Lawsuits Against Concord School District to Continue

The former city resident who has filed a number of with the said he will return to in an attempt to get more documents that he believes will show that a popular teacher was wrongfully forced out of her job.

, an airline pilot who is friends with , the former teacher and now school board member, received a packet of emails from the district after they agreed with part of his most recent request. After perusing the documents, he was flabbergasted by what he received.

“No, I’m not satisfied,” he said. “Because they were all redacted.”

Frazel said the copies of the emails were redacted, in some cases, more than 20 times on a page. They were so redacted, he said, that he could barely read them. Names, references to issues, school names were all whited out, Frazel said.

“More than 150 pages … and they are impossible to read … it’s a joke,” he said, frustrated. “I will go back to court.”

Most of the emails he did receive were ones he was already in possession of and did not give him any new information about Higgins’ dismissal notification, Frazel said. He said that in order to prove that “Barb was railroaded, I have to gather the emails during the dates when she testified at the hearings and her dismissal.” Frazel said the key was to put together a timeline that started with Higgins’ rallying many residents in the city to try and stop the demolition and destruction of historic buildings to construct a new elementary school on the Kimball block to her dismissal, a period of about a year and half.

After receiving exemplary employment reviews, year after year, Higgins, he believed, was targeted for petty things that did not warrant a threatened dismissal. Frazel said he would go back and re-request emails between School Superintendent , Concord High School Principal , and his administrative assistant, Lisa Lamb, which pertain to Higgins.

“I’m going back to try and get them,” he said.

Frazel said while researching his case, he came across opinions by the district attorney that stated that documents that involved a dismissal of a school employee were government documents and accessible under the state’s 91-A Right-to-Know law.

Frazel said that he was working on the case with Higgins after she was suspended because he felt somewhat responsible for her situation, having been the person who convinced Higgins to get involved in trying to save the historic school building and homes. At the time, Frazel lived right up the street from the Kimball School and had children in the school. All involved were friends. Higgins also testified in his divorce hearing and later, had to request a restraining order against Frazel’s ex-wife’s new husband.

In constructing the timeline, Frazel starts with the period that Higgins began to organize to save the historic buildings and testified in his divorce proceedings, early 2010, until November 2010, the date of her dismissal letter.

“They were after her,” he said. “And they just keep writing minor things down until they got enough of them.”

Part 2: Was Barbara Higgins 'Railroaded'?