Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch

Tom, this what comes of your not keeping your promise to produce that teacher-pamphlet instruction book to tell teachers what to do in situations such as this. Stand-up guys keep their word. Shame on you, counselor.

I am annoyed at this woman because Bart and I could not coax her to come to see you and outline her side of what was going on. I sent her half dozen emails. I don't know if that would have helped because your job is to make the most Jesuitical case you can invoke to protect the skulduggery of the school board and the administration. That's evil, Tom. Clarence Darrow is watching you, and he is not pleased.

If just one school board member had the guts to instruct you to investigate, then that would free you to do so without sacrificing your board sinecure. God forbid that one of that tribe should show some initiative instead of lapsing into potted-plant lock-down mode.

The petri dish for bureaucratic sadism that the school system provides is sicko. That the victims take it is the double sicko. It's a regular sado-masochism factory.

That people--especially those affected-- don't protest this kind of outrage floors me. I wonder if murder in a ROSSAC mop closet would not merit s.o.p cover-up with Ms. Elia's lapsing into her manic damage-control mode. I infer this woman just wanted to hunker down and hope that retirement would rescue her from the bureaucratic sadists. She guessed wrong. She should have kicked her way to retirement. The quiet ones are always the target of the sadists.

If you don't bestir yourself, you will go to hell and have to hang out with F. Lee Bailey and other legal blowhards who reside there. Don't expect any help from me.

Bart, take a day off from Pilates and call your congressperson for a hundred of those whistleblower forms. Nag until you get them. I will help you pass them out at quitting time at this teacher's school at teachers' quitting time. If just one fills it out, that will be all it takes. You can never tell where courage will flair up.

lee drury de cesare

----- Original Message ----
From: "Montolino@aol.com"
To: Marian.Lambeth@fldoe.org
Cc: tgonzalez@tsg-law.com; lee_decesare@yahoo.com; Jean.Clements@floridaea.org; Yvonne.Lyons@floridaea.org; Chuck.Kiker@floridaea.org; susan.valdes@sdhc.k12.fl.us; april.griffin@sdhc.k12.fl.us; linda.kipley@sdhc.k12.fl.us
Sent: Friday, August 10, 2007 11:03:31 PM
Subject: New issue

Dear Ms. Lambeth,

I believe that a teacher friend of mine is being railroaded by her administrator. Linda Kipley of Professional Standards had this teacher down at the Professional Standards office sorting pens and paperclips during the end of the 2005-2006 school year. When she found out that Lee DeCesare (cc'ed to this email) a local gadfly and I knew about this case I believe Kipley suddenly removed herself from the meeting she was going to attend between the principal and the teacher. She claimed to the teacher that she was never supposed to be at the meeting, but once a teacher is pulled out of her classroom and school and ends up at Professional Standards and then a meeting is arranged between said teacher and said administrator, shouldn't Linda Kipley be in that meeting acting as an objective witness? I don't know. You might know what the procedure is. Anyway, the teacher was returned to her school under the same exact principal, and she was told the principal had to take some sort of course as a result. A rocket scientist does not have to figure out what happened next. I believe he was angry.

It has come to the teacher currently suspended without pay. She had not been allowed to transfer despite trying to do (according to her) everything that the principal asked of her and continuing to get poor evaluations by him. She tells me that Kipley finally gave in and told her she could transfer from the school (an obvious solution to the volatile problem that Kipley allowed to continue), but then two days later after being given permission by Kipley to transfer the teacher found out from the teacher union that the school board was going to vote to suspend her at the board meeting that night. So as soon as she was given the opportunity to transfer and get out of the volatile situation she suddenly is up for suspension. This does not seem to be due process. They have suspended her, and the poor woman is distraught. She believes she will lose her career, her livelihood, and her reputation.

What is her recourse in this case? I am asking as a friend to the teacher. She is so upset she doesn't know what to do. Shouldn't Kipley have allowed her to transfer earlier so that this explosive situation could have been avoided? Shouldn't an investigation take place investigating how the teacher's team members felt about her job performance? Shouldn't teachers at her school be asked whether the principal actually gave the teacher advice and mentoring to bring herself up to his expectations? They could be questioned and promised no retaliation from the said principal.

Please advise and help a woman who is so close to retirement and needs her job. This situation has be heartbroken for the poor woman, and it reopened the wound concerning my own case that I was trying to forgive and forget and start fresh this year. Today after talking to the teacher about her case I felt like I might have a heart attack, b/c I have been told by a counselor that I have post traumatic stress from the district's email investigation of me. I believe teachers should be dealt with fairly and humanely and not like cattle who are prodded to fall in line like sheep. I had put a stop to my counseling sessions, but I may have to return now. There should be someone somewhere who will help this poor woman!

I am cc'ing Linda Kipley, since I mention her in this email. Maybe she can shed some light on this situation.

Sincerely,

Bart Birdsall

Bart Birdsall
2309 W. Bristol Ave.
Tampa, FL 33609
home (813) 258-8817
cell (813) 362-7937
Montolino@aol.com

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