New Haven Independent

The reason: A fundamental conflict has developed between Farina’s legal team and the lawyers for the Branford Board of Education.

The Board of Education moved last year to fire Farina, a tenured elementary school teacher at the Mary Murphy School for the last 27 years. She was served notice of her firing in April, 2008. Friday was the second day of her termination hearing. The hearings take place at the Community House on Church Street.

Meanwhile, Farina, 49, has also filed a federal lawsuit challenging the school system’s actions against her. She was given notice of her firing after she filed the federal lawsuit. That’s what may be causing her problems in the termination hearing now underway.

The rift between the legal team and the lawyers is over Farina’s efforts to use the narrow scope of a termination hearing to gain insight and evidence for their federal lawsuit.

The federal lawsuit against Murphy Principal Anthony Buono and former Assistant Principal Monica Biggs asserts a series of federal violations, including age, disability and employment discrimination along with harassment.

Not surprisingly, Farina’s legal team failed to examine a key set of issues because the material they sought is against the very Board of Education they are suing and before whom they are now appearing. Specifically they wanted to obtain testimony from School’s Superintendent Dr. Kathleen Clark Halligan about accommodations the school system provided, if any, for Farina’s serious medical issues. These illnesses had led to her persistent lateness problems.

Board attorney Michael J. Rose declared numerous times that issues of accommodation and harassment were relevant only to the civil rights law suit Farina has filed against the Board of Education. If the three-member Board of Education panel hearing the termination issue allowed these answers in, then “the board is essentially opening a Pandora’s box with information derived from witnesses that could be used against the Board in the federal law suit,” he said.

Frank Carrano, the chairman of the Branford Board of Education, and the overseer of the hearing along with members Michael Krause and David Squires, gave Farina’s legal team leeway but as the day wore on he voiced his concerns. William Connon, the Board of Education’s outside counsel, is serving as overseer of the hearing.

“You should not have two whacks at the apple,” Carrano told Farina’s legal team. “We need to show our charges are true and you need to rebut them. We are looking at competency or incompetency (as a teacher). That is the general question before us.”

The Farina team consists of Mica Notz, a senior paralegal at the law firm of David N. Axelrod of Woodbridge. Notz, who lives in Branford, is not an attorney, but with Axelrod’s blessing she has assumed the rule of key litigator in the case. She asks the questions, though Axelrod, who sits close to her, often whispers in her ear, telling her what question to ask next.

Farina describes her life in school as a living hell, a place where she was consistently monitored. At one point school authorities called the police and sent Farina to the Yale-New Haven Psychiatric Hospital after Farina, late again to school because her dog ran away, uttered the phrase “I could kill myself.” She was released that day, according to the lawsuit. Dr. Halligan said school officials take such spontaneous utterances seriously.

Under state statute, a tenured teacher may be terminated for a variety of reasons, including inefficiency or incompetence. Typically these hearings are conducted in private and are usually fairly straight-forward and narrow in scope. School districts across the state routinely hold them in executive session. Farina asked that the hearing be held in public because she wanted the board to know how her supervisors had treated her, she said.

By day’s end Carrano made it clear the panel would not take evidence on issues that pertain to the federal lawsuit and Notz and Axelrod were told to remove documents pertaining to accommodation from the hearing file. Notz was exasperated. . She blurted out: “You are cutting me off here, cutting me off at the knees.”

All this unfolded as School Superintendent Dr. Kathleen Halligan spent another day on the stand under cross-examination. Notz did the questioning.

The “accommodation,” if any, for her sleep disorder and her cancer treatment was a crucial element of the termination hearing, Notz said because at the time of her illnesses she was under constant evaluation as part of an intensive Teacher Improvement Program (TIP).

Halligan said the TIP listed problems with student learning goals, organizing time, late arrival, low test scores. Notz stated all fourth grades were having low standardized test scores, but only one teacher was singled out. . By day’s end the numbers emerged. Sixty-seven percent of Farina’s students were reading below grade. But Farina told the Eagle, these students later improved. .

It is not clear if the panel will give Notz leeway to cross-examine on the issue of harassment. She maintains that Buono and Biggs repeatedly harassed Farina. “Does harassment affect job performance?” she asked Carrano. “It can,” he replied. “Well, she felt harassment.”

Farina’s defense depends in large measure on serious illnesses and their impact on her ability to function. Notz said “Mrs. Farina was suffering from a disability at that time” and then she began to get poor evaluations.

Notz asked about the timeline for the TIP, to which Halligan said improvement should be made by Dec. 21, 2007. However, Notz said Farina was on a 6-week medical leave to have cancer surgery, beginning Nov. 27, 2007, and actually became sick a couple days before that.

Notz claims that Farina was placed on the Intensive TIP before she completed her medical leave. “How was Ms. Farina being given time to improve if she was out on medical leave?” Notz asked.

At one point in the morning session, Notz referred to a March, 2007 letter from Farina indicated she was having problems sleeping and getting to school on time. A long discussion ensued on the sleep issues and how Farina’s superiors dealt with them.

Attorney Rose told the Carrano panel that the termination hearing was narrow in scope, centering in this instance on Farina’s competency and efficiency as an elementary school teacher at the Mary Murphy Elementary School. This hearing should not become a fishing expedition for Farina’s federal lawsuit, Rose said. Carrano agreed and as the day wore on insisted that Farina lawyers move forward. “There are other witnesses waiting to be called,” he said.

Early in last week’s hearing, Notz began discussing the Aug. 31, 2007 letter from Principal Buono stating that he was placing Farina on the TIP plan. Then Notz asked if there were any documents in Farina’s file that showed “consistent serious difficulties” (as required for TIP) Halligan said there were reports with concerns about lessons, planning, choosing effective materials, etc. Halligan said: “They’re serious from my point of view since there are so many of them.”

In all Superintendent Halligan spent about six hours on the stand. Notz asked Halligan repeatedly to read documents aloud, a tactic that infuriated Attorney Rose. He said Halligan should be asked to elaborate on a question or analyze it but not be asked to perform a stenographic function.

Carrano agreed and Notz stopped asking Halligan to read the document. Instead Notz read it aloud. Her purpose, she told an audience of a half dozen retired teachers and observers, was to let the public know the content of the documents.

Since this is not a formal court hearing, Mrs. Notz may direct the questions, but her role, as well as Axelrod’s coaching, led Attorney Rose to ask that only one legal adviser be in charge of the case. So far Carrano has not dealt with this question.

At one point Carrano asked Farina’s legal team to focus on the termination hearing, not their federal case. “There needs to be evidence to show whether she is competent or not. You can’t double dip on this. I am sorry. You have tried numerous times. We have spent many hours asking questions of a person who can only give you an opinion. Put these questions to another person, to the principal “

Murphy Principal Buono had been expected to testify, but he spent the day waiting. He might get a chance when the hearings resume on Friday, September 25 at 9 a.m. at the Community House.

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