No Good Deed: Tiny Step #2 A Life Twisted by School Officials

Oscar Wilde is credited with the saying “No Good Deed Goes Unpunished.” This quote has never made sense to me; good deeds after all create positive energy and are typically beneficial to both the giver and receiver. It wasn’t until I had analyzed, re-lived, dreamed about, and agonized over my job-loss that the full meaning of this quote sunk in. I have had a life-long inability to say “no” when asked for help. Whether it is a lack of boundaries on my part, or a desire to be loved and feel needed, when I am asked to do something or to help someone I typically say yes. After I had spent November and December of 2010 essentially curled up in my bed I had traced it all back, all one thousand tiny steps, to where my ultimate suspension and recommendation for dismissal had started.

 I employed a technique I had often used with my health students to find those first few steps. In a lesson on decision making and the potential negative outcomes of poor choices I would point out that people don’t typically run and leap onto a thinly iced pond in order to fall through, rather they take tiny tentative steps, and with each successful step feel confident enough to venture a little further onto the ice. When they finally fall through, it is typically after several opportunities, red flags, and chances to turn back, but that false sense of security edges us on.

 To this day I don’t really know what caused Chris Rath to turn on me like she did. In my 21 years in the district she had always felt like a mentor and ally to me. She hired me in 1990, I helped rid her of a pedophile in 1996 (at great personal expense) when she “cleaned house” at Concord High School. I sent her cards acknowledging her accomplishments throughout my career in the district.  She once called me a remarkable woman. I have speculated that it is related to my vocal opposition regarding the demolition of Kimball School as the timing of her change in behavior toward me fits perfectly. At about the same time (July 2010) she received a complaint about me from Aimee (Frazel) Mosher and her husband Bob. In this complaint they alleged that I had used school district email to harass them. They also complained about Susan Noyes, then principal at Kimball/Walker School for breaching confidentiality about their daughter, who was a student at the time. I know this because the Mosher’s have bragged about “getting me fired” in several emails and documents related to my request for a restraining order against them. (My long sordid history with this family is well documented in a Concord Monitor article which appeared in the spring of 2012 when I was granted a stalking petition against them.) I realize I may be losing some of you here; my resignation path was not a straight one, rather a corn maze of actions, people, decisions and events that culminated with my resignation.

The events of the spring and summer of 2010 I see now to be the perfect storm;  my vocal opposition to the building demolitions, the email complaint, and a medical leave of absence I had taken in June during the last weeks of school coming together perfectly for Dr. Rath to execute her plan. I have no one but myself to blame for giving her that beginning ammunition.

 I said yes.

Susan Noyes asked me in the winter of 2009 to speak to a Guardian Ad Litum involved in Aimee Mosher’s divorce from her then husband Roy Frazel.( Aimee and I had once been good friends.) I had already been asked my both Aimee and Roy, in writing through the GAL to respond to several questions regarding the children. My husband and I had made the decision to stay out of it. I threw the paper work away. But when Susan Noyes called me to request that I speak with her, I said yes. I knew it would be problematic but I said yes anyway. She gave the attorney my email address. My SCHOOL email address and we began a correspondence and eventually met, at Concord High School, to discuss the case. I felt obligated as a teacher and as a subordinate of Susan Noyes to participate in the interview. Had I said no, I would not have angered Aimee and Bob.  I would not have been threatened enough to feel that I had to apply for a restraining order in January 2010. I asked Susan Noyes for help in this hearing. Her testimony, either in person or in writing simply stating that she had been the one to ask me to participate in the GAL interviews would have been incredibly helpful.  She never responded and I ultimately did not get that restraining order. As part of my evidence I used several emails between Aimee and me, the GAL and me, as well as several threads of which I was a part. These were all on the school district email because that is the email given to the GAL by Susan Noyes.  Since I was asked as a teacher to participate in this case, I felt it appropriate to keep all of the correspondence in plain sight. This would prove to be a fatal mistake.

This was my first tiny step.

The strain of the Mosher’s harassment, my husband’s advancing kidney disease, (he is currently awaiting a transplant), and a major hit on our personal financial situation had taken quite a toll on me and in the spring of 2010 my then good friend, and CHS Principal Gene Connolly called me in for a meeting. I had just spent two days in divorce court as a witness in the Frazel case. They had become agitated enough that I had a bailiff insist on escorting me to my car. I missed two days of school and a track meet. During the meeting we discussed my request for time off, the strain I was showing and that everyone was very concerned for me. I have three CEA members who can attest to the fact that this meeting was a positive and supportive meeting. Gene suggested I take a medical leave and my union reps agreed. I spoke of my concern about this to Kim Bleier, our building representative. Another teacher had taken a similar leave and was not re-hired. I worried that this would happen to me. She assured me that since I was tenured and had a clean teaching record that this would not happen. I mulled it over.

I said yes.

This would prove to be fatal mistake number two because in the months after my building demolition testimony and the Mosher’s complaint, the manner of the meeting and subsequent medical leave would be would be twisted and used in a coercive way. A letter I believe to have been fabricated by Gene Connolly included in the districts evidence packet summarized a meeting very different from what actually happened. This letter, with all of its inaccurate allegations, hurt the most. Gene and I had been friends. I had spent time with his family. We had gone to concerts and been to each others homes for dinner. I had spent countless hours coaching and mentoring his daughter. She is perhaps my biggest piece of collateral damage. I miss Ally as much as I miss teaching, and that is a lot. The mistakes in the letter, the inaccurate date, the fact that it was never included in my personnel file and the districts unwillingness to reveal its creation date all speak to its lack of authenticity. Plus, the notes of the three union reps that were at the meeting are very different.

This was my second tiny step.

During my medical leave I went to a therapist. I helped my husband maneuver the ins and outs of kidney disease and we worked on our financial situation. I took it very seriously. As things calmed down, Gene Connolly remarked on more than one occasion that I was starting to look like myself again.  I planned and held my track camp. I processed grades and provided two students with extra summer work at the request of Athletic Director Steve Mello so they could receive passing grades and be eligible for football. Nothing felt “odd” or “wrong” at all. I also became involved in the public hearings that were being held about the buildings. I could have sat and listened but several people encouraged me to speak.

I said yes.

 I testified at a total of four hearings over the course of the summer and at one meeting was actually asked by a school board member about my status as a district employee. I responded that I was testifying as a parent and a tax payer, not as a Concord School District Employee. In an ironic twist, Susan Noyes complimented me at one of those hearings, saying that I spoke very eloquently.  This would prove to be my third fatal mistake.

Tiny Step Number Three

The medical leave, the building demolition hearings, and the email complaint are the soil in which my exit from the school district was cultivated. It becomes a bit easier to follow from here and the names and events will make sense. I can and will deliver a more concise and chronological summary of what happened to me, the people involved, and how the events culminated in my signature on a Confidential Separation Agreement that isn’t confidential at all.