If waking up on November 2nd 2010 had felt difficult, waking up on November 16th 2010 felt impossible. I returned from my “recommendation for dismissal” meeting the prior day to an empty house. I was numb all day, still in a state of disbelief. I had answered every question, provided every document, cooperated fully with every request and it meant nothing. I had absolutely no idea what was happening to me. I was in a place I had never been.
When Kenny got home from work we went out for dinner. My mother watched the girls. I tried to tell him what had happened but by this time the numbness was wearing away and I felt the terror creeping in. By the time we got home I was a mess. I crawled into my bed, and my mother (God bless her) crawled in with me. She pulled me to her and whispered “I love you”. She stayed with me while I sobbed and sobbed. She tried to reassure me; she rubbed my hair from my face and held me close. I could have been ten years old. All I could ask was “why?” I eventually fell asleep.
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I navigated the following week and Thanksgiving Holiday through a dense fog of fear and anxiety. I was reassured by my union rep Mike Macri to trust the NEA that they would fight for me. But I heard nothing. No one answered my calls or emails. I assumed I would have Lorri Hayes as my attorney but found out after the holiday that I would be represented by Glenn Milner. My case was being “farmed out”.
I knew Attorney Milner. Years before I had begun to choke on a hamburger at Cheers and a colleague of his had saved me. Attorney Milner spent a lot of time at Cheers back then. It would be no different when I was his client. I would call and email and email and call and days would pass. I actually went to Cheers more than once looking for him. His receptionist Paige was very patient.
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When we finally met and went over the allegations he asked me to write up a time line of events to clarify the process. I did this immediately. I also went through the accusations in my dismissal letter and listed what had actually happened and who could testify to the truthfulness of my defense. This took a long time, but it kept me busy. I regained some of my confidence. This would be short lived.
From the outset it was clear that he wanted me to resign and take a settlement agreement. I adamantly refused. I had the truth on my side. He told me more than once that the entire school board was against me and that it was his experience that teachers always lost these hearings. He mentioned Bill Glahn and how he was working for Concord School District Attorney Kaplan to help generate a financial settlement amount. He told me that he got the impression from Kaplan that Glahn wanted me fired. A week later he mentioned that the full board had met to discuss my case and that there was no support for me. He told me if I lost and went to arbitration that Kaplan assured him the board and district would drag it out. He scared me with tales of financial and professional ruin. I kept firm. I asked him if he had called my witnesses or even looked over my case. He replied that he had read what I had given him but not called any witnesses. Christmas was coming and people would be away. I wondered about this but continued to trust him. I called Mike Macri and asked him if this was typical and while Mike shared my concern he felt that I was in good hands.
“There is a world of difference between truth and facts…facts can obscure the truth”
-Maya Angelou
On December 27th 2010 Chris Rath via Ed Kaplan sent 42 pages of “discovery” to Attorney Milner and me. They had a list of allegations that had somehow multiplied since my dismissal hearing with new complaints not even mentioned in my dismissal letter. There was a witness list. There were letters.
Three documents were especially difficult to read. There was the “fake” letter attributed to Gene Connolly (it was unsigned) incorrectly summarizing a meeting the prior May. The meeting had been about my medical leave but this letter described something else entirely. Along with the fact that it was dated before the meeting actually took place it also alleged that Lisa Lamb had deducted two days’ pay from my paycheck. This action never occurred because she was never asked to do any such thing. I have tried, with no success to get a time stamp on this document but my paystubs speak a loud truth.
Another letter, signed by Lisa Lamb herself accused me of stealing money in front of her at a school dance. In her letter she claimed to be afraid of me, and unsure of what to do as l was reimbursing myself the $50 dollars I had brought from home to make change. The protocol with money is that you have someone to watch you count it. I had Lisa and the late Marilyn Landrigan watch me count this money. Anyone who knows Lisa Lamb knows that she is not afraid of anyone, and given the fact that she worked at Concord High two years prior to my coming there, I would likely have been the one unsure and afraid.
The third letter, one that Milner assured me would be terribly damaging was from an office worker named Deb Jore. I will never understand how they got her to write this letter, or why she did it. We had a nice friendship. On the days that I took Molly and Gracie to the bus we would walk into school together. Gene Connolly gave many staff members permission to arrive a little late or leave a little early if they had an “open” period to attend to child care needs. I was free period one and had received permission to arrive at just about 8:00 on those days. Deb would write a letter indicating that she witnessed me being tardy on several occasions during the fall of 2010. Technically this was a fact, as was the claim that I paid myself back the $50, but none of these letters spoke the truth.
I was at a track meet when I read all of this on my phone. I called Attorney Milner in disbelief. Before I could even ask him what he had put together for me (which was nothing) he proclaimed, “They want you gone!” I was in a long hallway in The Field House at UNH. There were athletes all around me, parents coming and going, other officials and coaches. I was surrounded by noise and confusion but all I heard was the ocean roaring in my ears. “None of this is true!” I exclaimed. I have witnesses, I have proof!” We have to fight this! “Barbara”, he said with resignation, “they want you gone.” I didn’t know most of the school board members well, but I knew Clint Cogswell and I felt very strongly he would be an ally for me. “All of them? I asked incredulously, even Clint?” “All of them, he replied, even Clint”. This revelation was a stunner. I had worked for Clint for 15 years, he knew me, and he is a good man. For just a fleeting moment I felt that perhaps I would lose. We made arrangements to meet over the next few days. I asked him to please put together a case for me. He assured me was doing just that.
In a review of his email correspondence between Kaplan and himself it is clear that he had done no such thing and really had no intention of doing so. Much of his correspondence centered on Kaplan encouraging him to get me to take a settlement.
We met on December 30th, I went to see him and he showed me a state statue in some book that Kaplan intended to use to prevent me from going to arbitration. He told me that I would lose in front of the school board. My hearing was days away. I asked to see what he prepared. He took out a legal pad and said ok, if we are going to fight we will need to put together a list of witnesses. My hearing was just a week away. The district had 42 pages of “allegations” and a list of witnesses already committed (and likely prepped) to speak. I had an attorney with a baseball cap, a pen and a blank legal pad. I had given him everything, done all the work, laid out the case, compiled the witnesses and he had done nothing. He had not called any of them.
He would write to Kaplan just after this meeting that if we went to hearing we would not be bringing witnesses that we would only bring them for rebuttal if the hearing went into two sessions. I wouldn’t know of this email until years after I resigned but we had no such conversations. I had fully intended to use witnesses from day one.
We also discussed what it would mean for me to accept a settlement. This got him very excited and we made a list of what I would want. He also told me that a settlement would “buy me confidentiality”. That even though there had been some press around my situation, by signing a separation agreement everything would be completely confidential. This would prove to be a big selling point for me.
It wasn’t until I tried to sue Chris Rath that I read an email from Kaplan to Milner dated December 30th 2010 that my agreement may not be confidential since I had intended to fight for my job. I would not learn of this fact until just this spring. Milner had promised confidentiality from day one.
I imagine this is why the NEA asked me to sign a release including among other things an agreement that I would not sue Glenn Milner. I am fairly sure that executing a contract under fraudulent terms is not ethical and would likely nullify the contract. I am also sure that the scare tactics used to convince me to go this route would walk a fine line ethically as well.
I sat in my car outside of Rite-Aid on a cold January day as Mike Macri tried to convince me to keep fighting. I told him how scared I was. I told him that Milner assured me the whole board was against me. I told him all of the things Milner said, how I wouldn’t be able to feed my family, that the district would drag out an arbitration hearing for years and that I would never win. In the end, Mike’s pleas for me to stay strong weren’t enough anymore. I trusted Milner and thought he had my best interest at heart. This could not have been further from the truth and on January 28th 2011 signed an agreement that was titled confidential and seemed to clearly state that no one, me or the district could talk about or share anything with anyone unless compelled by law. I asked this question several times, I was not going to sign a document that held only me to any sense of accountability. Glen Milner assured me I wasn’t, that the expectations were the same for both sides. It was with a profound sense of failure and sadness that I signed my “Confidential Separation Agreement”. My fight was over, and I had lost.
