|
I asked, "How instrumental?" She tried contacting the principal, but at first he wouldn't take time to listen to her... he was already aware of the restraining order against her. She stewed for a month, and decided that to make sure I would never have anything to do with her (and my) son, she needed some sort of documentation she could take to court if it went that far. She filed a report with the sheriff's department that I was a possible pedophile and feared for the safety of the children of Holmen. In her report she mentioned the shoes-pants-underwear analogy I'd used in class that got me suspended for a day, that I'd had relations with a former student, that I would go out of my way to see students in inappropriate situations and used as an example the number that had helped me move. She said in her report that although no one in school had been harmed by me yet, it wasn't "right" for a teacher to be so close with his students and that my closeness and frame of mind might lead to something sexual with one of them. The sheriff contacted the principal. I was forced out of my job in January. She said she made her contact during Christmas break 2002-03, at the time when parents and students were flooding the district with email and letters trying to convince them to let me stay. Hers was the final nail in my coffin. I remained as calm as I could on the phone, switching subjects to how I'd lost my car in St. Louis. She mentioned her car had broken down about the same time mine had and that she's been without since as well, then again spoke about money being tight, adding how Dawson needed his daddy. I said that I could be taking better care of him had I not lost my teaching job. She said she had to do it... for one, at the time she wanted me nowhere near her then unborn child and it was a file she could use in court against me, and for the other, she honestly thought my behavior amidst my students was wrong. |