Sedona Red Rock High School’s theater teacher of eight months, Maxwell Peters, resigned suddenly last week. On Tuesday, Feb. 11, Superintendent and SRRHS Principal Dennis Dearden wrote a letter to parents who had students in Peters’ classes on plans for the remainder of the school year.

“I’m writing to inform you that your child’s teacher, Mr. Peters, has made the decision to resign from Sedona Oak Creek Unified School District,” the letter started. “In order to ensure your student has consistent engaging instruction, we have invited Mrs. Patty Falsetto, a veteran teacher with a background in performing arts, to assume responsibilities for the Drama and Film/TV classes. She is excited to work with the students as they explore the many facets of theater production and creative expression.”

Falsetto was working as a roving substitute for the district this school year and had worked other long-term substitute positions, including for a few weeks starting in November at SRRHS when she stepped in for a new government and social studies teacher who also resigned suddenly.

Jessica Nelson, who was working this school year as a half-time art teacher and half-time roving substitute at West Sedona elementary school, is taking over the 5th block that Peters taught his elective coding class. Nelson will be teaching art instead of coding.

“The class will be working with a variety of mediums and studying many artistic styles,” Dearden wrote. “We are looking forward to displaying student masterpieces from this class in the very near future.”

Brenda Cady, who started out as the West Sedona School principal and switched with Aaron Coleman at the start of the winter term to run the Red Rock Academy and the computer lab within SRRHS, will now be taking on the spring theater production of “Annie,” as well as her other duties.

Dearden mentioned in his letter that Cady had past experience with producing musical theater. Cady will also be resigning at the end of the school year, and the theater jobs and elective period will need to again be replaced for the 2020-21 school year starting in August.

“We wish Mr. Peters well in his future endeavors, and we are confident that we have a plan in place to meet students’ needs and continue our very popular theater programs,” Dearden closed. “We truly appreciate your involvement and support moving forward!”

Dearden told the Sedona Red Rock News over the phone on Monday, Feb. 17 that it was Peters choice to resign and parents knew everything they needed to about what happened.

“I just think it was a mutual agreement, that [Peters] felt it was a good time and he felt that we could cover him,” Dearden said. “We had a resignation and that was pretty much it.”

Peters told the NEWS on Tuesday, Feb. 18 that he is still in Sedona and actively looking for a high school or middle school theater job that better suits him in Arizona or nationwide, preferably in a charter school.

“As a young teacher really furthering myself as an educator and an artist … I came to realize the high school wasn’t really the right place for me,” Peters said. “I come from the charter and independent school background and for me having more freedom and a more progressive workplace is more what I was looking for. It just wasn’t a good match with Sedona.”

Peters, who grew up in Connecticut and attended Emerson College in Boston and University of California, Los Angeles, lists in his online resumes that he has worked for Walt Disney, Nickelodeon and Dreamworks in the past, and has also acted  in Broadway shows “Les Miserables” and “The King and I.”

The 30-year-old praised the students he worked with at SRRHS, and said that although he wasn’t able to say goodbye to them in person, he wrote messages for each of his classes which Dearden then delivered to them.

“The kids that are involved in the [theater] program are absolutely fantastic,” Peters said, “The performances that we got out of the kids were award-winning performances. I’m really blown away by the amount of talent there.”

Peters said that because of the theater students talent and his involvement, they were able to turn the program there around for the better.

“What we were able to do in the course of the eight months was pretty astounding, from having theater be a thing where average attendance was 15-25 people per performance, to running two mainstage shows averaging 75 to 150 people is a pretty massive upswing,” Peters said.

However, Peters said he “never really got a good feel for the behind the scenes of the district” before he started in Sedona. He said that while Dearden and Assistant Superintendent Deanna Dewitt worked in tandem to create the schedules for the upcoming performances, they weren’t on the same page as him about choices for shows.

“I wanted to take a look at different social issues we deal with as a society and it was met with hesitance,” Peters said. “I come from a background where theater is used [to express things] we don’t usually like talking about, but I found that the landscape of Sedona is a little more conservative for my liking.”

Peters said he couldn’t name the shows that he wanted the SRRHS theater students to perform due to licensing issues, but said that some of them would have been premiered by the school.

Peters also said that he found working in a small school and town was condusive to rumors.

“I’ve heard all the rumors. Teenagers talk. They’re going to make up a lot of stuff, but that didn’t have an effect on my resignation,” he said.

Peters added that he had been hearing rumors about himself, students and the school from the beginning of the year, and would occasionally touch base with Dearden and DeWitt to clear up any misconceptions.

“It was a concern because I was like, ‘that’s not me, that’s not my character.’ It was all talk and speculation.”

According to Peters, he and the administration “did leave things on a really good note,” and there was “no ill will towards either party.”

Dearden mirrored this comment.

“Were just looking forward for the future. . . . We have a great opportunity to take this [theater] program to a new level,” Dearden said. “We thought Max would be the right person and obviously he’s moving in a different direction and we just want to make sure that we can provide the best theater program for not only the students but for the community.”

Dearden also said that after just a few days of posting the open theater position up for the 2020-21 school year, they have already received interest from many candidates, including from as far away as New York and Ohio. Administrators also have teacher recruitment coming up, and like last year, they plan to go to a handful of career fairs in Arizona and possibly out-of-state.

“This is an arts-type of community where we have one of the best film festivals in the country,” Dearden said. “With the Performing Arts Center we want to make sure we have a theater program that matches the interests of our students and community.”