No Disciplinary Action For Joliet West Administrator Involved In Multiple Shoplifting Crimes At Target

JOLIET, IL — One day after Joliet Patch published a story pertaining to the series of retail shoplifting crimes committed at the Shorewood Target store in 2024 by Joliet West High School Freshman Academy Coordinator Maureen Pulaski, Joliet District 204 Superintendent Karla Guseman notified Pulaski she would be on paid leave status for the next three months.

However, since returning to work in November, Pulaski has been restored to her previous administrative position and no disciplinary action has been taken against her, Joliet Patch learned through a recent Freedom of Information Act request to district officials.

As the current school year began, Patch reported that Pulaski pleaded guilty last summer to multiple crimes of retail shoplifting from the Target store in Shorewood along Route 59. The Shorewood Police Department conducted the investigation and made the arrest of Pulaski, now 47, back on March 16, 2024.

A resident of Shorewood, Pulaski was charged with four separate counts of retail theft, with all four shoplifting events taking place inside the Shorewood Target store, on Feb. 11, 2024, Feb. 19, 2024, Feb. 24, 2024 and March 9, 2024.

After Joliet Patch's story was published on Aug. 18, District 204 Superintendent Karla Guseman notified Pulaski the very next day that she was being placed on long-term paid leave of absence.

"Dr. Guseman sent Maureen Pulaski a text on August 19th, stating she will be placed on admin leave, pending investigation," responded Ilandus Hampton, District 204 assistant superintendent of business services who serves as the District 204's Freedom of Information Act officer.

According to the documents Hampton provided to Joliet Patch this month, Guseman made Pulaski fill out a leave of absence request form stating that Pulaski would be undergoing a long-term leave of absence from Aug. 27 through Nov. 19.

On the document, the box was checked for "personal health condition of employee."

Joliet West Math Teacher Arrested By Joliet Police In 2020 Forced To Resign

Under the section classified as pay status, District 204 officials checked the box indicating that Pulaski's three-month leave of absence would be paid by the District — Pulaski's total annual salary is around $130,000.

The document section requiring an explanation stated that Pulaski would be using up her sick days during the three months of her absence from the hallways of Joliet West.

The document was approved by the Joliet Township District 204 School Board the following month, on Sept. 19, and one of the checked boxes indicated there was a doctor's note provided.

Hampton recently informed Joliet Patch that "a medical record has been withheld as 'private information' as that term is defined in the FOIA statute."

Hampton also clarified a point in regard to the extended absence form, notifying Joliet Patch that "despite the end date on the form, Mrs. Pulaski’s leave ended November 3."

During Joliet Patch's Jan. 7 FOIA request to District 204, Patch also sought "access to any disciplinary action taken against Pulaski by the District in 2025 and or 2024. If no discipline has been taken against Pulaski during 2024 and or 2025, please advise that is the case."

Hampton responded to Patch's question by stating, "There are no records responsive to your request."

On the other hand, the last high-profile incident that involved a criminal arrest by the Joliet Police Department and subsequent conviction for one of Joliet West's staff led to the teacher's forced dismissal.

In 2021, Joliet Patch reported that the upper administration gave arrested Joliet West math teacher Ashlee Catalani four-and-a-half months of paid leave in exchange for her resignation at the end of the 2019-2020 school year after her arrest on five criminal charges.

According to the financial arrangement, Catalani, then 34, had been a tenured teacher. She taught math in her regular Joliet West classroom from Aug. 15, 2019 until Jan. 14, 2020, making $38,566 during that period.

Catalani was in the Will County Jail on Jan. 9, 2020. She subsequently posted 10 percent of her $15,000 bail to regain her freedom while awaiting trial. Catalani's lawyer, Chuck Bretz, later worked out a plea bargain with the Will County State's Attorney's Office for his client. Under the terms, four of the five charges were dropped against Catalani.

Catalani received two years of conditional discharge from Will County's judiciary and $544 in fines. Catalani had been charged in connection with the violent beating of her ex-boyfriend in January 2020. She eventually pleaded guilty to criminal trespass to a residence in exchange for four other charges being dropped. Her co-defendant was charged with battery causing bodily harm.

At the time of the plea agreement, Bretz told Joliet Patch's editor that Catalani was not responsible for the attack on her ex-boyfriend, and that it was her co-defendant, Ponciano Vargas, a 42-year-old Crest Hill man. "Ashlee is a good girl," Bretz remarked. "She, at the end of the day, did not intend for anything inappropriate to happen. And the codefendant finds a girl he happens to be seeing ... he's the one who became violent."

Emails between the upper administration and a pair of teacher's union representatives reflect that an agreement to part ways with Catalani was in the works shortly after word of her arrest made the news.

According to the emails, Catalani would receive more than four months of pay for staying away from Joliet West in exchange for submitting her immediate resignation notice. The resignation would take effect at the end of the 2019-2020 school year, which was around Memorial Day.

The document was presented for approval to the Joliet Township School Board the next day, Jan. 30, 2020.

"In consideration for her resignation and release of claims, the BOARD agrees to place CATALANI on paid administrative leave through the end of the 2019-2020 school term and provide her the remainder of salary and benefits per the teachers' collective bargaining agreement in the same manner as if she were actively working during this time," the document read.

In total, Catalani made $75,455 during the 2019-2020 school year, of which, almost half of her compensation came from her paid leave, following her arrest and incarceration.

Ousted Joliet West AP English Teacher Has Pending Federal Lawsuit Against Guseman

Separately, Guseman and District 204 are embroiled in an ongoing federal lawsuit filed last May by Mark Eleveld, who was employed at Joliet West as a 25-year tenured AP English teacher.

Eleveld sued District 204 and a host of others including the Department of Children and Family Services and his lawsuit notes he was a "nationally renowned writer who taught English."

"Defendant Superintendent Guseman was the JWHS Superintendent at the time of Eleveld who ordered that Eleveld be reported to DCFS for high school student child abuse and then threatened him and coerced his resignation from JWHS under false pretenses, a constructive discharge," Eleveld's federal lawsuit outlined.

According to Eleveld's case summary, on Sept. 17, 2021 a physical incident occurred in a Joliet West High School classroom hallway, between a 14-year-old Joliet West male student and a female teacher, and then between the same student and Eleveld, who came to the teacher’s aide when the student repeatedly failed and refused to identify himself by name and also as a student.

The incident was reported as possible child abuse by Joliet West High School to DCFS on Sept. 27, 2021.

"While the matter was still pending with DCFS, JWHS coerced and demanded Eleveld’s resignation, threatening to publicly disclose the facts of the case unless he 'voluntarily' resigned. Eleveld is married and the father of three, and two of which children were attending JWHS. He resigned his tenured teaching position without written notice and hearing, and the Superintendent denied his right to counsel; he was constructively discharged," his federal lawsuit states.

Eleveld later appealed the DCFS ruling against him and on April 19, 2024, the administrative law judge found that the DCFS had not met its burden of proof and therefore recommended to the DCFS Director to grant Eleveld’s request that the indicated finding be expunged from the State Central Register, the court documents reflect.

Eleveld's federal lawsuit indicates that "prior to the incident in question, Eleveld had been a tenured teacher at JWHS for approximately 22 years with no prior accusations or discipline for any misconduct or wrongdoing involving a student. Shortly after the incident in question, JWHS’s Principal, JWHS’s Dean of Students, JWHS’s Resource Officer, and Superintendent Karla Guseman observed a video of the incident and determined that Eleveld’s actions and use of force were warranted and reasonable under the circumstances.

"Then, separately, waiting 11 days after the Superintendent saw the video, Dr. Karla Guseman, Superintendent of the Joliet Township High School District 204 also observed the same video of the incident and determined that Eleveld was the initial aggressor during the incident, and that Eleveld’s level of physicality was excessive and not warranted under the circumstances.

"Eleveld was not criminally charged as a result of the incident. However, the Superintendent ordered Principal Teresa Gibson to report to DCFS which investigated the matter and indicated the report against Eleveld as child abuse or neglect allegedly based upon required credible evidence of child abuse when 'the available facts, when viewed in light of surrounding circumstances, would cause a reasonable person to believe that a child was abused or neglected,'" Eleveld's lawsuit noted. "On April 19, 2024, the DCFS Director concurred with the ALJ’s findings of fact and conclusions of law and granted Eleveld’s request for expungement of the indicated findings. The indicated finding and forced resignation in 2022 meant that Eleveld would be unable to secure future employment in his career as a tenured teacher."

This month, on Jan. 16, U.S. District Judge Mary M. Rowland indicated that all parties in Eleveld's lawsuit will file a status report with her courtroom by March 9 regarding the progress of written discovery, proposing a date for the conclusion of all fact discovery and indicating whether a settlement conference would be productive.

Related Joliet Patch coverage:

Joliet West Teacher Got 4 Months Pay To Stay Away From School | Joliet, IL Patch

Joliet West HS Academy Coordinator Pleads Guilty To Shoplifting At Shorewood Target Store