Summer school was held at Dilworth Elementary, in the city of San Jose. It seemed ideal. A school bus picked P. up from our house every morning and transported her to Dilworth. When school finished at noon, the bus brought her home. This arrangement gave me a little time in the mornings to spend with my younger children, and I hoped P. was having an enriching experience at school. All went well until one stunningly beautiful summer day in July of 2002. It was a Tuesday, and summer school was due to finish the following Friday.
I got a call from the summer school principal, Sally P. She wanted me to come in immediately and fetch P. from school, but ... school was over for the day. It was already noon.
"Is there a problem?" I asked. "Why can't she come home on the bus like she usually does?"
Sally P. would only say there were "escape issues" because P. had tried to run away from the bus that morning.
"How odd!" I commented. "She's never done that before. Was there anything that precipitated this?"
Sally P. continued to be vague and evasive.
"I'll be there as soon as I can," I told her.
I first had to collect my son from his summer camp, which meant that by the time I reached Dilworth it was 12:30 p.m. As I approached the school, I could hear Karen M. yelling "Park it! Park it!" Her voice was coming from the office, so I headed over there with my three youngest. The school appeared to be otherwise deserted.
When I entered the office, P. was darting around giggling, as she sometimes did when she was overwhelmed by external stimuli. Karen M. appeared enraged. She kept yelling at P. to "Park it!" Her arms were folded aggressively, her feet planted firmly apart, and she seemed irate. Sandy J. and Heather D. were also present. Heather D., who was usually chatty and gregarious, sat at the edge of the room, twisted up like a pretzel with her legs crossed and her arms folded. Normally, she would approach me with a broad grin and pleasant conversation. This time, however, she didn't say a single word in the entire time I was there. She avoided eye contact with me but occasionally peeked over at P., gave a nervous, almost apologetic, smile, and then looked quickly down at the floor again. Sandy J., the therapist, who was usually extremely deferential toward the teacher, now seemed angry with her.
"You need to stop shouting! You're scaring her!" she told Karen M. snappishly.
"There's something wrong with this picture," I thought to myself.
I wanted to find out more, but the situation was chaotic. P. clearly couldn't cope and desperately needed to get out of there and away from Karen M. Also my younger children were getting impatient. My two-year-old, who had fallen asleep in the car, needed to get back to her nap. It was clear that the anger and unpleasantness of the environment wasn't good for any of the children. I rounded them all up, and we returned to the car.
On the ride home, P. remained over-excited and out of control, and I eventually snapped at her. Instantly, she crumbled into tears.
"Please don't be mad at me, Mommy. I've been hurt all day," she told me pitifully.
I turned around in shock, and she pulled up the sleeve of her T-shirt, revealing a large raw abrasion on her right shoulder.
"What happened, sweetheart?" I asked her.
It turned out that, contrary to all our efforts at intervention, she had been violently "restrained" again. Our trust had been betrayed, and my little girl had been hurt. Again! I was livid.
"You will never spend another second in a classroom with that woman!" I promised Paige.
I examined P. when we got home. The entire front of her body was scuffed. She explained what had happened. She had been becoming increasingly frightened of her teacher over the past few days. That morning, as the bus drove up to the school, she had seen the teacher waiting for the children at the curb and felt a surge of terror, and she had impulsively run away. She was intent on getting home, but didn't know the way. A "nice lady" had stopped her and led her back to the school. The teacher was enraged and had taken her into an unused classroom with the behaviorist -- and there the torture began.
P. described the teacher grabbing her arms and holding her wrists in her left hand. Karen M. had then grabbed her left ankle in her right hand and lifted P. up so that her head pointed downward. P. said her arms were in agony as she was held by the wrists. This was a torture technique -- used on an innocent eight-year-old child! Paige had hovered above the floor for some time, and then ... her teacher had driven her headfirst into the ground. She had landed on the upper right side of her body, and her description of how she was manhandled perfectly matched the nature and location of the abrasion on her right shoulder, and, as we only discovered the following day, the large lump on the top right-side of her head. This was not a restraint -- it was an assault.
P. had then been kept in that room for most of the morning and restrained repeatedly, face down on the floor. She said Heather D. had helped Karen M. and had knelt on the back of her knees. That certainly explained why her knees were so red and scuffed. Almost in tears, I called Craig. He too was furious.
"She's not going back there! Ever!" he said flatly. "That is the last time she sets foot in Karen M.'s classroom."
I tried to redeem the day by making P.'s favorite snacks. All I could think of was how badly I had let her down. I should have known that Karen M.'s anger management problems were dangerous.
The following morning, I called Sally P. in high dudgeon.
"P. came home hurt. Again!" I sputtered. "Why didn't you tell me about that?"
"Well," she responded vaguely, "her teacher brought her into the office and asked for an ice pack for her head at about 10:30 a.m. yesterday morning. She said there'd been an accident."
"So there was a blow to the head as well?! Why didn't anyone tell me? I was left to find the shoulder injury by myself. If there was a head injury as well, I should have been watching her for signs of a concussion!"
I stressed that the teacher's inappropriate behavior had been going on for over a year and that we had tried repeatedly to address the situation.
"It is written into her IEP that Karen M. is not allowed to restrain P. because she can't do so appropriately," I continued. "She's supposed to call me if there is a problem so I can come in and get her out of there. P. will not be returning to summer school! This district can't keep her safe!"
When the call ended, I felt a wave of relief. P. would never again have Karen M. as her teacher.
The following morning, P. had an appointment at Stanford with her neuropsychologist, Dr. H. We both loved Dr. H., who was a compassionate and committed professional, and I planned to talk to her later about the events of the previous day. First, however, she would meet with P., who skipped off happily with her.
Ten minutes later, Dr. H. emerged from the consulting room looking worried.
"Ann, could I speak to you for a second?" she asked.
As soon as I sat down, she told me she had noticed the wound on P.'s shoulder and asked her about it. She said P. had been matter of fact and extremely credible in her responses. As P. described what had happened, Dr. H. examined her head and noticed a large bump on the top right side of her skull.
"I feel very strongly that this teacher should not be working with children," she told me.
I shared the story of P.'s 15 months in Karen M.'s classrooms and our efforts to address the situation. As furious and disgusted as I was with the teacher, I also felt sorry for her. I was convinced that she was a special needs person in her own right with her own challenges and struggles. She had opened up to me on one occasion about herself, and I knew that all was not well with her. As a mother, I made all sorts of allowances for P. I began to wonder how Karen M.'s mother might feel if her daughter were to be branded a child abuser and fired. Her brokenness seemed so pathetically, poignantly tragic. But ... Dr. H. was right. Whatever her issues, Karen M. was dangerous and certainly could not be allowed to continue to abuse children.
Also, Karen Miller had tried to hide what had happened from me. Paige had been injured, repeatedly restrained, and taken to the office for an ice pack to the head, and she had not informed me of any of this. All head injuries at school need to be reported to a child's parent as soon as possible. What if the blow had caused a subdural hematoma? Not knowing the background, I might have put P. to bed and she might never have woken up. That was not be a likely outcome, but it was a possible one. Karen M. had not been forthright -- she had placed her need to cover her tracks above P.'s safety, as, unfortunately, had the behaviorist and the therapist, both of whom were present when I had picked P. up the previous day.
"I'm going to have to report the teacher," Dr. H. was saying. "I will be calling Child Protective Services. I am convinced P.'s account is truthful and accurate."
I drove home with P., my mind in turmoil. Shortly after we arrived home, Dr. H. called.
"I spoke to CPS," she told me, "and it turns out they have no jurisdiction over public school teachers. They suggested I call the police. Expect a visit from them this afternoon."
Two very young policemen arrived at our house shortly thereafter. They spent over an hour with Paige, photographed the injury on her shoulder, and showed her and my other children their squad car. My children in turn showed them around our backyard and introduced them to the parakeets in our outdoor aviary. Eventually they left and three plain clothes detectives arrived and talked to Craig and me. I assured the detectives that Paige would not be returning to that classroom. This seemed to give them some level of comfort. I wanted to be completely fair, so I explained that P. could be difficult to manage and seemed out of control at the time I picked her up from Eisenhower. One of the detectives suggested I should speak to the board. I too felt the time had come to go over Liz A.'s head. She had dismally failed P. I felt sure that, if I went to the next level, the problem would be adequately addressed and the teacher and site administrator would be fired. I took no pleasure in that outcome, but I knew it needed to happen. The school district would be horrified and would do the right thing. Of course they would. Right?
My mind kept returning to Mrs. R.s conversation with Craig a year ago in that supermarket. Perhaps I should try to call her ... I looked through the phone book and called the first R. listed. Mrs. R. picked up almost immediately. As I poured out my story, she started to weep.
"Why didn't you take her out of that classroom when I warned your husband," she sobbed. "I knew she was in danger there. Only God knew back then that I was telling the truth."
Bit by bit, her story came out. She told me that she had done her best to protect the children and that the administration had come down on the side of Karen M., who appeared to have acted with malice and self-interest. She said the teacher had hit her on one occasion but that none of the administrators had helped her. She also told me that, after my very first meeting with Mrs. A. in which I shared that Mrs. R. had warned Craig of abuse in the classroom, the administration had told her she was not allowed to speak to parents and would be fired if she did so. Mrs. R. asked if we could get together. She wanted to show me some of the correspondence between her and the district. I readily agreed, and we set up a time.
Deeply disturbed by the conversation, I called one of the people Mrs. R. said she had already spoken to, Richard T., the special education director. As I went through our history of disturbing incidents, he seemed genuinely shocked. I was very upset, close to tears, and, to my embarrassment, my voice was shaking. Mr. T. seemed a thoroughly decent man, and he reacted as I had hoped Liz A. would when I first began engaging with her about Karen M. When I mentioned to him that I had just spoken to Mrs. R. and that she told me she herself had been assaulted, he seemed concerned and distressed. I told him I could not trust the district with my child and that she would not be returning to school. At that point, he began to suggest options, including a possible tutor who could come to our house. I felt encouraged. Here was someone who was going to help us.
The following day, Richard T. called me back. He said he had spoken with Karen M. who had burst into tears and insisted that she loved every child in her class and would never hurt them.
"I think she probably does love them," I responded, "but she's a very damaged person. For her, love and abuse are intertwined. And there's no denying that she injured P. and didn't tell us about it or that she broke our IEP agreement that emphasized she was not to lay hands on P."
Richard T. told me that the district's decision regarding Karen M. would depend on the outcome of the police report. So you had to actually be convicted of a crime before you could be disqualified from teaching at CUSD? That just wasn't good enough.
A few days later, I got another call, this time from an Andy M., who told me he was the head of HR and the assistant superintendent of CUSD. He was enquiring about the police report.
"We haven't heard anything from the police," he said, "and we're beginning to wonder if there really was ever a police report."
I was somewhat taken aback. The police had left me a "ticket" -- a piece of paper with the case number and a phone number at which I could contact them. I shared this information with Andy M.
"Yes, well, we don't know what's going on. We haven't heard from the police. We don't know if there was a police report or there wasn't a police report." He tone was friendly, but he was aggressively questioning my credibility. Did he think I was lying about the fact that the police had visited us? Why were all of these people so defensive?
"The police were here for hours," I assured him. "I've given you the ticket number and a phone number. You can verify it for yourself."
"We don't know if there was a police report," he perseverated. I had told him there was and given him supporting information. What more did he want?
"You might want to speak to Dr. H.," I suggested. "She's P.'s neuropsychologist at Stanford, and she called the police. I'm sure she could give you some useful information. She could tell you why she is convinced that this is a clear-cut case of child abuse. I think her professional perspective would be invaluable to you, given that you work in HR and will probably be involved in this."
He did indeed call Dr. H.
"I was very surprised, "she told me later. "All he wanted to know was whether or not I'd called the police."
Her voice rose in indignation. "I tried to tell him about P.'s injuries and my concerns about the teacher. I was emphatic that she should not be working with children. He wasn't interested at all! He wouldn't even listen to me! He only wanted to know whether or not I had called the police."
I later phoned Mrs. R.
"Do you know this Andy M. person," I asked.
"Yes! He was one of the worst of the bullies in the administration!' she replied. "When I held a meeting to discuss specific incidents of abuse, I invited him to attend. He stopped me after a few minutes and suggested I go home. He told me I seemed tired and needed to relax and rest. Later he called me at home and told me had three lawyers working to fire me. He also told me I would be fired if I came within 500 feet of Eisenhower Elementary or talked to any of the parents."
Wow! So Andy was aware of Mrs. R.'s efforts to report abuse. No wonder he had hoped the police report was a hoax! And now he was only interested in covering his behind by finding a way to discredit me, just as he had gone after Mrs. R. He'd had the opportunity to learn useful information from Dr. H, but he had refused to hear her. So this was the district's response to reports of child abuse by their staff? To attack, threaten, and smear the accusers? And to make no effort to protect Karen M.'s little victims? I was tempted to use a very strong expletive.
When I met with Mrs. R., she showed me some of her documentation. It was absolutely damning. I saw emails between herself and Richard T. reminding her of a meeting she had called between the two of them and Cathy S. at the district office. Then she showed me parts of the training manual she had received when she first began working as a teacher's aid. In it was a list of behaviors that the district considered unacceptable or illegal, such as humiliating children. She says she went through each of these, one by one, that she believed Karen M. to be violating and asked, "Is this illegal." For her time spent in that meeting, she was docked of her pay. She showed me a copy of her pay slip, which clearly showed that her pay had been deducted for the time spent in that meeting. [I have copies of emails showing the meeting times and also of the pay slip, showing Mrs. R.'s pay was deducted. I will post them here shortly]. This was the first shot across the bows from the district in discouraging her from defending the children.
Mrs. R.'s documentation included a number of rambling, unsigned, undated, and nebulous complaints about her performance at work. They were all written in the third person and were handed to her by the Eisenhower principal, Liz A. One of them had stated that Colleen N. had approached Liz A. to complain about Mrs. R. and had claimed that Mrs. R. was lazy and didn't help out in the classroom. This completely contradicted my own impression. I had found Mrs. R. to be unusually attentive and insightful and intensely kind. The complaint also stated that the teacher had suggested to Colleen N. that she speak to the principal. Clearly, Colleen N. was very dependent on Karen M., and I have no doubt that the teacher had put her up to lodging the complaint.
Mrs. R. went on to tell me that Karen M. had punched her in the chest, leaving a red mark, and had violently snatched an exercise book from her, causing a bleeding paper cut on one of her hands. She said she had been shocked and frightened and had tried to go through the appropriate channels by approaching the HR director -- none other than Andy M. -- to file a complaint. Initially, she had been given the runaround.
"We don't have the complaint forms," she was told. "Try another department."
She persevered and eventually got hold of a complaint form, which she filled in and handed to Andy M. -- who promptly returned it to her as "unfounded." He had clearly done no investigation whatsoever.
I made a quick phone call that validated the gist of Mrs. R.'s story. In the complaint, Mrs. R. listed another classroom aid, Alice, as one who had witnessed the incident. Alice had given me her phone number some months previously, and I called her to ask about it. Before I had provided much context, Alice chipped in.
"Yes, I know exactly which incident you are talking about," she said. "Mrs. M. was very angry." To my surprise, Alice seemed mildly amused, or at least not disapproving. "Mrs. R. was looking through one of the children's 'diaries,' and she wasn't supposed to be doing that. The diaries are confidential."
The "diaries' were exercise books that passed back and forth between the teacher and the children's caregivers and contained information from each that might be helpful to the other.
I had already heard the backstory as to why Mrs. R. was peeking into that diary. Karen M. had been trying to isolate Mrs. R. from everyone associated with the classroom. To that end, she had sent a little boy home with a diary entry saying that "an aid" had mishandled a situation and, if the child had a bad afternoon, it was because of what "the aid" had done. Mrs. R. assured me that Karen M. had lied about her involvement in the situation. Of course, the kid's grandmother (he lived with his grandparents) was in the classroom the following day, which gave Mrs. M. an opportunity to demonize Mrs. R. Clearly, Karen M.'s problems were more significant than anger management issues. This was targeted, calculated harassment.
Alice emphasized how angry Karen M. had been. Apparently the teacher had charged Mrs. R. in a fury and had snatched the exercise book away from her. Was there physical contact between the two? Alice could not say because her view was obscured by Karen M.'s body. Whether there had been contact or not, this was clearly inappropriate and constituted workplace bullying. In a professional setting, something would have been done about it. Clearly Andy M. had not been doing his job.
Mrs. R. then showed me some correspondence between herself and Andy M.. He had clearly gone through the CUSD protocols and policies and tried to find an excuse to fire her. There were emails between the two detailing nearly every fireable offense. One was that she was supposedly always tardy. Mrs. R. denied that, saying that Karen M. had falsely and repeatedly accused her of being late, while another aid was allowed to come in late and sleep in the timeout cubicle (I can verify this as I had seen it myself) because she was working another job or had been out late partying. Mrs. R. was able to fight off the tardy accusation by telling him she signed in to work in the visitor's log every morning. She invited Andy to check it. He then moved on to other accusations, one of which was "insubordination." She was insubordinate because she questioned Karen M.'s assaultive behavior? Well, good for her!
Finally he gave up. Mrs. R. had done nothing "fireable." At that point, he offered her a "last chance" agreement. Mrs. R. could accept a forced transfer to another school or resign. She stuck to her guns and refused to accept the transfer unless Karen M. was fired. What a brave and principled lady! Unfortunately, Andy responded in a "How dare you!" manner, and, exhausted and discouraged, Mrs. R. finally resigned.
Clearly CUSD had a lot of problems, and neither Liz A. or Andy M. was going to help. I was wasting my time expecting them to try. I decided to call Bill B., the superintendent, directly and explain the problem.
Bill B.'s secretary, Sharon Z., answered the phone when I called. She told me he was not available, but she could take a message. I wanted to stress the urgency of the situation, so I briefly described my daughter's injuries and our efforts to address the situation. Sharon Z. was professional but defensive.
"Someone will call you," she told me rather coldly.
Nobody ever did. However, about a week later I received a letter in the mail from ... Andy M. It contained a complaint form. Given his past behavior and his refusal to listen or investigate, I realized it would be futile to return it to him.
The next administrator in line was the superintendent. Again, I tried to call him. Again, I ran into Sharon Z.
"I don't trust Andy M. to do an honest investigation," I explained. "Please, I need to speak to Bill B. directly."
Bill B. was not available. I could leave a message.
"The teacher is a clear and present danger to children," I emphasized. "And they've put her back in that classroom. My child is at home, technically truant. Obviously I can't send her back to school until the district cleans up this mess."
She listened in silence.
"Karen M. has clearly been behaving in a bizarre and aberrant manner in the classroom," I went on. "She actually hit an aid, Mrs. R. It is unsafe to keep her ..." At that, Mrs. Z. interrupted aggressively. Mrs. R.'s name was clearly kryptonite to everyone in the administration!
"All of this has been thoroughly investigated, Mrs. G.," Mrs. Z. ranted. She had become aggressive and officious. "It has been thoroughly investigated. The allegations were unfounded."
So even the superintendent's secretary knew Mrs. R.'s story!
"But there was no investigation at all," I tried to explain. "I talked to someone who witnessed the incident, and nobody from the district ever questioned her about it. "
But Sharon Z. had become hostile and blustering, and she kept interrupting me. The only person who appeared to have investigated Mrs. R.'s claim of assault was me, but Sharon was convinced she knew better. I realized I was wasting my time. Clearly, I needed to speak to the superintendent directly. I left her my phone number and again implored her to have Bill B. call me back. He never did.
In the meantime, Mrs. R. also tried to call the superintendent. She too ran into Sharon Z., who was rude and unhelpful.
At this point, I realized that I needed to go over the superintendent's head to the school board. I was learning my way around the system. I fired off a letter to all five board members describing the situation and copied it to the superintendent. A short while later, I got a call from one of them, Ben L. He sounded kind and concerned. We discussed the situation, and he introduced the possibility of a lawsuit, but that was not the way I wanted to go. I still believed there were structures in place that would allow the district to correct the situation.
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