HaLevi''s Just Lawsuit Against CCSD

Andrew HaLevi finally gave up on the Charleston County School District. His story is too familiar to those who have put all their waking hours into making CCSD's schools better. What a waste!

After criticizing the district's principals in an op-ed in 2006, HaLevi, founder of the Charleston Teacher Alliance, was transferred from his ten-year teaching post at Burke to the district office as a disciplinary hearings officer. Payback?

By 2013 HaLevi was praising progress made in the district under Superintendent McGinley. With that to his credit, he became director of Septima Clark Academy, a district school for troubled teens.

Three years later he had the absolute gall to write a Letter to the Editor criticizing our local rag's coverage of the minor dress code flap as front-page news reading as a CCSD press release, which it probably was. He must have known perfectly well that teachers and staff peril their jobs when they criticize CCSD. That's why we never hear from them.

Here's the other side of the story, taken from my blog of August 26, 2016:

An investigator with the district’s Department of Employee Relations interviewed HaLevi on April 25, according to the report. But HaLevi said all he was allowed to do was review a written statement he had already given.

“I was not presented with any evidence, did not have the opportunity to challenge any accusations and was not allowed to appeal the decision,” HaLevi said.

Steve Liverani, who worked alongside HaLevi for five years as a student support specialist with Communities in Schools, was one person who spoke to the investigators about the incident.

“I can’t stress enough that I never once saw an inappropriate interaction between Dr. HaLevi and a student,” Liverani said in a phone interview Thursday. “I was really impressed that he could remain calm when literally everyone else around him was not.”
He also said that after news of the accusations made it into the media, he reached out to district staff wanting to provide more information.
“I never got a response back on that request,” Liverani said. 

HaLevi’s personnel file, which he provided to The Post and Courier to review, includes only one reprimand from 21 years of service. In June 2014, an associate superintendent wrote to express “disappointment” that HaLevi had not punished students who were suspected of making racist comments and threats toward HaLevi. According to HaLevi, he had found an unsigned note in the trash calling him a “dumb Jew” and saying, “I hope the Nazi’s Come for you.” 

In a written response to his supervisor, HaLevi said that while he had spoken with three students about the note, there was “not enough evidence” to prove their guilt.
“My written response, included in the personnel file, reflects my deep commitment to fairness and due process,” HaLevi said. “This is a commitment that the district has failed to show in my case.”

The disrespectful student's uncle, who happens to be on a constituent school board, demands that CCSD fire HaLevi. That student was both verbally abusive to HaLevi and irresponsible for not returning the slacks nor explaining the situation before the trouble occurred. Her uncle need to reprimand her for her lack of respect to one who has earned it. Perhaps the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Now the rest of the story.

"Since the district reassigned HaLevi, the S.C. State Board of Education concluded a separate investigation and found "no evidence of inappropriate or unprofessional conduct," according to an order signed by the board Sept. 12, 2017.

"The state board wrote that the testimony of a school resource officer "corroborates that HaLevi could not have seen the complete attire of the student from his vantage point at the front of the bus."

Go for it, Andrew!