Florida Teacher Can 't Write Story, But Her Letter Says It All

I have been looking over my bits and pieces of my story. I want to write it but it is like reliving a rape all over and I get nightmares when I start. I need to get my story out for others so they can be aware of the dirty tricks bag districts pull. In fact, there could be a site on the NAPTA website of dirty tricks districts will pull legal and illegal tactics. Then just like a shopping list members can share and add to it. That would be so helpful to newbies seeking help. Then they could email us with specifics and we could offer them specific advice to their case and the tactics.

I will eventually write my story. It has to be told. I have it in fragments right now here and there. My attorney doesn 't want me giving out too much information right now due to the upcoming lawsuit.

1) Should I file charges against the other incompetent attorneys who took 35K from me and missed every deadline and did nothing for me. Didn 't get an administrative hearing, court hearing, let a court deadline pass etc. They fired the incompetent attorney who handled my case then let me go because I had become "hostile " when I began to demand answers and responses. Then they began to eat away at my last 5000 for administrative costs. If my new attorney hadn 't called, I wouldn 't have gotten a penny back. And this was after they verbally told me they were done with me. BUT they hadn 't presented to the court this fact.

2) Should I file Ethics and Standards procedures against my principal and the county for their violations with the state like they did to me after my hearing is finished? (I am sure I will win)

3) Who the hell can I report the gross incompetence to and possible collusion with administration regarding my teacher 's union? The Labor Dept. won 't touch it because it is a gov 't union. I then found out that unless I sued the only entity to report my union 's behavior to was their own mothership - the NEA in Washington DC - or I could sue. It all costs money and I am out of work!

4) The EEOC isn 't really doing a good job. What can I do to light a fire? They aren 't telling me what information they need to proceed with. In fact, when I resigned they wanted to drop the case. I wouldn 't let them. I asked for a different investigator as he said right off the bat he didn 't think I had a case!!!! This was before he had seen all the evidence. I had even more to offer but he didn 't want it.

5) The OCR had me rescind my complaint saying that they only help children. A child was used against me and he never got the ESE help he needed because of it. Other children were exposed to violence by this child and the emotional violence of the principal. etc. Please advise

6) I called my new county I moved to and 2 top administrators said they would hire me then backed off. I was told I couldn 't see all the documents in my file such as letters of reference. I didn 't give my old principal as a reference, yet they sent her a request letter. They said it was protected because it was someone 's opinion. Is this legal? They also got the report that my certificate was under investigation and the psych. report as well, and I bet without my 3 rebuttals. Isn 't it illegal to send this stuff? I thought they could only send my years of work record. AND the references I gave.

7) My attorney wants me to back off until after my hearing regarding the complaint my old school district brought against my teacher 's certificate in the capital of Tallahassee. The hearing is anywhere from this January to March depending upon an open date. I am being charged with marching over and without cause snatching a walkie talkie out of my principal 's hand while in the classroom (no children were ever interviewed) and the other is their psychiatrist 's report saying I am unfit even though I have my private psychiatrist, a Dept. of Children & Families Psychiatrist and a court approved psychologist all disagreeing with the county 's report. Also, the bad psychiatrist peppered his report with "I chose the right to amend my conclusion if presented with outside medical reports from Mrs. X 's doctors ". He said I should never be in charge of children period. Not church, babysitting, etc. Destroy my career but don 't stand by it. Do you think I should sue him If I win this hearing? By the way, they didn 't put my 3 reports in my work file but in the professional standards file. I found out that the school districts farm out their information to different sites so they can selectively send what they want to and hide what they want. So when the new county asked for my work file, my 3 psych. rebuttals weren 't in it.

I need advice and someone to walk me through this. I will pay what I can for your time. As I am in a new county I don 't want to open up a kettle of worms, as I can still substitute. I need advice badly AND how to navigate and go about it. I tend to shut down emotionally still while dealing with this. I despise myself for being so needy, but I do need help.

Frustrated in Florida

Update - Well, I won the administrative case hands down. It only took over 3 years to get heard. In the meantime I couldn 't work and my community began to treat me so differently. They believed my certificate had been revoked and that I was lying! It came out by accident at church at one potluck dinner. To get the state to make a decision to move my case out of the "investigative stage " into either dropping it or issuing a court date I went to my 2 state elected officials and at the same time began an internet mailing pass it on campaign. What really upset people though wasn 't the time frame I was being strung out under, but the fact that I was substituting children and could possibly be dangerous! No thought for my rights. Well, two weeks after my synchronized effort the DOE popped out their decision of guilty and I opted to go for an OPEN hearing. Always go for the open hearings. It makes your attorney do his job a little better and the bad attorneys are a bit more careful in what they do because it is all open record. Oh yes, just for giggles the state tacked on gross immorality and immoral turpitude into the already feeble charges. Their attorney told my attorney that it was standard operating procedure. I know its purpose is to scare the hell out of the teacher so she will make a deal. I refused. I was innocent. Well, right before trial the two charges were completely dropped and never adjudicated. YET, if you go onto the DOAH site there they sit in the synopsis of my case as the first two charges the state couldn 't prove against me. I am trying now to get those two removed. People looking to hire a teacher won 't go past that and download the case to find out what really happened. My very experienced attorney who had helped nurses, etc. took me on. He was aghast at the behavior of the school district 's attorneys and the DOE 's attorney. His voice was shaking when he called me to tell me the news of the DOE 's decision to go ahead with prosecuting my case with the 2 new added moral charges. He couldn 't believe it. I wasn 't shocked by then. They levied these 2 moral charges against me yet never did any investigation of them or gave any incident(s), witnesses, etc. that would validate their being added in the first place.

Oh yes, when I won my attorney sent a letter stating as such and requested that it be put into my file. He didn 't specify which file. So, they buried it in my standards file which is in a different location and not referenced to at all in my public employment file. I still am begging my attorney to resend the letter with the stipulation that it be put into my public employment file. My attorney is so sick of dealing with this case. He basically told me he is done except for the rest of the loose ends to tie up.

I have a great retaliation case and possible workman 's comp. case but I have no money to approach any decent attorneys with. I lost my custom made home, all my savings, my husband 's savings and we sold so much to keep going and went into deep debt. In the beginning I was naive and really believed in the ethic of good work, truth, and justice. Because I had exposed their lies to an ESE parent they went scorched earth upon me as an example and also in case the parents decided to sue. With 20/20 vision I see it now, but at the time I just kept trying to survive and couldn 't see the forest for the trees

Let teachers know that the administrative law realm is a black hole where they can do anything to a teacher for however long they want to. Attorneys demand big bucks up front because there are no damages to recover in administrative law. Also, the lawyer lobby for the school districts and state education departments are each year getting more and more insidious legislation passed in the administrative law so they can destroy any teacher or administrator easily and legally. I have discovered in Florida a new bit of bad law with a word twist here and there is added each year castrating teacher protections and due process.

Also, I don 't know the legal term, but here in Florida teachers are cast into the group of professionals such as doctors and lawyers as professionals who can protect themselves legally (because of the money they make). It 's a joke.

Here I have cases that I know I can win, yet no money to pursue them. We have resorted to borrowing some money from family. From the active persecution to now this has been going on for a good 10 years with the union doing nothing to help. I had high scores (I worked until 6:00 every night as they stacked my class), had a good rapport with parents, students and most colleagues. Secretly my colleagues were calling me at home to tell me information but they were terrified of being found out. At the workplace I was a pariah. Teachers were so afraid the evil eye would be turned upon them. I had done nothing wrong, yet there was a teacher who came to work drunk and high, and two teachers got into a fist fight on the playground in front of the children. Nothing was done to them. In fact, the drunk, high teacher was sent to the EAP. I was sent to their psychiatrist. Thank goodness I hired a court videographer to tape the session. The psychiatrist railed about it and was so ugly. When the camera came on he changed his demeanor of course. But he could only use the two tests he gave me to say I shouldn 't be in charge of children. However, he reserved the right to amend his decision. He never did. Then at the administrative trial hearing he stated he never said I couldn 't teach and be in charge of children. He got away with this!

I had to move out of county first because I lost my beautiful home and second because the school district kept sending the large goons to my home to hand deliver letters and oral messages. They would pound on my door until it reverberated while repeatedly ringing the doorbell yelling for me to open the door. They looked like anyone else except more menacing and without any evidence of who they were. I even called the sheriff to try and keep them from trespassing. A friend I got to know from NAPTA lived in the county I moved to. However, she worked in the same county I had. I warned her about their tactics. Sure enough the HR head asked her (because of crossing county legal lines) if he could send a school agent (goon) to hand deliver a letter to her. He kept trying to smooth talk her until she told him no again and that the rules of firearms in her county were different and since she lived in the country any strange man coming up her walk would be met with shotgun salt. They didn 't send the goons. The stress of what they have done to my family, I believe, put my husband into a coma where he almost didn 't make it. He has come out so weak but alive. He can 't work now and that is why we are now living less than hand to mouth. I never thought this would happen to a decent person with a master’s degree in America. By putting those moral charges on me I couldn 't segue into another field and I had no references for the last 17 years as so administrator from the school district would dare to give me one. I was lucky that I had applied for substituting when I did before my old school district had levied the charges without telling me or my attorney. I got in under the wire. It was by chance. If they had known of the charges they wouldn 't have let me substitute. I didn 't tell the two administrators that were going to help hire me that I applied to substitute. I was lucky again that they didn 't know to advise the substitute department so they would rescind my right to sub.

After this, I bet the administrative laws get changed to keep teachers charged but not convicted of substituting. What people don 't realize is that if a teacher truly does wrong she is brought up in criminal court (such as DUI 's) or civil court. The administrative court is a smoke screen used for one purpose and that is to destroy innocent teachers and administrators who whistleblow, or stand up for themselves as persons.

I haven 't even touched upon my mental injuries due to this violent governmental attack. I say injuries and not illness. One is born with something like schizophrenia. That is an illness. However, one is not born with PTSD. It is inflicted upon them by repeated exposure to being trapped with no way out with the attack constantly still coming at you. I have nightmares, anxiety and depression from all of this. I had to go on meds. I wasn 't on them before all of this. I didn 't have PTSD before all of this either. The attack is "legal " well planned and has the full force resources of the school district and state attorneys who have been well trained in teacher destruction. Now I know why veterans went postal in the post office. Those men had been trained to kill and had killed in battle. Then when faced with unfounded legal attack they didn 't fold up or go legal like teachers do. These guys got a gun and took out the evil doers. I am not advocating this. I am saying I understand it

I talk to new teacher online. They are already getting out of education. Some moved back in with their parents while they retrain. Karen, there isn 't a teacher shortage. There is a shortage of new cannon fodder to be used up. The system doesn 't expect teachers to last more than 7-10 years now. My teacher friends ' children all went into other professions. Not one chose teaching. As much as I love it and am a natural born teacher, if I had to do it over again, I would have chosen a different field. Now that I am so in debt I have no way to pay for retraining and my age is now a factor too.

Karen, I can hold a little respect for the mafia. They are what they are and make no bones about it. They are thieves, killers, intimidators, etc. You know what you 're dealing with when they come to your door.

But in my heart I have come to know that school districts and state education departments are of much worse character and violence. They publicly act so respectably and yet quietly, secretly use the power of the government and self crafted administrative laws to kill off and intimidate innocents. If I had to deal with the mafia or the governmental school machine, I 'd choose the mafia. I know what I am dealing with, the public would be scared but sympathetic and the mafia would do the kindness of just putting a bullet in my head. So much has happened to me Karen that I can 't put it all into words. The public doesn 't care. My community doesn 't care. No one cares. If you are targeted you are alone. I won 't do it, but I understand the mental anguish of going postal. The other staff at the school sees what is happening and that is wrong but they run and not rally in sisterhood against this evil. They are cowards.

What I have belatedly discovered is that unless I had a pile of money and knew my way around the legal system, I will never get justice or be made whole in any aspect of my life. The educational machine are the quiet SS Nazi’s in our midst and no one wants to know or acknowledge the beast for it doesn 't seem to directly harm them. The bell has already tolled loudly for years and was ignored. Now it shall begin coming for them too. It will be too late.

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