steele told her to prove it.

Ms. Henning told the labor board the Ross case has been “treated so differently” from any other harassment case she has worked on.

She was the last witness on attorney Todd Park’s list. Park is a PSEA attorney representing Ross.

After the hearing, Park said he was expecting another lawyer, Ed Olds, to file a civil rights complaint Friday in U.S. District Court, Pittsburgh, on behalf of Ross against the district, Dr. Homer and Downing.

A preliminary draft of the complaint says Ross’ First Amendment right to freedom of association was violated and he’s seeking monetary damages, the total of which hasn’t been determined but can be significant, Park said.

Correa, the district’s attorney, told hearing officer Tom Leonard that a motion to have Ross’ appeal dismissed should be filed by Oct. 19. Park will have until Oct. 23 to respond to that motion and if the appeal is not dismissed, the next hearing will be at 10 a.m. Oct. 26, Leonard said.