DNH

Model Teacher Unfairly Placed on DNH 

By Jim Vail

Stacy Council 

Stacy Council should be hailed as a hero who overcame poverty in the Robert Taylor Homes to become a great teacher.

Instead, the Chicago Public Schools have put her on a Do Not Hire list.

Council was a fourth grade teacher at Cuffe Elementary School at 8324 S. Racine on the South Side in 2014. She worked late on her lesson plans after school and did not get home until 7:30 or 8pm most nights. 

One night during the winter she was working preparing her next day lessons when she left to go to the bathroom and when she returned found her classroom door locked. She panicked because her winter coat was inside along with her car keys and purse. She went to the office and called for the janitor over the intercom but no luck.

She had noticed that there was a gap between the door handle and the wall so she decided to get a pair of scissors and try to jiggle the handle loose so she could get into the room.

"I used the scissors to jimmy the lock because I was in such a panic that I didn't realize how much wood I had shaved off," she said. "But I still couldn't get the door open."

She then texted the principal and a security guard came to let her into her classroom.

The next day the principal called her and asked why did she damage the door knob and she explained her situation and her frazzled state of mind. The principal called her stupid and irresponsible, Council said.

Her Principal then went on the attack.

Council had taken a sick day and got antibiotics to deal with anxiety. She also took a trip out of town. But another teacher informed the principal that a student claimed she said she had used her sick day for her vacation. They asked her for proof about her absence, and she gave the school her doctor's note. The school called the doctor's office to confirm the note, and the doctor faxed back the HIPAA privacy law.

A month later Council had to attend a hearing in which she was being charged with 'intentional damage to school property.'

Before her hearing Council was warned by her colleagues that she would not get a fair hearing. She was a probationary teacher who did not have full tenure rights and her union rep did not refute the allegations. 

She explained her situation to the hearing officer. She was asked to show her doctor's note which explained that she needed medication. The hearing officer refuted the note stating that she was in the care of a 'cosmetic' operation and not a medical provider. A few weeks later she received in the mail a letter informing her that she was suspended indefinitely and would be placed on the Do Not Hire list.

The insanity of the CPS Do Not Hire list hit the headlines in 2014 when many good teachers were suddenly labeled criminals and put on a black list. One probationary teacher who had excellent ratings but was cut at two schools due to budget concerns was put on the DNH, while another P.E. teacher at Schurz High School who had retrieved a discarded white board in the trash bin to use for his class was also put on the DNH. 

In other words, great teachers trying to do everything to help the kids were instead labeled criminals and told they could no longer teach here.

Stacy Council is the model teacher CPS should be lauding in their teacher bulletins. She overcame poverty growing up in the Robert Taylor Homes to become a teacher. She credited a teacher at her elementary school who helped her overcome the death of her mother when she was 8, and did not have a father in her life due to drug problems. She beat the odds to become a teacher and give back to the community she grew up in.

Council worked in a toxic work environment that is all too real for teachers today. She was the victim of a ruthless administrator who went after her because she was hired on the recommendation of their assistant principal, who then had a falling out with the principal. 

Life for Council after that became a living hell.

A big reason why she could not think straight and didn't immediately ask for help from her boss was fear. 

"The truth is I didn't call the principal for help because I was intimidated," she told Second City Teachers. "She would ridicule me at meetings. She did this with anyone she didn't like. Many teachers were afraid."

The principal would exclude her and other teachers she did not like from receiving CPS computers, deny her access to her attendance and then try to write her up for not putting in attendance, and falsify formal evaluations that she never participated in.

Any teacher that didn't agree with her tactics were later put on the DNH list as well, Council said. Many grievances were filed against Principal Lakita Reed, including several EEOC complaints for the same treatment she received, she said. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is a federal agency that enforces civil rights laws against workplace discrimination. 

"This whole ordeal severely traumatized me," she wrote in a letter. "It was so overwhelming that I would get physically nauseous every time I pulled into the parking lot. The sad part about it all is that this was happening to several other teachers at the time. I would vent to other teachers and I could see that they were actually scared of speaking anything negative about her for fear that they would be on the same 'list' that I was on." 

After she left CPS, she went to work in the suburbs and the Catalyst Charter School where she received excellent recommendations. The principal at Beasely Elementary School wanted to hire her, but he said he couldn't because of the DNH.

Council recently appealed her DNH designation but did not have the guidance of a union representative and was denied. 

She plans to speak out at the next Chicago Board of Education meeting September 28 to plead her case.

In this time of teacher shortages and Black Lives Matter, we need teachers like Ms. Council back where she belongs - teaching children and being the role model they need in their lives!