No Good Deed: Tiny Step #5 "Et tu Brute?"

No Good Deed: Tiny Step Number Five “Et tu, Brute?” -William Shakespeare

“Betrayal is the only truth that sticks”   -Arthur Miller

If August had made me uneasy and September unsure, October can only be described as unreal, or perhaps surreal. Nothing was the same, and as I have said before, there were several little things happening all at once that upon later reflection and understanding I came to see as part of the plan. The most difficult part of October was the slow realization that my once good friend Gene Connolly was at the helm.

He would admit this to Jenny Boesch, a CHS staff member, in the months after I resigned.  She told me about it a year later at a track meet. I stood dumbfounded as she told me that he had called her into his office to explain “why I had to do what I did”. He told her a story of how I wasn’t the same “Barb” that had coached his Ally, and that he had been under tremendous pressure from Rath to see that I would no longer teach at Concord High.” It was her job or mine” is what she told me he said and “I have to think of my family first”.  A week later when I saw her again at the state meet I checked in with her to be sure I had the details right. She and her husband assured me that I did and that they wanted to help me. Sadly, when the time came for them to step up and speak with my attorney they would not. I can’t blame them or even be angry at them. I just wish they had never told me. Having this kind of knowledge is heart wrenching.

Sometime in September of 2010 a “teaching assistant” Daniel Oliveira appeared in my Personal Relationships class. The student to whom he was assigned had been in two of my health classes and had never required a teaching assistant. It felt funny. As October moved along it became clear that he wasn’t there to help the student. He spent most of his time at the back of the room behind a newspaper. He did the crossword puzzle. I tried to include him in conversations and make him a part of the class. He was not interested. Truthfully, we had no connection what so ever. When word got out that I was teaching this class several students added it to their schedule. I had a way with those students who found school difficult. Several of my health class favorites were there. We talked about all things relationships related in that class. The conversation was casual and comfortable. The students in the class needed this. Daniel Oliveira would pen a letter accusing me of disparaging students and teachers in these conversations. As I have said before, I worked so hard to get my students to self-advocate and come to know themselves that these accusations felt obscene. He also claimed I used foul language to make the students think I was “cool”. While it is true that I was relaxed about language and sometimes used terminology that others may find inappropriate, there was no disparaging of others allowed in my classroom ever. It was simply unacceptable. And quite frankly, I did not need to swear to be cool. Daniel Oliveira took conversations and made them something they were not. I am still close to the students involved in these “conversations” and they would gladly allow their names in this article. I will honor my school board president’s request and not include student names. Those who know me will support my statement that I speak ill of no one and would not allow this to happen in my classroom. I would also point out that in my SEVEN years at the high school I had no formal complaints about how I conducted myself in my classroom. The only documented displeasure at my teaching occurred when I invited a right-wing abstinence advocate to speak at the school. I was accused of “living in the 50’s”.

As this was unfolding Facilities Director Matt Cashman wrote a letter to Gene Connolly about me. This letter, later removed from my file but mentioned in the districts evidence packet was nothing less than vile. The fire department regularly inspects schools checking classrooms for fire hazards. We had received a school wide email regarding this. I secured the wires to my projector. I made sure my classroom computer was clean and the wires secure. I asked a custodian about the posters and pictures on my walls. I cleared the door to an electric panel in the back of my closet for easy access. I complied with every request.  What I failed to notice was a cord duct taped to the floor across the doorway into this closet. It had been put there by the district IT staff years before when I shared my room with two other teachers so that there could be computers powered in the “closet office”. I was essentially teaching alone in the fall of 2010 so I did not access this closet on a regular basis. I did not notice the cord. In some well-orchestrated twist of fate my classroom was the first inspected. While other classrooms had been pre-checked by custodians for potential missed hazards prior to the inspection mine had not.  When I was called to Gene’s office I sincerely had no idea why. The meeting was horrible. Gene yelled at me. He told me “I am trying to help you here but you are making it very difficult”. I sobbed in this meeting. I was devastated. The man I trusted most, Gene Connolly was yelling at me.  In his letter Matt Cashman called me insubordinate. He claimed I had no respect for authority. He said that I purposefully put the district at risk. He would later call the high school to ask why I was at the Central Office building during school hours, something that was none of his business. I was there dropping off banking information to Larry Prince. I was being cooperative. I had nothing to hide. Matt Cashman is very kind to me now. He was most decidedly NOT kind to me in the fall of 2010. While I have forgiven him, I have not forgotten what he wrote. It was hurtful, and untrue. It was ultimately dismissed because there were several infractions of the fire code throughout the district, and Matt Cashman did not write scathing letters about those teachers.  At my suspension meeting Chris Rath reluctantly pulled the letter out of my file. She claimed Cashman would not be happy. Roughly 85% of the high school classrooms were inspected by custodians. Mine was not and it was the first one checked. Hindsight tells me this was not a coincidence.

I stopped into the athletic office one day in mid-October. Athletic secretary Elaine Brodeur greeted me with a goodbye. She said she was very glad to have worked with me. When I told her I was still coaching track in the spring and that I was just taking one season off from Cross-Country she seemed confused. I went in to Steve Mello’s office. I told him I wasn’t sure what was going on but that I was cooperating with Larry regarding my bank accounts and that I missed coaching. His response to me was, “people get sick of Manny being Manny and sometimes Manny has to go”. I had no idea what to make of this comment. I was so confused and off balance and scared at this point that I just accepted it and went about my teaching. In hind sight this seems like an omen, a warning of sorts.

Daniel Oliveria’s letter was dated October 27th. By this time I had been asked by Union President Mike Macri about the bank accounts. He told me I was not required to give that information to anyone. Of course it was too late. He had heard that I was being set up. I had been approached by several community members as well as a former CSD employee with concerns that I had or would lose my job. There seemed to be a swirl of information about me that I was not privy to. It was very unsettling. When I read Lisa Lamb’s email requesting I meet with Gene regarding Daniel Oliveira’s “complaints” I lost it. I started sobbing. Ben Greene, an assistant principal and also former friend came to my classroom and took me to the nurse. Daniel is now married to Ben’s daughter. He did not continue to work at the high school after I left. As I lay in the nurse’s office on October 29th, completely distraught, Steve Mello, Gene Connolly and my husband Kenny stood over me. I asked Steve and Kenny to leave. I asked Gene what was happening to me and why. I told him I was afraid. He reassured me that I was not going to be suspended and that everything would be ok. Nothing could be further from the truth. I would teach just one more day.

The meeting that would take place on Monday November 1st, 2010 and the subsequent actions on the part of both Chris Rath and my attorney Glenn Milner are difficult for me to reflect upon, let alone write about. In my next article I will explain the actions of these very people and the accusations of school district employees who once called themselves my friends. I will lay out the actions and statements that would cause me to believe that a pile of menial complaints could actually cost me my career. I understand now why people confess to crimes they did not commit or defend their attackers. The whittling away of self, the rocking of reality, the distortion of truth has a way of making you question everything. As I have said before, I was an easy mark.