Teacher Fired For Reporting IDEA Violations Can Sue, Court Rules
By Michelle DiamentA California educator who says she was fired for speaking out about the limited services provided to her special education students can sue for retaliation, an appeals court has ruled.
Susan Barker was a resource specialist in Riverside, Calif. in 2005 when she raised red flags about the limited services provided to students with disabilities in the school district. She made a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights and says her superiors in the school district promptly began intimidating her.
Barker says her colleagues stopped communicating by phone and e-mail, excluded her from staff meetings, limited her responsibilities and changed her work location. As a result, she alleged in a lawsuit against the school district that she was “constructively terminated” in August 2006 because her employer “subjected her to an intolerable work environment.”
A lower court said that Barker lacked standing to sue because she does not have a disability and was claiming retaliation for advocating on behalf of her students under section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act.
On appeal, however, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said otherwise, asserting that educators do have the right to claim retaliation if they are acting on behalf of their students.
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Ms. Barker is to be commended for her courage!
As a special education teacher, I feel it’s my duty to advocate for my students. I never even thought about being fired as a result. I hope this case receives national attention. I don’t know if others outside of education realize what is happening to some of our most helpless children. Susan Barker is a hero!
Congratulations for her guts. It is hard to lay your neck on the line but sometimes it must be done. If we are real special ed teachers we will advocate for our students no matter what. I got fired for advocacy too. A Program Assistant (assistant principal over special ed.) and other administrators wanted to exclude a terminally ill student from school because she was hard to look at. She was told she could not do that by the system lawyer. So she decided to re-evaluate the girl so she could stash her in Severe/Profound. I told her she had made a B on her midterm exam using hand signals (She had lost her ability to speak.) The next year I found myself in a perfectly horrible class at a level I don’t like to teach (middle school moderate). I transferred to severe/profound which I LOVE BEST, but I had wanted a change and went to Orthopedically Impaired. Two years later a principal who hated special education and white people got me fired for “insubordination”. It was really racism and advocacy.
In another system I fed a parent the information she needed to get her child into extended year. Working through the parents is usually the best way to get things done if you can and need to keep your job. These folks were already getting rid of me because an incompetent, alternately certified so-called teacher was the principal’s pet and she did not like me. I had dared complain about this popular witch verbally abusing staff and students! But I got the child her summer services and cost that school system a bunch of money.
We have always been the red headed stepchild of education. Our children don’t have anyone but us so we have to be good. That is why it is important for us to have special education degrees (preferably 2) and to always be perfectly ethical, above board, and to get our paperwork done right. The words a school SYSTEM hates the most are MEDIA and LAWSUIT. These usually have to come from the parents. But the words a persecuting principal or a Special Education Director with her hands and mind where they don’t belong are: IT’S IN HIS IEP. Remember that and be able to quote, or at least reference, IDEA and Section 504.
Good girl Susan Barker. I give you the honor we gave in Atlanta to the best teachers in the day when we were family and did not have to bother as much with regular eds who thought are kids were stupid, our classes a dumping ground and us day care workers: YOU ARE GOOD ENOUGH TO BE SPECIAL ED!
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