A little over a year after filing a lawsuit against District 209’s Proviso Township High Schools and its former superintendent, three of the four teachers involved say they are still dealing with the emotional and professional damage left behind.
“We are teachers,” said Jenny LaBash, English teacher at Proviso West. “We never expected to be in this position of chaos.”
The lawsuit, filed March 6, 2023, claimed the district and then Supt. James Henderson “carried out a policy or practice of punishing the Plaintiff teachers for both speech and association rights protected by the First Amendment.”
It also claimed D209 had “unlawfully suspended, discharged, or threatened discharge of the four Plaintiff teachers for repeated public criticism of the serious administrative failings of defendants,” following a two-week strike by D209 teachers in 2022.
“What our district was going through with that leadership, the district would have probably imploded in some way,” Nicole O’Connor, counselor at Proviso West, said about speaking out. “There were no breaks on that train. There was nothing that was going to stop it.”
The two other teachers in the suit were Carissa Gillespie and Danielle English.
English declined to comment but did say she hoped D209 would be able to find a new superintendent to help move the district forward. The district will begin a second consecutive school year with interim leadership this fall.
According to Gillespie, the teachers faced retaliation for speaking out on district issues and allegedly encouraging students to hold a walkout in support of teachers who were negotiating contracts.
Gillespie said Henderson had accused the teachers of being “unethical, immoral and grooming students.”
“None of us knew that was in our personnel file,” Gillespie said. “Even if we wanted to go to other districts and work, we have paperwork that we are unaware of saying that we are accused of grooming students.”
The teachers found out about the accusation after they decided to sue the district, Gillespie said.
D209 declined to comment. Henderson was not able to be reached for comment by time of publication.
During a December 2022 board of education meeting, board members Amanda Grant and Claudia Medina spoke in favor of LaBash and the other teachers, saying the attempted firing and treatment was “retaliation” against the teachers for using their First Amendment rights.
“I urge my fellow board members to please stand with the teachers,” Medina said.
Board member Ned Wagner, along with Grant and Medina, voted against the termination of LaBash.
Board members Samuel Valtierrez, now board president, Arbdella Patterson, then board president, Rodney Alexander, and Grant were not able to be reached by the time of publication.
Settled in July 2023, the lawsuit reinstated LaBash and English, who had previously chosen to resign, to their previous positions, expunged disciplinary suspensions and other disciplines applied to the teachers’ personnel files, and provided back pay for loss of income.
LaBash, who has been with the district for six years, said the goal was always to come back to her students, making the lawsuit worth it.
But speaking up came with a price.
O’Connor said there was a lot of sacrifice: their mental health, time with their family, time with their students.
O’Connor said the teachers have been labeled “troublemakers.” LaBash said she was labeled as a “racist.”
“Carissa, Danielle, and Nicole have all taken flak from community members for standing by me as a white woman,” LaBash said tearfully.
Gillespie, a teacher at Proviso for 23 years, said staying was the right choice.
“I am not going to abandon them [the students] the way I feel sometimes education abandoned me,” she said, choking back tears. “I am not going to do that to them.”
But the emotional pain lingers.
“It still hurts because I feel like they took something away I can’t get back,” Gillespie said.
The situation has left a strong lingering fear that history will repeat itself.
Anastasia Skoupas, college and career counselor at Proviso West and union representative, said the trauma has reached other teachers.
“I have more trust issues within the district than I ever had in the past,” Skoupas said, adding she feels like she must watch what she says and document everything. “I am not over that, and I didn’t even go through anything close to what they did. I think many staff members could say that.”
LaBash said she hopes the community have “had their eyes open,” and that they begin to be more involved.
According to O’Connor, the situation left a conflict within the Proviso Teachers Union Local 571. O’Connor was a union building representative for West at the time and does not believe the union is properly advocating for teachers, choosing rather to operate “more as a friendship” with administration rather than standing strong.
According to O’Connor there are “benefits” to being friends with administrators and keeping teachers “ignorant, isolated, and inactive.”
John Wardisiani, president of the Proviso Teachers Union Local 571, said the PTU remains “unwavering” in their fight to improve working conditions at the district.
“We firmly believe that the environment in which teachers work directly impacts student growth and success in every classroom,” Wardisiani told Forest Park Review via email. “Our commitment to advocating for our members has led to significant advancements, especially under the new district leadership.”
Wardisiani said recent successes, such as the approval of a four-year contract, are a testament to the PTU’s “relentless dedication to supporting every teacher in our unit.”
Despite the challenges they have faced, all teachers said they want better for the district, starting with stable leadership and a superintendent in office.
“There is no oversight of when you have that structured superintendent and their plans, smart goals, objectives and evidence-based results. There is no one being held to those standards of having evidence-based practices because people are just interim-ing almost everywhere,” O’Connor said.
In June, the district announced the extension of Interim Supt. Alexander Aschoff’s contract following a failed superintendent search.
Gillespie said she would also like to see people on the board who “do not have hidden agendas,” and people who are “transparent” and truly want to “uplift” the district.
And the focus needs to be on the students, said LaBash.
“That is the big difference for me now,” LaBash said. “Control what you can control in your classroom. Your kids are safe with you, they are learning stuff, that is my main focus. I cannot control what anybody else does. I can only control what happens in my room. It’s realistic but it is incredibly sad because it just shows where we are at.”
O’Connor said she trusts the board of education is currently laying down the foundation for the district to move forward.
“This could be the rebuilding it needs but if it is not community driven, if it is not board driven, it is not going to happen,” O’Connor said.
Correction, July 25, 2024: The previous version of this story incorrectly identified the D209 Board of Education in the subhead. We have fixed the error to reflect “administration.” We apologize for the mistake.