4. How Do You Silence Independent-Minded Teachers ?
File False Corporal Punishment Charges

Criticism of a nonsensical program got me into trouble. To punish me, Ms. Walters interfered in teaching programming : the program I received for the second semester consisted of only nine graders -- notorious for their horrendous behavior at Erasmus -- while 18-math-credits teachers were given courses they could not handle. In effect, she was punishing the children as well.
On the 2/2/98 I filed a grievance. For her, that was the last draw : Ms. Walters responded within a week.
February 9, 1998 : she came to my classroom, accompanied with Dr. Lenihan, Foreign Languages A.P., and asked me to sign at the bottom of a copy of the following letter to acknowledge that I received it :
Dear Mr. Fofana,
As per the instructions of Mrs. Coppin, the Superintendant of Brooklyn High Schools, I am relieving you of your teaching duties effective at the close of the business today, Monday, february 9,1998.
Yours truly,
Myrna Walters.

No explanation was provided regarding the action.

February 10, 1998

Mr. Fofana,
Effective today you are assigned to the Records Room (B46) as your administrative assignement until further notice(...)
Yours truly,
Myrna Walters

Still no explanation. It came on 2/23/98, the very day I was convened to a conference with the Superintendent, after winter break.

February 23, 1998

Dear Mr. Fofana,

You are summoned to appear for a conference with the Superintendent. The conference has been called to hear and make a determination with regard to your inflicting corporal punishment on a student.
Very truly yours,
Joyce R. Coppin

The letter was dated February 13, 1998. Mrs. withheld it until 2/23, after winter break -- a pitiful maneuver to prevent me from preparing myself for the conference, or simply to ruin my holiday. However, retrospectively, no amount of preparation could change what appeared later to be more of a script than an inquiry. Furthermore,what was announced was different from the agenda: another phony charge was added for good measure. The conference itself was a painful parody of justice; all the more that Brooklyn UFT representative, Frank Volpiciella , was sitting docilely like a German shepherd at Coppin's feet -- only a couple of tepid, if not reluctant, interventions, in face of gross violations of the Board's bylaws . The man (now promoted to vice-president of God knows ) and his successor, Charles Turner, are living off our dues with nothing or little in exchange. How long will that last ? Until some class action lawsuit against the UFT nomenclatura wakes them up ? It is not inconceivable, as they might think. Ask the rubber room inmates.

Four students were involved : D.D. (a senior who disrupted my class and taunted me the last day of the first semester, days before her graduation : she did not show up to testify); R.P.(name added one year later) ; T.B.(name added one year later) ; J.S.
Now the charges : from the frivolous to the hilarious to the pathetic :

(a) On or about 9:00 AM on February 3, 1998,Respondent improperly asked student R.P. if she thought she was cute.

Mr. Viani, the hearing officer, wrote in his report : “ I was, frankly, taken aback by the Board's suggestion that the remarks directed toward the student by the Respondent had a sexual connotation as well as its assertion that RP herself thought this to be the case.”
Indeed, RP herself never suggested that she perceived the remark as sexual when she came to testify.
I suggest that the reader contrast the accusation with this, confiscated from students and presented to the principal. Her reaction ? She said, in effect, that I was intruding into students privacy !

(b) Respondent told Pupil Personnel Service Coordinator Laura Edwards a threat to the effect of' if you write one statement about me, you'll be hearing from my lawyer'.

The charge gives a glimpse into the intellect of my-yesterday colleague and today bully. In a statement dated 2/4/98 and sent to Mrs. Coppin, she wrote: "The most recent of verbal abuse against me by Fofana occurred on January 23,1998".The only abuse I can see was hers -- abusing the English lexicon[6]. What was her response to my alleged lawsuit threat ? "I told Mr. Fofana to 'Tell it to my husband' ." Quite refreshing : men still have a future in this society.
During her direct examination and cross-examination Mrs Edwards gave me the impression that, by the end of the day I would be guillotined. At one point she went so emotional, breathing hard -- "I remember vividly as if it was yesterday!" -- that the arbitrator told her gently: "Calm down, Ma'am! Calm down." Again, Mr. Viani reduced a non-event to its true proportion : "I am not going to dwell on this specification. I am inclined to give the Board the benefit of the doubt here, and find that the Respondent said what his alleged to have said. I do not, however, find that he "acted improperly" in the sense that discipline is justified. The Respondent had the right to call his lawyer if Edwards, in effect, "wrote him up", and to advise her that he would be doing so." Her own supervisor she was accompanying, came to testify : she did not mention any improper comment I allegedly made.
The arbitrator characterizes Mrs Edwards' " Tell it to my husband" as an "advice that may more reasonable be perceived as threatening than the Respondent's advice to Edwards." I was exulting inside. In plain English: You did the threatening, not the other way around. The sad part, is that this "educator" does not even understand how her own society functions : not only did these hopeless charges could not fly, but also they discredited her -- a boomerang effect of her own poor education.
The principal did not fare better.
Mrs. Walters is clearly ignorant of basic legal principles a reasonably educated person should know. Since when a witness highjacks a legal proceeding and substitute herself for the prosecutor ? She thought her words would be like gospel. Why, she is the principal, and this was about teaching a lesson to an impertinent teacher. Her inflated expectations were busted like a soap bubble, when Mr. Viani called her to order, as she was volunteering information : "I am just trying to clarify for the arbitrator what was going on." Clarity ? Precisely, seeking clarity is his job : "Try to answer the question that you're asked. Don't add any information. Just answer the question to counsel as directly as you can." The Board counsel's question -- with respect to T.B., the student who claimed I told her she belonged to the zoo -- was : "... tell us what you recall of circumstances surrounding a complaint by that student." Determined to show how bad I was, Ms. Walters did not heed the arbitrator's instructions and ignored the specific question directed at her : " he's held trash cans in front of students and told them to go in the garbage." As a result Mr. Viani lost patience :"No ! No ! Please. You're not here to make a speech. You're here to testify as to the specific instances and answer a specific question."
These proceedings had a cathartic effect on me : for so long, I was severed from rational discourse in this school, surrounded by sophists of all kind : multiculturalists, self-esteem promoters,etc… Mrs. Walters ‘ canned litany --" students, parents, staff members complained about Mr Fofana..." -- was not receivable here; impressed nobody.That works in the Superintendent's "hearings".

(c) I did not know T.B. : Neither her complaint, nor R.P.'s , were mentioned to me before : I learned about them, two years later after the alleged incidents. In fact, I don't know T.B. at all for good reason : I was in the classroom for 5 days before suspension ; I don't recall interacting with her, and yet ... I allegedlly abused her verbally according to JS :

T. was sitting at her desk and she kept raising her hand asking Mr. Fofana what is his name. He did not answer her so she got up and went to him and asked him politely, she said, "Mr. Fofana", she said, "excuse me, sir, can I please know your name ?" He did not answer her and when she walked away he said to her that she belonged in a zoo and she got very upset and started screaming, and she walked out of the classroom.
Isn't that awful ?

Mr. Viani wrote in his report : "The farcical nature of such an exchange, in which, according to JS, TB addressed the Respondent by name to ask his name, hardly inspires confidence in the credibility of his testimony.

Screaming or not screaming ?

Equally as unconvincing is JS' s testimony that TB "started screaming" after the Respondent allegedly said she belonged in a zoo (T9), given his later admission that she was "screaming under her breath. . . like when mumbling, like you can see her say something but you don't her it verbally. ... she wasn't screaming." (T25)

Students'program cards include subjects, teachers names, and room numbers. Mr. Lower drew JS attention to that fact :

LOWER : The program card tells you what class you have and the teacher who will be teaching it ?
JS : Yes.
LOWER : So when you went into Mr. Fofana's class that day you knew that the class was scheduled to be taught by a teacher named Fofana ; is that correct ?
JS : Yes, sir.

Also, T.B. claimed that I "used to call us stupid and he used to say we belong in a zoo" ; that "he told us we're stupid".
Mr Viani wrote about the claims :
These rather straightforward assertions might have been persuasive but for TB's affirmative response to a question by the Union that such comments by the Respondent occurred over a two-month period. It is undisputed that the Respondent was removed from the classroom almost immediately thereafter, in early February 1998 (T133), and thus could not have over such a protracted period (and, in any event, that is not what he is charged with). Furthermore, TB's testimony that the Respondent "used to call us stupid" is suspect because it suggests a continuing offense. That she did not even report the alleged offense to the Principal until two weeks later, after the Respondent was no longer her math teacher, provides additional cause to question her veracity.

Indeed, I was removed from the classroom on February 9, 1998, after 5 days of teaching into the second semester. This angel is now claiming that she had been abused verbally for two months !

Here is now the capital punishment charge :

(d)
On Wednesday, February 4, 1998, J.S., a student of Mr. Fofana's Period 4 class complained that Mr. Fofana wrongly accused him of calling him a 'clown.' Mr. Fofana retaliated by telling James that his (James') father was a clown. James father is not alive and he told Mr. Fofana not to call his father a clown since he was not around to defend himself. At this point Mr. Fofana spat in his face. The spit landed on the side of his face and on his clothing. (Letter to Joyce Coppin, superintendent, dated 2/5/05)
I lost faith in Walters' humanity as I was sitting, listening to an "educator" spouting so much abject lies. She even added the saliva on JS clothing : he did not that far himself.

Click here for my testimony. I will expose this infamy to the minutiae in the next section.
The truth came out -- compellingly.