No Good Deed: Tiny Step #4 Setting the Stage

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;  William Shakespeare

I have never believed that things just happen randomly. It is why I call my blog site “a thousand tiny steps”. It is why I taught that lesson to my students.  Regardless of people’s motives or intentions, decisions get made and actions taken. We each play a part in what happens to us. I will not claim as I write these posts to be without responsibility in what happened to me. I will stand firm, however in my belief that I did not deserve what happened to me.  If I had said no to Susan Noyes there would have been no case against me from Aimee Mosher. If I had used my personal email account there would have been no basis for a complaint to the school district about them. If I had not written personal emails to Roy Frazel they could not have been used against me. I own these things. If I had sat quietly and not fought for those beautiful buildings I would not have angered Dr. Rath.  These were my small steps along the way and regardless of the motive (or lack thereof) behind them they were indeed my actions. I feel this way about my whole experience… I own my decisions… but I was an easy mark.  Hindsight also tells me that the events of that fall in 2010 were not random, rather a loosely orchestrated play in which my actions and reactions would determine how the next act would go. And I believe their motivation lay in the anger I had caused Chris Rath over my opposition to the building demolition and the subsequent site changes required by the city. I believe she enlisted the help of Gene by ruining my relationship with him through her accusal of adultery.  I believe she knew that this would allow him to direct the scenes and orchestrate the play. I believe he justified his actions by remembering her accusation.

I would only teach for two months and right from the beginning of the school year a pattern of behavior emerged.  I would be summoned to Gene’s office. Each time I would be asked about a minor infraction I had allegedly performed, I would deny that it had happened and the next day a letter would appear in my mailbox or an email from Gene summarizing a meeting that bore no resemblance to what had actually occurred. It took the month of September before my union stepped in.  In their defense, they didn’t know what was happening to me and oddly enough, as uncomfortable as I was feeling; it never dawned on me to seek help. I just kept trying harder to please everybody and do what I was told.

Throughout those first weeks of school several “things” had happened that began to make me feel unsettled. Gene stopped by my class on more than one occasion to watch me teach. This wasn’t unusual but frequent enough so I noticed. As I was walking to my car one day he was outside and stopped me to tell me he thought I was doing a great job and that he was glad I was “back”. This filled me with relief. There were three other things which had occurred that did not.

I was asked to teach two new classes and for one of them there was absolutely no curriculum. No competencies, no lessons nothing. I went to Steve Mello the PE/Health Department Administrator for assistance. Together we found some material in the closet of the teacher who had retired. It was plenty enough to get me started. In an email summarizing this event Mello indicated that I was “in need of help” and copied Lise Bofinger the PE/Health Curriculum Facilitator to oversee this.  I responded that I did not need help that I had simply needed class material. I was concerned about the tone of the email and it’s implication that I wasn’t able to handle this myself.

The second event occurred Friday afternoon September 16th at 2:25, just under 20 minutes before dismissal. Steve Mello came to my classroom. He had never been to my room before so I was somewhat surprised. At the time my students were chatting while I tried to get a YouTube video to load. The video was of a little skit that was intended to wrap up the lesson and I was having trouble loading it. When Steve showed up I stopped trying and engaged in conversation with him. He asked how things were going and I said “fine” and explained the video loading problem. We chatted for a bit and then he left. I had my students put away their materials and pack up for the bell. I thought nothing more about this.

The third event also concerned Steve Mello and happened toward the end of the month.  As I said in my last blog I had been asked to “take a year off” from coaching.  Two parents, Jenny Boesch and Becky Lawrence were starting up an actual booster club for the cross-country team. They asked for the check book from the account I had been keeping. Jenny and I arranged to meet a couple of times but had not done so. I finally told them that they should open their own account and when I had time to reconcile the account I was keeping I would transfer the balance to theirs. I also kept a checkbook for track, and honestly these accounts were in a state of disarray. There were several transactions in limbo and the accounts owed several people money. Had I been coaching and/or held my usual fundraisers there would have been several hundred dollars in these accounts. Although I had offered, in my summer meeting with Gene and Steve to hold the fundraisers, Gene told me to cancel. So the money was not raised. I do not know what conversations took place between Jenny, Becky and Steve, but they could not have been positive because I was asked to meet with Larry Prince (HR Director) at Concord High School one morning before school and to bring all of my bank statements and checkbooks. I agreed. Why wouldn’t I agree? I was, after all ignoring my inner voice. Alarm bells should have been ringing, but at this time I still trusted Gene and didn’t believe anyone was trying to hurt me. I happily handed over all of the paperwork for both accounts as I had nothing to hide.

On September 23rd  I received a request to meet with Gene after school. I was not offered union representation and the email from Lisa Lamb made the meeting sound fairly informal. Although I was anxious I was not overly concerned. When I entered the conference room I was greeted by Gene, Steve Mello and Larry Prince. Gene explained Larry’s presence by saying that he had been there for another meeting and was just going to sit in.  He was not copied on the summary letter of this meeting. I was then told that I had been accused of letting my students out early from class. This was a complete lie. I had not let my students out early AT ALL in September of 2010. Gene would not say where this rumor came from. Years prior, when my classroom was in the basement I was often accused of letting my students out early. When I moved upstairs into the main flow of the school Gene was the first one to admit that the rumors had stopped. I was also asked if I had let students use cell phones in class. I said “no”. My daily class starter was “cell phones off and away!” I then said that I had, in fact let ONE freshman use her phone in my office, at the end of a study hall to call her mother. (It should be noted that about 6 weeks after my resignation there was a full page article in the Concord Monitor about cell phone use at Concord High School where it was reported that roughly half of the teachers let students use their cell phones in class.) I left the meeting bewildered. The following week there was a letter dated September 28rd  in my mailbox expressing Gene’s regret at my poor behavior and hope that I would improve. The letter addressed cell phone use by students, my letting students out early, and not using my whole class time for teaching. This last one was especially troubling because it was clearly based on that one visit to my room from Steve Mello on a Friday afternoon. The letter made it sound like I had admitted to these infractions which I had not. I brought it to Gene and asked him what it was all about. With what seemed a cavalier attitude he replied it was just a summary of our meeting. When I explained that it made me sound like I had admitted to these infractions he told me I could grieve it if I chose to and left it at that.  I was dumbfounded. This man bore no resemblance to the Gene Connolly whose daughter I had mentored, or the one who told me that my love for kids shone through everything I did. I did not know this Gene Connolly.

It was September 28th, we had been in school for just under a month and I had been accused of three unsubstantiated infractions, had my check books confiscated and been called incompetent. My inner voice was getting louder, but I was still in a state of denial. Gene’s behavior toward me was shifting. Where we once greeted each other happily in the hall or in the office things were now becoming terse. He wouldn’t look me in the eye. One morning stands out in particular. I stood at Lisa Lamb’s desk outside his office, chatting with her. I looked in to Gene’s office to say hello. He was sitting with Andrea Elliot, one of the assistant principals at the time. When he saw me he looked back to Andrea and told her to keep talking so it would look like they were in a conversation. I was crushed…and confused. I stood there for a moment unsure of what to do. As I turned to leave, the world shifted again beneath my feet. I was afraid but still in denial. “How did I get here?”  I wondered as I climbed the stairs to my classroom.  Just three months prior, as I began track camp, Gene had welcomed me “back”, Steve Mello had sent me a recording of a beautiful country song about family and Larry Prince had wished me well on my medical leave. Three months, 4 public hearings and one angry woman later...I was alone