This is part three: how Gilbert Public Schools blithely violated the civil rights of a student who had been subjected to physical and emotional trauma by a rogue teacher. What GPS Chief Talent Officer Suzanne Zentner did to move this complaint off her desk harmed the child as much, if not more, than GPS teacher Bonnie Hickman’s disability harassment and bullying. As often is the case with GPS, we couldn’t make up anything more absurd than what these bumbling fools actually did in order to make the problem go away.
The three posts in this series:
GPS Protects a Rogue Teacher’s Disability Harassment of an Elementary Student
Gilbert Public Schools Condones Disability Harassment of a Student
GPS Further Victimizes the Student Harassed by A Rogue Teacher [you are here]
The child’s parents had two meetings to discuss the incident with GPS honchos. On November 24, 2015, the GPS Chief Talent Officer, Slimebucket Suzanne Zentner, unleashed an astounding decision that cleared Bonnie Hickman of wrongdoing, allowed Bonnie Hickman to continue teaching at Patterson Elementary School, and granted Bonnie Hickman’s demand to have the student removed from her class.
In classic GPS misdirection, Suzanne Zentner said that the child was removed from Bonnie Hickman’s class at the request of her parents … but we know the official GPS report stated that Bonnie Hickman had demanded the child be removed from her class. Bonnie Hickman made that demand many times, very loudly and in front of about 12 other students, which was reported to Shawn McIntosh at the GPS White Castle (the district offices). The child’s parents did not know about Bonnie Hickman’s demand at the time.
Obviously, Bonnie Hickman was angry that she had been reported to the principal earlier; now other people on campus had been informed that she had hit a child. Would a rational person dispute that Bonnie Hickman acted like a bully? [The answer is NO.] Bonnie Hickman was determined to keep her job, pure and simple, even though she harassed and assaulted a student.
The child’s parents then discovered they had encountered a second bully in GPS: Suzanne Zentner *encouraged* them to engage in conversations with Bonnie Hickman “so they could see another side of her.” Never mind that the child and parents had seen the *side* that Bonnie Hickman presented in her classroom. In Zentner’s mind, it seems to have been all about protecting Bonnie Hickman and not about the damage done to a student who had the misfortune to land in Bonnie Hickman’s classroom. Listen to the conversation for yourself:
Suzanne Zentner did exactly what parents said she did: she attempted to bully parents into a mediation with Bonnie Hickman. Apparently Suzanne Zentner thought Bonnie Hickman was *delightful,* and by golly, she was going to ram that opinion down the throats of those parents and that child until they reached consensus by agreeing!
Zentner made it clear the GPS wagons had already circled around Bonnie Hickman. Zentner’s goal, apparently, was to force the child’s parents into a position where they could be bludgeoned with educrat jargon and coerced into agreeing to a GPS plan that would cause their child further anxiety … for the child’s own good, of course. You can listen to Suzanne Zentner’s soliloquy for yourself, or just read this transcript:
[Bonnie Hickman] would very much welcome an opportunity to visit with you and you can see a side of her that maybe you had not realized or had exposure to. This has had a profound impact on her. She would like you to know her feelings and how she plans to personally handle the matter and that is something that we would welcome the opportunity to arrange… Hopefully as adults we can all sit around the table and have an opportunity to share our varying thoughts on the matter and try to put this behind everybody.
Perhaps Zentner wasn’t aware that Bonnie Hickman was ranting on social media about being *under attack.* Don’t take Westie’s word for it — one of Bonnie Hickman’s rants is shown in the image at right.
If this sounds like *Blame the Victim,* a common response when women report sexual harassment, including rape, you’re on the right track. In this case, GPS went all out to support Bonnie Hickman, a teacher who hit a child in her class, unlawfully told the entire class about medical issues of at least eleven students, taunted this student about her disability and medical regimen and then raged at the child when Bonnie Hickman believed her career would be ruined. Bonnie Hickman did not stop, she demanded the child be taken out of her classroom, she demonstrated how she had *touched* the child inappropriately and she further violated the child’s FERPA rights when she enlisted people to lobby the GPS Top Dogs to support her in spite of the fact that she had indisputably harmed a child physically and emotionally.
Parents had a succinct response to Suzanne Zentner [near the end of the recording]:
Based on discussions we’ve already had about the bullying and disability harassment from the teacher, we’re not hearing anything about this teacher violating my child’s rights. She’s being pushed into a hostile environment based on her disability that interferes with her rights to participate in a harassment-free environment.
That’s the way things are done in GPS … if you know the *right* people or have the right er, *talents.* Recall that in GPS, when the superintendent was caught in an *alleged* inappropriate relationship with her subordinate, it was the subordinate who left the district under a cloud that will never go away (plenty of that cloud was created by his own screw ups, but we digress).
It starts at the top of GPS … protection for those at the top and their favorites. Never mind such silly inconveniences as employment law, disability law, district policies or even simple human decency when a child has been the victim of adult bullying … not with these guys!
Gilbert Public Schools: “We don’t need to obey no stinking laws!”
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Calendar alert! October is ADHD Awareness Month. If your child, or someone you know has ADHD, please help them through research, compassion and caring. There’s a special place in heaven for people who overcome disabilities to find love and success in their lives!
If your child has been harassed because of a disability, get invaluable advice here.