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Paula Park’s article (“A Matter of Principal,” 9/4) presents a pretty accurate description of how the School Without Walls’ principal manipulates people to obtain her ends and capitalizes on the fears of students and their parents that if they don’t comply with her wishes, she will send the students back to bad and sometimes dangerous schools in their attendance areas. The article also correctly states that she misuses her unchecked power over teachers
to bring them into conformity with her ideas about the way things should be done.
However, in describing my situation, Park erred when she stated that Mrs. Crandall was forced to re-appoint me. The issue in that arbitration hearing was reimbursement of lost pay and benefits as a result of my being inappropriately suspended for 10 days for something I didn’t do. The article correctly states that the hearing officer determined that the case against me was not credible, and I received my money. It is also true that I was unilaterally RIF’d in 1996 with no regard to the specified procedures in the aftermath of my experience with Crandall, which I am contesting through the Department of Human Rights and Minority Business Development (DHR).
The DHR, however, is posing a problem to me because, although it hasn’t as yet rendered a final decision, it is manipulating the data so as to protect Crandall. In its reports, the DHR has omitted all of the evidence favorable to my case, accepted as fact mere allegations made by people under Crandall’s control, substituted falsehoods for facts, and altered its procedures so as to make the case more favorable to Crandall. For example, at first the DHR asked the school system to respond to the evidence of wrongdoing (perjury, subornation of perjury, etc.) that I presented; but after the school system failed to do it, the DHR no longer required it. Instead, the agency issued a hint that one more lie could close the case in Crandall’s favor, but thus far, to the best of my knowledge, it hasn’t been submitted.
Upper Marlboro, Md.