Two former Innovative Arts Academy Charter School teachers who spoke out last year about the school’s handling of special education say their contracts were not renewed because of their open criticism.
In a lawsuit filed this month in Lehigh County Court, Ann Tarafas and Elizabeth Fox cite the state’s whistleblower law as the basis for a civil suit seeking damages in excess of $50,000.
“They wanted to let it be known this what was going on the entire time, despite what was being said to the public,” said Chad DiFelice, the attorney representing the women.
Named in the lawsuit are Innovative Arts Academy Charter School and Principal Douglas Taylor, who joined the school in April after what had to that point been a rocky first year of operation. Messages seeking comment from the attorney representing the school and Taylor were not returned Wednesday.
The career-focused charter school at 330 Howertown Road, Catasauqua, had trouble attracting and keeping enough students enrolled during its first year.
By May, it had 243 students enrolled, well below the 300 students needed to keep the school financially viable.
The first CEO of the school resigned before the school year started in the aftermath of an anonymous promotional mailer that drew ire in the Bethlehem Area School District.
The lawsuit alleges that the charter school’s leaders reassigned special education paraprofessionals to other tasks, added classes to the workloads of the limited special education staff and failed to secure emergency certifications for some faculty as promised.
The former faculty members allege that the administration’s decision not to renew their contracts had everything to do with their speaking out about their concerns.
Tarafas was hired in October 2016 to work as a paraprofessional with the charter school’s special education team.
Among her responsibilities were student Individual Education Program plans. These mandated plans provide detailed instructions on the specific support needs of each student in the program.
The special education department at the school consisted of six members as of October 2016, including two teachers, three paraprofessionals and an independent special education consultant, the lawsuit says. Tarafas and Fox were among the paraprofessionals.
By the following month, however, Fox was reassigned as the school’s only Spanish teacher — even though she lacked the required Pennsylvania teaching certificate and had limited education and training in Spanish. The lawsuit says she was reassured by interim CEO Stephen Gabryluk that the school would apply for an emergency certification on her behalf.
Fox alleges that despite her continued prodding, the administration never followed through with the emergency certification and she taught the entire year without proper credentials.
The lawsuit indicates that as of January 2017, Innovative Arts Academy terminated the contracts of one of the two remaining special education teachers for failing to secure proper certification and Tarafas was offered the open position.
After a proficient classroom evaluation in February, Tarafas advised Gabryluk that the school was not in compliance with IEPs for several students.
Some of the IEPs being used, the lawsuit alleges, were out of date and some evaluations had never been performed because of the school’s failure to retain consistent school psychologist services.
Students in need of speech therapy, according to the lawsuit, were also without services because of late payments to the school’s contracted speech therapist.
One of Taylor’s early moves after his April start, according to the lawsuit, was to reassign two of the special education paraprofessionals to positions in marketing and enrollment, according to the lawsuit. This left Tarafas and two other staff members managing 30-35 special education students, the lawsuit says.
In mid-April, Taylor ordered Tarafas and the other special education teacher to begin teaching life and vocation skills classes to general education students two periods a day, according to court records.
“What it really came down to here was a lack of manpower to meet all of these kids’ needs,” DeFelice said.
Tarafas said she warned Taylor that the special education team would be noncompliant with IEP requirements if required to teach the classes.
Tarafas and Fox say Taylor stopped addressing any concerns by them and other staff regarding special education noncompliance and teacher certification, court papers say. Eventually, they allege, he began acting “hostile” and making insults about race, weight, age and political beliefs of the plaintiffs and other staff.
Tarafas and Fox brought their worries to light at a June 7 Innovative Arts Academy trustee board meeting.
On June 15, Tarafas and Fox were informed their contracts were being terminated and they were ordered to leave the school grounds immediately or the authorities would be alerted.
The staff were told poor performance was the rational for the contract nonrenewal, court papers say.
The public concerns raised last summer prompted the Catasauqua Area School District, which issued the charter to the school, to question leaders at a special meeting. Catasauqua administrators and school board members left that meeting more confident in Innovative Arts Academy’s handling of the situation and grasp on the future.
The school’s enrollment numbers at the start of this school year showed a marked difference, exceeding 400 students.
