UPDATE FROM DARLENE GOODMAN

Much has happened since I first posted my story on the NAPTA site. If you are not familiar with my story, please click on Teacher Stories, then on Goodman Darlene, New Mexico. I am including a brief review of part of the devastating ordeal I endured. Before I start my update, I must say that NAPTA cannot give legal advice, and neither do we suggest that members follow the course of action that I took. Each situation is unique, and only the member involved can decide how to approach his or her dilemma. I am merely telling my story, not advising anyone else to take the drastic steps that I took. It is not feasible for all teachers to put themselves in the financial, emotional, and physical peril that I chose. I am merely relating how I fought against the unjust treatment of teachers in my district.

I filed criminal charges against Los Lunas High School principal, Rex Henington, after he assaulted me in March 2001. Charges against him were dropped because of a technicality; according to Senator Michael Sanchez, who represented Mr. Henington, I had done some of the legal paperwork incorrectly while acting pro se, although I completed it exactly as a local judge advised.

Between March 2001 and October 2001, the district made my life hell by sending employees to my home with letters from the administrative office, by having a vice-principal follow me in the halls at school, by interrupting my class several times a day, and by keeping one of my paychecks as “a form of discipline. ” Administrators threatened me, as well as teachers seen speaking to me, and students who stood up for me. I pleaded with Superintendent Danny Burnett and the Board members for help. Not only did they ignore me, they encouraged, and joined in, the harassment.

I was terminated on October 30, 2001, for sitting on the floor in the Los Lunas High School library during a staff meeting in August 2001, which I did. There were no empty chairs. The district denied that the assault charges I filed against Principal Henington played any part in the termination.

My termination appeal was held in February 2002. My lawyer seemed incapacitated during the appeal, and complained about not being prepared for the hearing. Her behavior was so strange, and her representation so inept, that I knew my chance of winning was slim. In addition, I did not have enough money to buy so much as a loaf of bread, and was desperately attempting to hang on until my unemployment check arrived. I accepted the district’s settlement offer. They were to give me all of my back pay, including the paycheck an administrator had kept, my sick day pay, and the money students earned for me by having a carwash; administrator Bill Moffett had taken the carwash money. The school placed me under a gag order, which I intended to honor. When the written settlement papers arrived, they bore little resemblance to what the district had promised. I did not receive all of my back salary, nor my sick-day pay, nor the money from the carwash. In addition, the written gag order was ridiculous, stating that I, nor my family, could ever say anything negative about past, present, or future Los Lunas administrators. The district would fine me $5000 for every negative thing I said about the district. I refused to honor it. I must owe the district about a million dollars by now, but since they know that the gag order was unconstitutional, they have not taken me to court.

In December 2002, I drove to the high school where I had taught for 14 years to deliver letters to a few teachers for whom I did not have home addresses. The letter was a thank you to the teachers who brought food and money to my home during the many months that the district tried to starve me into submission. In addition, the letter offered an update of NAPTA activites, as well as an invitation to join the organization. I delivered the letters to the office secretary, then returned to my car to leave. As I started off, I noticed a letter on the floorboard that I had overlooked, so I parked the car, and headed back into the office. A city policeman, Officer Torres, was waiting for me on the sidewalk; he advised me that I had to leave campus. I told him that I had already been in the office, and that no one had said that I had to leave. At that point, a security guard joined the officer. I was stunned. I laughed at the two huge men, and asked if they didn’t need more than two men to chase off a little 58-year-old woman. As I rounded the corner of the building, going to my car, I saw four more men approaching me, spread out single-file; my first thought was it looked like a scene fromShowdown at O.K. Corral There was one more city policeman, two security guards, and Vice-Principal Armando Reyes. They looked so ludicrous that I could not help but laugh at them. As I got into my car, I realized that I had my camera with me to take to have repaired. I grabbed it and pretended to take pictures of the four men headed toward me. As they got closer to the car, I drove off. I had not gone but a few yards when my camera started whirring, and I realized that it was working! I stopped the car, jumped out, and started to take pictures. One of the policemen came toward the driver’s door, and reached toward me. I knew that he would take my camera, so I drove off quickly. I did not know then, nor do I know now, why the men behaved as they did. I was afraid that they would follow me as I drove to Albuquerque. I stopped at the first pay phone I found to call my best friend to let her know what had happened. I tried to file charges against the six men, but the Los Lunas City Police, the Sheriff’s Department, and the State Police refused to take the charges, declaring that they “didn’t know how!” Last year, I found a lawyer, Dennis Montoya, who offered to take my case against the city and the LLSD for violating my civil rights. In December, for legal reasons I cannot discuss yet, I reached an “acceptance of judgement” with the city, for a whopping $1000. All that I wanted was for them to admit guilt, and while guilt is not admitted officially in an acceptance of judgement, it amounts to the same thing. If the LLPD never violates a citizen’s Constitutional rights at the orders of a school administrator again, I will consider it more of a win than if I had received thousands of dollars. Law enforcement should not be “hired guns” for school districts.

In February 2003, three of the Los Lunas Board of Education members responsible for my hellish ordeal ran for re-election, with the arrogance and hubris they and their superintendent had always displayed, convinced that no one would dare toss them out on their ears. They were wrong. I confronted Board members and guilty administrators in public, often asking, “Have you destroyed any other lives lately, or was mine the last?” I challenged statements they had made at Board meetings, and informed them of every criminal charge I intended to make against them. An important step in my battle to unseat the Board members, was to submit FOI (Freedom of Information) requests to the district, asking for the salaries of each administrator, salaries of each administrative secretary, the cost of the new administrative building (including the cost for the private shower installed for Superintendent Burnett), and the cost to taxpayers for trips to Board training by members and their families. I compiled all of the information I received from the district, and created flyers on my computer. After making my house payment and buying groceries, I had $100 to live on that February, and I spent $60 of that on computer ink cartridges, copies of the flyer, and postage to mail the flyers to politicians at the local and state level. It was money well-spent. I delivered the flyers door-to-door in the districts the members represented, and posted them in stores and in the post office. I wrote letters to local/state/federal administrators, and letters to the local newspaper, including the incriminating proof of the ineptness and unethical behavior of the board members and administrators. I also made and distributed photos of the six men assaulting me at LLHS in Dec. 2002. I screamed loud and long, and I was heard. I defeated all three members. Superintendent Burnett did not wait for the inevitable; he volunteered to leave the district for a portion of his contract. Then the new Board terminated/retired two other administrators closely-associated with Superintendent Burnett, and demoted Principal Henington. Although Henington was demoted, the Board did not go far enough; anyone accused of abusing teachers and students should not be allowed to remain on campus. Unfortunately, the new Board appointed Vice-Principal Reyes as the new superintendent, despite my warnings. He was terminated soon after his appointment, allegedly for condoning inappropriate behavior toward a teacher by a principal, a charge not difficult to believe. Presently, the Los Lunas district has an interim superintendent until another one is hired this summer. I do not have documents proving how much the district has spent on buy-outs and salaries in the last two years, but I think it is close to half a million dollars. Legal fees must be even more than that. I intend to submit FOI requests in an effort to ascertain the total cost to taxpayers.

Last week, the last two board members who attempted to destroy me ran for re-election. One was unopposed, and will therefore, serve another term. While he did not have the courage to help teachers and students who suffered at the hands of the Burnett regime, I have recently learned that neither did he accept many of the perks offered to him. However, that does not excuse his cowardly behavior. The other Board member was John Kern, who apparently took great pleasure in tormenting teachers. When I was penniless, with no food, I wrote to him, begging the Board for help; he did not reply. One document I received (mistakenly sent to me by the school’s own lawyer!) proved that Board members has spent nearly $900 on luncheons the same month that I pleaded for enough of my salary to buy groceries. Kern’s opponent was Eugene Carbajal. The campaign quickly became so dirty that the interim superintendent was forced to intercede, ordering all candidates to run a positive campaign. I was assured that the public remembered the information I disseminated two years ago, so out of respect for Mr. Carbajal and interim-Superintendent Pomeroy, I did not go door-to-door with the flyers. Kern was over-whelmingly defeated. Mr. Carbajal seems genuinely outraged at what was done to Los Lunas teachers and students during Superintendent Burnett’s reign. He assures me that he will listen to the concerns of teachers, and will not tolerate the retaliation and abuse that has been part of our district for so many years. I will continue to monitor the district, and to publicize anything that I think the public needs to know. In addition, I still have one more lawsuit pending against the district.

There were many minor players in my years of abuse; some I had considered friends for years. A few of them were rewarded with promotions. The majority of teachers shunned me as if I had the plague, terrified they might be the next victim if they were seen with me. A few teachers, in a pathetic attempt to suck up to the administrations, became cheerleaders for the district, insisting that those of us who spoke out were nothing less than traitors. Others stuck their heads in the sand, refusing to acknowledge the many wrongs in our district. I have learned that most people will do anything, however unethical, unjust, or illegal, to save their jobs. There is no job worth my soul, nor worth allowing the destruction of education, and therefore, the destruction of our country. I will never recover financially from my ordeal, but I can look at myself in the mirror without seeing the devil looking back at me.

Administrators and politicians foster the lie that students are the reason for the teacher shortage. I had wonderful students at LLHS, and I miss them. Teachers should be mandated to report to a state department of education when schools have no supplies, when facilities are dirty and in disrepair, when they, co-workers, or students are abused by bullying administrators or other employees. Whistleblower laws must be passed to protect teachers who speak up for themselves and their students. Until teachers are free to reveal what is really happening in America’s schools, there will be no reform in education.

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