No Good Deed: Tiny Step #1 Concord Teacher Writes About Resgination

I am a school board member. I ran for my seat as a way to regain control over my lifetime relationship with the Concord School District after my set-up and subsequent resignation.  My 13 years of education and contributions to Concord Schools as a student, along with my 21 years of service as a teacher had been cut abruptly short by series of events that, once they were done,  I believed would be confidential. I was anxious about running for the board, and then relieved to be elected to it. Although I ran unopposed, I received the most votes. This was very helpful in my healing.

I also ran because although I had been treated unjustly, I felt a civic duty to take part in the educational process in my town, and to try as a board member to make sure that along with quality education, and sound fiscal practices, that others would not suffer what I had suffered. After two years on the board, these ideals feel a bit naïve, but they are pure hearted none the less.  I take my role seriously and feel a responsibility to students, teachers and citizens with each decision I weigh in on.

Since May of 2012, I have been involved in an attempt to bring a lawsuit against Chris Rath, and by association, the Concord School District. This is a tricky situation as a board member, but the actions of Rath toward me as a board member were troubling enough for me to consult legal counsel.

In short, she had validated her signature on two letters that were specifically stated as confidential in an agreement we had both signed.  She had then photocopied said “confidential separation agreement” and handed it over to a newspaper reporter. Before the May 2012 interview with Concord Monitor writer Sarah Palermo, where Dr. Rath disclosed the authenticity of these documents (that I understood were confidential) my name and case had already received significant press. The lengthy article and damning editorial that followed her disclosure to the Monitor re-opened old wounds and left me humiliated. A feeble attempt on my part to circumnavigate the confidentiality in such a way as to get my side of the story out fell woe-fully short.  The article was written because Roy Frazel was happy to be identified as the supplier of the documents and Chris Rath was apparently comfortable with verifying their authenticity. The only voice missing was mine. Had Dr. Rath upheld her end of the conversation she and I had just days before the article was published, there would have been no article.

Sometime in July of 2012 Patch Editor Tony Schinella requested not only my separation agreement but also those of ten other teachers who have signed them under Rath’s tenure. His response from the district was negative and he spent several weeks without getting anywhere. There was no quick photocopy for him. When he finally did receive information from the district, he received my full agreement, but only the money amounts from the others. The documented reason I received from CSD Attorney Ed Kaplan was that since mine was already released, it would be unfair not to give it this Mr. Schinella. This is where I became frustrated enough to seek counsel.

Since August of 2012 I can document a legal back and forth that has brought me full circle to this article. In the School Districts efforts to keep me from going to court, I have been given several arguments as to why my confidentiality was not violated. Each time I came back with my argument, I was given a new reason as to why I would lose in court. I can document CSD attorney Edward Kaplan starting with the argument that I had broken confidentiality first by allowing the documents to get to the Concord Monitor in the first place. An act I had no prior knowledge of, or control over. Roy Frazel, who had lost a right to know case with the district, is the one who handed them to Sarah Palermo.  I can then document him saying that I was in collusion with Mr. Frazel since I had written a letter giving him permission to get emails in his right to know case. The final reason given by attorney Kaplan just weeks ago is that I do not in fact have confidentiality, that I never did have it, and there for it could not be violated. This last argument is perhaps the most frustrating, because if it is, in fact true, then I am left to wonder why it wasn’t used in the first place. It would have saved both the NEA (who funded my lawsuit) and the Concord School District (who paid Attorney Kaplan) a great deal of money. As a board member charged with keeping the tax rate low, and a former union member who paid 21 years of union dues, I find this an egregious use of other people’s money. I am also left to wonder how, exactly, a teachers union, their hired attorneys, a school board, and a superintendent could tell me that by signing a document that is clearly titled “Confidential Separation Agreement” I would actually have confidentiality if they all knew that in fact I would not.

So here we are. I with my story to tell and my role as a board member, and a superintendent whose actions were dubious enough that the NEA not only represented me free of charge, but then gave me $15,000 to hire my own counsel when they did not feel they could win for me. My price for the legal fee money is my signature yet again, promising not to sue them. In summary, everyone involved knows that injustices have been committed. Along with the legal money I can document the district asking my attorneys how much money it would take for me to withdraw my suit. I am stuck in a place where things are clearly not right, but not quite wrong enough for anyone to stand by my side in court.

All I can do then is to finally tell my story. What really happened to me, not the version shared publically, but all that took place during the fall of 2010. I have been asked along the way by attorneys, reporters and friends what my end game with all of this is. This is a difficult question to answer. It is not as simple as “I want my job back”. (Although I desperately do, I miss teaching with an ache that is hard to describe). It is more about justice, and not letting people get away with bad things simply because it is the easy way out. It isn’t just me that my story will benefit, but the ten names on those other separation agreements. Someone has to share this experience and now that I have been essentially told by Ed Kaplan that I can, I have decided I will.

It is far too extensive and convoluted to write in 600 words. So over the course of several articles I will share what happened to me, I will own my parts, and lay out the actions of others. I will explain the story behind the documents already in the hands of the Concord Monitor and paint a complete picture of how a teacher with 21 documented years of excellent service to the district could lose her job in the way that I did.