Teachers sue district over autistic class

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Teachers sue district over autistic class

Written by Matt Dalen

Friday, November 21, 2008

A pair of Katonah Elementary School teachers have filed a lawsuit

against the Katonah-boro School District, alleging a hostile

work environment, illegal firing of whistle-blowers, and intentional

infliction of emotional distress after a dispute between the teachers

and the district over a now-defunct kindergarten class for autistic

children.

Special education teacher Nolan and teacher's assistant Nancie

Felton alleged in the complaint that the school district failed to

provide support for the class despite their attempts, and when they

asked for further support, they were fired. The lawsuit, filed on

Thursday, Oct. 30, came about a month after the state education

department decided that the majority, but not all of their

allegations about the class, were unfounded.

Attorneys for both the teachers and the school district declined to

comment on the case. The plaintiff's lawyer, Hoffman of

Katonah, said that he did not want to speak about the case because of

privacy issues with students in the class.

According to the lawsuit, Ms. Nolan and Ms. Felton were hired to

teach the special class, Ms. Nolan as the lead teacher in the class

and Ms. Felton as a teacher's assistant in the summer of 2007,

shortly before the class was to begin in September. They allege that,

at the time of hiring, Ms. Felton was not given adequate preparation

or details on her responsibilities in the class. The lawsuit also

states that Ms. Nolan was required to bring her own materials to the

class, and that the district ignored repeated requests for additional

teaching materials.

The report from the state education department, which relied on

information supplied from both the plaintiffs and the district,

denied, this, stating that " there was no evidence to support the

allegation that the classroom had no materials for the children and

lacked curricular materials for the teacher, " and that the district

had provided evidence that teaching materials were delivered on the

first day of school and throughout September.

The only one of the teachers' allegations about problems in the class

that the report substantiated comes in an allegation that the

district had not provided some sort of specific management plan for

one of the students. The report states that, although the district

had details on behavioral problems suffered by two of the class'

students, it had not provided one type of unidentified support for

this until November, two months into the class. The details of the

problem were largely redacted from the report because of student

privacy issues.

In addition to the allegations of problems in the class, Ms. Nolan

and Ms. Felton argue in the complaint that, as a result of their

complaining about the lack of support, the district " became

increasingly hostile " to them and " in a `Kafka-like' manner, laid all

the blame " for the problems on them. After one meeting, less than a

month after beginning the class, Ms. Nolan said she came out of a

meeting with district officials feeling that she had

been " constructively discharged, " and so she gave two weeks notice.

She spent the last eight days of her employment on paid leave.

Slightly more than a month later, Ms. Felton said that she was fired

by the district.

The teachers are alleging that they suffered a hostile work

environment created by the district, which affected their work

performance. They also say that they were both fired for whistle-

blowing, having made reports of " serious problems " with the autistic

class, and that the district's " extreme and outrageous conduct "

constituted severe emotional distress.

The last allegation is that the district's rights under the Fifth and

Fourteenth amendments were violated, because they were denied a

hearing in violation of due process rights.

The complaint requests a jury trial and the rewarding of punitive

damages. It names the district, the school board, Superintendent of

Schools Dr. Roelle, Assistant Superintendent for Human

Resources Jocelyn Humphries, former Director of Special Education

Ellen Doherty, former Assistant Director of Special Education Connie

Taibbi- and Katonah Elementary School Principal Kaplan

as defendants.

The autistic kindergarten class was created in 2007 to handle a group

of six autistic students that were entering the school system. Of

those students, three eventually enrolled in the class, and one left

the class part way through the year, according to the district. The

class was discontinued after last year because of lack of enrollment

for this year.