Cairo Association of Teachers - Newsletter

CAT Tracks for June 10, 2007 TEACHER LOSES JOB...SUES

And they wonder why teachers form unions and fight to protect seniority!

From The Philadelphia Inquirer...

High stakes in teacher-parent clash

By Martha Woodall
Inquirer Staff Writer

Officials at the Baldwin School thought so highly of Patricia Tollin's teaching, they regularly took prospective school parents to observe her second-grade classroom.

But Wednesday was her last day at the prestigious, private girls' school in Bryn Mawr, where yearly high school tuition tops $23,000. After 22 years, Tollin's annual contract was not renewed.

In a blistering 37-page complaint filed in Montgomery County Court last week, Tollin, 67, contends that Baldwin's new head of school decided to side with a wealthy Gladwyne family and end the career of a respected teacher rather than risk losing a multimillion-dollar gift for a new athletic facility.

In addition to the school, Tollin's complaint names Michael and Sheryl Pouls, whose daughter transferred from Tollin's class to another second-grade class at Baldwin in February.

"This has been a very difficult time," Tollin said the day her Baldwin career ended. "This isn't the way I wanted to do it."

Baldwin and the Poulses deny the assertions in Tollin's suit.

"The allegations are completely baseless," said Michael Pouls, owner and chief executive of a company that develops high-end resort properties. He said he was considering filing a countersuit.

"My daughter was humiliated and belittled in front of her classmates," Pouls said in a telephone interview. "We politely asked for that to change, and it did not. The teacher got upset, and that is how it escalated to where it is now."

The school-year saga began with the Poulses' concerns about other children calling their daughter fat and later encompassed accounts of marital woes, a classroom tirade, and the censoring of an ad in the school's annual program book.

Tollin's complaint says Baldwin officials bent over backward to meet the escalating demands of the Poulses, whose daughter was unhappy and said the veteran teacher had yelled at and humiliated her. The Poulses had threatened to pull the child and her 11-year-old sister out of Baldwin.

The school was eager to appease Michael Pouls, the complaint says, because he had promised to donate millions of dollars "for the construction of a new athletic facility which would carry the Pouls family name. Because the facility had not yet been constructed," the Poulses "could possibly revoke their financial pledge."

Baldwin spokeswoman Leslie Pfeil said Baldwin could not comment on Tollin's allegations because they involve a private personnel matter and a pending lawsuit.

"We can say we worked diligently to get this settled, and we don't agree with any of the claims that have been made," Pfeil said. "The school has behaved in an ethical manner at all times."

Sally M. Powell, head of Baldwin, was unavailable. The school has not yet filed a response to the complaint.

Baldwin, with its stately stone buildings, enrolls 605 girls from prekindergarten through 12th grade.

Several Baldwin parents, including the president of the parents' association, did not return calls seeking comment on the suit.

Michael Pouls said: "One of the things we will be able to provide is written comments from the school that since 1989 this teacher has exhibited a pattern of humiliating, belittling and yelling at children."

Lisanne L. Mikula, one of Tollin's attorneys, said the record would show that overwhelmingly, Tollin had been loved and respected at Baldwin.

Tollin's attorneys have told her not to discuss the case.

According to the suit, Tollin was often taken out of her class this school year to meet with administrators to discuss appeasing the Poulses. She says Baldwin circulated letters to parents and staff with false information. Her suit also alleges that Sheryl Pouls engaged in a profanity-laced tirade during a parents' meeting that prompted one terrified student to hide in a locker.

All the troubles began, the lawsuit says, with a discussion about lunch.

Sheryl Pouls called Tollin in October to complain that some classmates had called her daughter "fat," and she wanted Tollin to monitor what the child ate at lunch.

Instead of singling out the girl, Tollin said, she would present a lesson on healthy eating to the class and observe what each child ate.

According to the suit, relations grew strained in November when Sheryl Pouls allegedly visited Tollin's classroom to ask her to intervene in the Poulses' marital problems and Tollin declined.

Days later, the complaint says, Michael Pouls complained that Tollin was singling out his daughter by focusing on what she ate at lunch. He told Tollin that he was the child's main caregiver, the suit says, and that she should take orders about her only from him.

"Tollin then realized she was in the middle of a domestic-relations dispute," the complaint says.

In January, Tollin was summoned to a meeting with Powell, who had become Baldwin's head of school six months earlier, and another top administrator and told that the Poulses wanted to transfer their daughter to another class. The child was unhappy because Tollin "yelled a lot and did not like her."

The administrators told Tollin to call Michael Pouls every day to report on his daughter's treatment.

After additional complaints, Baldwin moved the child to another class in early February.

A week later, Sheryl Pouls allegedly stormed into a homeroom parents' meeting in Tollin's room and berated her for not saying hello to her daughter the day before.

According to the suit, Tollin feared she was going to be assaulted and tried to move away. Sheryl Pouls followed, screaming epithets and shouting: "I want you fired or I'm taking my girls and my money out of this school!" the complaint says. Other parents, it says, pulled the woman out of the room.

Michael Pouls said in an interview that his wife challenged the sequence of events that day. He said he was speaking for the family.

Days later, the suit says, a parent told Tollin that school officials had rebuffed parents' efforts to place an ad in Baldwin's annual program book that read: "We love you, Mrs. Tollin. Thank you for a wonderful year. Your second-grade class."

The next day, Feb. 22, Powell told Tollin that her contract would not be renewed.

The suit contends that Baldwin and the Poulses defamed Tollin and intentionally inflicted emotional distress, and that the Poulses' threats cost her her job. It asks for more than $200,000 in compensatory damages from Baldwin and the Poulses, as well as punitive damages.

Tollin, whose husband died in August, two weeks before the start of school, had expected to work for three to five more years, the suit says.

In April, Baldwin broke ground for the athletic facility, which the school Web site says will include a six-lane swimming pool, a basketball/volleyball court, an indoor jogging track, a fitness center, and four squash courts.

Michael Pouls declined to reveal the amount of what he described as "a large donation." He said his family had not decided whether the building will carry the Pouls name and denied that the Poulses had received special treatment.

"I'm a regular parent, but I'm part of the school community," he said. "My child was belittled and humiliated. . . . She is only 7 years old. What are you going to do when your child is being yelled at and made fun of by the teacher? You're going to try to fix it."

But he insisted that his family had not told Baldwin what to do, including firing Tollin.

Pouls said: "She lost her job, and she blames the school, and she blames me."