A veteran teacher has filed suit against public schools in Orange County, Fla., over the humiliation, emotional and physical distress, and “loss of enjoyment of life” she claims she suffered because the district failed to remove a disruptive child from her class, reports the Orlando Sentinel.
 Teacher Cheri Dean (Courtesy: Orlando Sentinel) |
“What I want out of this is justice,” the paper quotes teacher Cheri Dean as saying. “What’s so amazing is that these kinds of things are going on in other schools, and teachers won’t say anything because they are intimidated.”
The lawsuit contains multiple pages of examples of the boy’s bullying and reportedly violent behavior at Lockhart Elementary in the fall of 2001.
Dean, 51, claims she kept a log of his misbehavior after the boy was reassigned to her classroom from another teacher’s class.
Among the child’s offenses, the suit details how he purportedly stabbed a classmate with a fork at lunch, started another fight and then told a teacher’s aide to “kiss my butt.”
On another occasion, according to the Sentinel, the boy hit two students, one in the back of the head and the other in the face, swung his fists at a third student and then punched a fourth who was reading, calling him an “ugly faggot.”
 Other students support Dean(Courtesy: Orlando Sentinel) |
Dean said she repeatedly asked her principal to remove the child from the classroom, but was rebuffed.
“She was angry because no one was helping her or helping the child, who wasn’t at a place where he should have been,” Don Dean, the teacher’s husband told the paper.
It is unclear to what extent the parents of the child were consulted on the matter.
Ultimately, Dean was reassigned to Catalina Elementary.
According to the Sentinel, school records indicate she had become disruptive to the school. She was reprimanded for filing a false complaint against her principal just before her transfer.
The school district’s attorney defended the administration’s handling of the matter.
Frank Kruppenbacher told the Sentinel a committee considered Dean’s complaints, the child’s behavior and how it affected the rest of the class before recommending that the student remain in the classroom.
Kruppenbacher also questioned the authenticity of Dean’s log about the boy’s actions.
“I find it incredible that anyone would put this kind of litany of student problems in a court case,” he said.
As for the boy, he has mended his ways, according to his mother, who describes him as easily bored, wound-up and has trouble sitting still.
“There’s been no fighting, no kicking and no punching at the new school,” she told the paper.
At the same time Dean was transferred from Lockhart Elementary, the boy was transferred to a nearby school where certain teachers are certified to deal with challenging students.
Dean didn’t fare as well from her transfer. The veteran of 18 years claims the events of the fall of 2001 so traumatized her she has been on medical leave since last fall, using all the sick days she had collected through the years, reports the Sentinel.
She has formed an informal group called Teachers Against Violence in Classrooms.
Supporters describe Dean as a good teacher. The week she left Lockhart Elementary, parents held signs in front of the school protesting her departure.
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