San Diego Domestic Violence Victim Fired From Teaching

[alp227]

A San Diego teacher was fired by Holy Trinity School following a domestic violence incident involving her ex-husband.

Second-grade teacher Carie Charlesworth is out of a job, but not for anything she did in the classroom. Her school district considers her a liability and too unsafe to have around following a domestic violence dispute that happened earlier this year.

A letter sent to Charlesworth said that school officials are concerned about her ex-husband's "threatening and menacing behavior," and as a result they "cannot allow" her to continue teaching at the Holy Trinity School.

"They’ve taken away my ability to care for my kids,” said Charlesworth. “It’s not like I can go out and find a teaching job anywhere.”

The mother of four children didn’t think this would ever be her story to tell, but she is using her name and showing her face in hopes of bringing attention to a larger problem.

It’s a story that has domestic violence advocates outraged, fearing it will only reinforce an age-old problem where victims stay silent — but equally concerned are the school's parents, not wanting their kids in the middle of it.

“Basically, we’d had a very bad weekend with him, we’d called the sheriff’s department three times on Sunday with him,” said Charlesworth, referring to an incident in January that put her leave of absence in motion.

...

The letter stated:

"We know from the most recent incident involving you and Mrs. Wright (the principal) while you were still physically at Holy Trinity School, that the temporary restraining order in effect were not a deterrent to him. Although we understand he is current incarcerated, we have no way of knowing how long or short a time he will actually serve and we understand from court files that he may be released as early as next fall. In the interest of the safety of the students, faculty and parents at Holy Trinity School, we simply cannot allow you to return to work there, or, unfortunately, at any other school in the Diocese."

When asked for a response, Tom Beecher, Director of the San Diego Diocese Office for Schools wrote in an email to NBC 7 San Diego: “The diocese does not make public comment about personnel issues.”

Source: http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/holy-trinity-school-el-cajon-san-diego-teacher-fired-211244611.html

Found this via think progress. Wow what kind of bull**** is this: "Although we understand he is current incarcerated, we have no way of knowing how long or short a time he will actually serve and we understand from court files that he may be released as early as next fall. In the interest of the safety of the students, faculty and parents at Holy Trinity School, we simply cannot allow you to return to work there, or, unfortunately, at any other school in the Diocese." Are they trying to hide what they really mean? And "he is current incarcerated"? We're supposed to believe whoever wrote this is a literate administrator with a master's degree or something?

[SharonAnn]

1. And yet, I understand their worry. But surely there's a better solution.

[kiva]

2. I feel sorry for her, but this isn't bull****

How would you solve this? Her ex showed up at the school, triggering a lockdown. He has proved himself to be violent, and a quick Google will show how often these jerks kill or injure bystanders (kids, friends, co-workers) when they are after their victim.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean when you say "We're supposed to believe whoever wrote this is a literate administrator with a master's degree or something?" Is there a grammar or spelling issue I'm missing? Because this letter is clear to me: the ex is current incarcerated but may be out as early as the beginning of the next school year, so the school is unwilling to hire Charlesworth back because they believe he is a threat to their students.

[alp227]

3. the correct grammar is "currently incarcerated", currently is an adverb

Couldn't the school just transfer the woman to another school further away instead of a blanket ban from all diocese campuses, essentially blaming her for her violent spouse?

C'mon I can't believe the defense of victim blaming going on here.

[HiPointDem]

6. why would transferring her help? he's her spouse, presumably he'd find her regardless of

which campus she worked at.

[Egalitarian Thug]

4. What a craven and despicable people we have become. From the district to the replies.

[HiPointDem]

5. it's a private catholic school. there's no 'district'.

[Egalitarian Thug]

8. "Her school district considers her a liability", I just took it from the OP.

The technicality of whatever the governing board/commission/Imperial Wizard is called is irrelevant. It's still craven and despicable.

All the crabs in the bucket end up in the pot.

[HiPointDem]

10. yes, i know. but catholic schools don't exist in 'school districts'. they exist in dioceses &

parishes.

i don't know why the article used that language, but it's misleading. it makes it sound like this school has some affiliation with the public school system, which it doesn't.

[loyalsister]

7. That happened to a friend of mine

Her students were special needs kids. They gave her a choice to take a leave of absence and go to a shelter. But, like many in abusive situations she was not prepared to do it so she lost her job. It was terrible for her, but what was the school supposed to do when he kept showing up and repeatedly creating situations that traumatized the students.
It took her awhile to look at it from that point of view, but she gets it now.

[Egalitarian Thug]

9. Prosecute him for trespass. Stand up for their employee. n/t

[loyalsister]

11. The guy had restraining orders against him

He was a freaking sociopath who could sneak around them. He nearly killed my friend, who now suffers from PTSD as a result of her experiences with him.

[Egalitarian Thug]

12. You asked what they could do. I answered. Craven and despicable. n/t

[loyalsister]

13. I was asking rhetorically

But hadn't explained that they were totally out of options.

[TorchTheWitch]

14. what makes you think it was the letter writer that made the spelling error?

If that was the case, than the article would have written [sic] after the word "current" to indicate that it was an error in the original letter and not their bad proof reading. Like most articles I've seen on the internet they're either not proofread at all or very badly since most of them tend to have spelling or grammatical errors. It's pretty silly to blame the administrator or whoever it was that wrote the original letter for the spelling/grammar mistakes in the article.

In any case, I agree that this is outrageous. The school is responsible for the safety of the students, teachers and other school employees, and instead of acting appropriately in that responsibility they fired the teacher and expelled her kids not just from this school but any other in the diocese. That's despicable. What if she didn't work there at all and these kids attended the school and had an abusive father? Would they just expel the children from the school and any other in the diocese or would they have done what they are responsible for and protected those kids as well as everyone else in the school?

Simple, hire a security guard and take responsibility for the safety of everyone in the school which is their duty just like every other school is responsible for.

They fired this woman and expelled her kids because of MONEY. Because they didn't want to be arsed with the responsibility to protect her, her kids and everyone else in the school (never mind that is their DUTY) and because other parents of students threatened to remove their kids from the school. So much easier to shift THEIR responsibility onto the victim teacher and her victim kids as if it were their fault that they couldn't control this guy from coming to the school.

SHAME on this supposedly Christian diocese.