System Protects “problem” teachers, Despite sexually loaded behavior, district stymied in firing educator

Posted on February 26, 2012 by a12iggymom

Rochester schools just can’t fire teacher Valerie Yarn

Valerie Yarn

For years, teacher Valerie Yarn sent unwanted sexually suggestive letters, emails and presents to her bosses in the Rochester School District.
Yet even after she spent time in jail for violating a court order one principal obtained against her, court records show that Yarn was able to keep her job as a physical education teacher. It was not long, school officials say, before she turned her unwanted advances on a new target — her students — forcing them to remove their shirts and bras in gym class, saying that she needed to conduct a physical evaluation.
Now, city school officials are fighting to keep Yarn from returning to the classroom. After an arbitrator ruled last year that the district cannot fire her — even though he found the allegations against her credible — administrators took their case to the state’s Supreme Court, where in November the judge vacated the ruling and called for a new review by a different arbitrator, who must ultimately make the decision on Yarn’s employment.
“Her conduct, and her lack of insight, makes it both foreseeable and likely that she will engage in such behavior in the future,” Judge Thomas VanStrydonck wrote in his ruling. “The repetition of her conduct is so outside the realm of reason and normal social relations that the penalty imposed by the hearing officer should shock the conscience of any reasonable person. It shocks the conscience of this Court.”
Yarn’s attorney filed last month a notice to appeal the decision.
The case underscores the difficulty New York school systems face removing problem teachers from the classroom. State law and union contracts make it difficult to remove tenured teachers from their positions, even in cases that involve misconduct with students. Hearings seeking termination can drag on for years and cost districts thousands of dollars, ultimately deterring many from going through the process. And by and large these cases unfold out of the public eye. Yarn is one of just three teachers the City School District has attempted to remove through the state’s termination process — referred to as a 3020a hearing — since 2006, according to the state Education Department.
The New York State School Boards Association has been pushing for years to change the termination process, and last month state Education Commissioner John King echoed that call for reform during a hearing with lawmakers, calling the 3020a system “broken.” King’s suggestions involve allowing the commissioner to set maximum pay rates for arbitrators and disqualify those who do not meet certain deadlines.
While the court file shows that Yarn admitted many of the allegations against her, a spokesman with the state teachers union, which is backing Yarn’s fight for her job, said that she deserves another chance.
“We believe that while accountability for one’s actions is important, and that all teachers have a responsibility to the public and the students, there ought to be room for compassion,” said Carl Korn, a spokesman with New York State Union of Teachers. “The hearing officer showed compassion and said if this teacher could rehabilitate herself she could be returned to the classroom.”
The Democrat and Chronicle attempted to contact Yarn for several weeks both by phone and at her home, but was unable to reach her. A reporter also asked that her attorneys offer her an opportunity to comment.
Several school officials said that they could not comment on the case because it was still in litigation, but in court records their attorneys argue that they have already given Yarn repeated opportunities to turn her behavior around, and that her actions indicate she might be a threat to students.
“These are the most disturbing because now those charges deal with our students,” Cara Briggs, an attorney for the district, argued during the administrative hearing.
“They are supposed to be protected by staff at school. … It’s clear that we would not tolerate that conduct toward any of our personal children, and therefore we should not tolerate that conduct toward the children in our schools,” she said.

Years of problems

The trouble with Yarn, who has been with the district about 15 years, started in 2005 when she worked as a physical education teacher at Jefferson High School, according to court documents. In January of that year she sent principal Mary Andrecolich-Diaz a card, letters and emails laden with sexual references.

“I want to be careful when the word love comes up because emotions can easily be scarred,” one of the notes stated. “I care about you deeply — I don’t know if I love you because I haven’t held you in my arms. I can call it love — But I won’t know until we are face to face again. Love you.”
Andrecolich-Diaz, who declined to comment on the case, shared the letters with the district’s human resources department, which directed Yarn to limit her communication with the principal to work matters. The district also suggested she undergo a medical evaluation to determine if she was fit to continue teaching.
Despite the warning, Yarn continued to send Andrecolich-Diaz suggestive notes that became increasingly aggressive, prompting the principal to obtain a court order banning the teacher from contacting her.
Four days after a judge issued the order of protection, Yarn violated it by sending Andrecolich-Diaz a Valentine’s Day package with a balloon and flowers. Police arrested Yarn, and she ultimately pleaded guilty to violating the court order.
While in jail, Yarn continued to contact Andrecolich-Diaz via other school employees, messages that turned from sexual to threatening.
“I’m in jail and you won’t even write me back — that’s messed up,” Yarn wrote to Andrecolich-Diaz. “I can’t get a phone call. A box of goodies — nothing (Ha, Ha, Ha).”
“I will not come on the grounds of TJ because of the charge against me. However, if circumstances were different I’m not sure you would make it home … (smile).”
Upon her release, a district physician determined that Yarn was fit to continue teaching, so she returned to work at Wilson Magnet Foundation Academy, where once again she started harassing her supervisors with suggestive letters like the ones that got her into trouble with Andrecolich-Diaz.
One email referred to an assistant principal’s “tender grins” and called her “smooth — yep like ice cream without the cone.”
Court records show that Yarn also became negligent with her work duties, failing to report to work or supervise her students on dozens of occasions between September 2006 and January 2008.

Yarn’s supervisors reprimanded this behavior in meetings and with verbal and written reprimands, but did not attempt to remove her from her position.
Then in February 2008 school officials learned that Yarn’s behavior had taken a drastic turn. It targeted students.

‘It’s appalling’

Wilson’s acting principal Deasure Matthew first learned of problems involving students in February 2008 when a student came forward and reported that the prior spring Yarn had required girls in her physical education class to remove their shirts and bras — exposing their breasts — in preparation for what Yarn told them was a scoliosis exam.
District policy specifically states that such exams should be performed with the students’ clothes on, and Yarn had recently gone through training in the proper procedures. In court records attorneys for the school district allege that Yarn also threatened to fail students who refused her direction.
In court records Yarn’s attorneys argue that she did not ask the students to remove their shirts, rather told them to lift up their shirt and loosen their bras. The school district also only brought one student forward to testify at the hearings.
According to court records, Matthew called other students from the class into her office and interviewed them separately. They each confirmed the story independently, court records show.
In an interview last month, Matthew said that she also reported the student’s concern to the school district, which helped conduct the investigation, but allowed Yarn to continue working with students.
“There was no reason to remove her at the time,” Matthew said. “The students in her class, there was no evidence at that time they were in imminent danger.”
A month later, however, a different student came to Matthew in tears, saying that Yarn told her she was out of uniform and attempted to unbutton her blazer, according to court records. When the seventh-grader tried to push her hand away from near her breast, Yarn became more aggressive, not stopping until the student ran out of the room.

In a meeting about two months later, Yarn admitted to unbuttoning the student’s blazer and acknowledged that the girl was “very resistant,” according to court records.
That incident prompted the school district to begin termination proceedings against Yarn, removing her from her classroom duties and touching off a lengthy administrative process.
The district first filed disciplinary charges against Yarn in February 2009. It took two years — with parts of the hearings taking place in 2009, 2010 and 2011 — before arbitrator Adam Kaufman, a former City School District lawyer, reached a decision. He determined that while most of the accusations against Yarn were credible, the district should give her a one-year suspension and continue to pay her health insurance.
The district asked the court to vacate the decision.
“I’ve never heard of anything this outlandish,” said Bill Wilson, a parent with two children in the city school system. “I can’t believe that anybody would want somebody who has acted this way working in a school setting. It’s appalling.”
The district would not confirm Yarn’s current employment status, although court records show she was removed from the classroom when the district started the termination proceedings but remains on the payroll.
Several Rochester school board members also declined to comment about the Yarn case, but spoke to problems with the termination process for tenured teachers, saying that it is not fair to employees or students.
“This is not a system built for kids,” said board member Melisza Campos. “Even teachers who have been found to have abused kids can sometimes stay in the classroom. There really does need to be some major reform in that area.”
Yet board member Van White, who has litigated termination cases on behalf of school employees, said the real issue may not be with the process itself but with districts’ reluctance to pursue the harshest penalties.
White added that he thinks the City School District and school board have been more aggressive in recent years trying to remove problematic teachers.
“This is not a positive glowing statement on the part of school boards, but it’s about execution,” White said. “Do we vigorously try to remove teachers who are problematic or do we allow them to languish?”

Findings

Despite making repeated unwanted advances toward co-workers that a judge called “outside the realm of reason” even spending time in jail for violating a court order and behaving inappropriately with students, a City School District teacher has avoided firing.
Like many such cases, Teacher Valerie Yarn’s disciplinary action has dragged on for years. But unlike most cases, which remain shielded from view, Yarn’s has been made public only because the district took her to court.