New Haven Independent

This question has been on the minds of many as her public termination hearing unfolds at the Community Center on Church St. This Wednesday is the last day of the hearing, and Farina, 49, is expected to testify. Then a three-member Board of Education panel will make a recommendation to the full board on whether to terminate Farina, a tenured teacher at the Mary T. Murphy Elementary School for the last 27 years.

Farina is fighting to save her job. She says she has been unfairly singled out. She has also filed a federal lawsuit against school officials, an action that triggered this termination process.

There has been no union presence at the hearings until Friday when Peter Anaclerio, former president of the Branford Education Association, took the stand. He had been subpoenaed by Farina’s legal team. (He is currently a Republican candidate for the Representative Town Meeting.)

Anaclerio, who teaches at the Walsh Intermediate School, told an audience of 20 people that the primary grievance the union filed was not on behalf of Farina, but against Schools Superintendent Dr. Kathleen Halligan and the Board of Education for their decision to extend Farina’s teacher improvement plan (TIP) year after year. The union, he said, opposed that.

From the time she began teaching until the 2006 school year, Farina had been a kindergarten teacher. A teacher gets tenure after four years. Farina apparently had satisfactory evaluations all those years until she moved into fourth-grade teaching, a period that coincided with serious medical problems. She had back surgery and cancer and suffered from insomnia.

In recent years Farina was placed on a Teacher Improvement Plan (TIP) and an Intense Teacher Improvement Plan. (ITIP) . Anaclerio said Dr. Halligan understood the rules. The clear message was that the union discouraged this sort of leniency.

“The union felt that extending the Teacher Improvement Plan more than one or two times was not a strong precedent to set. If the teacher could not pass after one or two times, then the teacher should be terminated,” he said. Farina went through four TIP plans.

Frank Carrano, the president of the Board of Education, and a former head of the New Haven teachers union himself, seemed to be learning something new about the union’s position.

“Does this mean two strikes and you’re out?” he asked.

Anaclerio responded that one or two TIPS “should be enough time to evaluate the teacher.”

Anaclerio said the union was concerned about children in the classroom. He said teachers should get help to teach them but only up to a point.

“You mean one or two times for a TIP and then terminate?” Carrano asked again.

Anaclerio said yes. “Either terminate or put her back in the classroom.”

Carrano said “We should be advised that the union position is one time for improvement” (“or two,” Anaclerio interjected). “The union does not support continuing support for the teacher after that point.”

Anaclerio said the arbitration panel hearing the union’s complaint is expected to rule in January. When these hearings began Farina’s paralegal, Mica Notz, who is overseeing her case, asked that the public hearing be postponed until after the arbitration panel rules. The arbitrators could rule to terminate her.

But Farina had also asked for a public hearing that had to be completed within 75 days. So the panel hearing her case, Carrano, David Squires and Michael Krause went ahead. William Connon, the Board of Education’s outside counsel, serves as overseer.

Under cross-examination Michael J. Rose, who represents the school administration, asked Anaclerio if he had talked to Farina about her situation.

He said he and Farina “had many discussions over Denise’s future.”

At one point, Anaclerio said, “the union made a recommendation that she resign.”

“We did a risk analysis of Denise’s future. We advised her of what would happen if she were to be terminated rather than if she resigned or retired. We knew there were goals of the TIP process that were not being met…. Given what we have seen in this TIP, fighting this case would be difficult,” he said he told her.

All this came during her several serious illnesses when she often absent from school or late to class.

Farina has a serious lateness problem, known as “tardies” in the school trade. That distressed school officials and Halligan, especially when she was seriously late for a fourth-grade field trip.

Anaclerio also testified that the union filed a grievance on Farina’s behalf after she was docked a day’s pay because her classroom on the first day of school was in disarray.

Anthony Buono, the school principal, said the room was not clean or clear or safe. The grievance was rejected at each step and the union decided against taking it to its final step, an arbitration panel.

Several school consultants also testified. Patrick Flynn, director of professional development with the Area Cooperative Educational Services (ACES), (pictured) worked with Farina for four sessions beginning May 26, 2009, shortly before the end of the school year. He assisted her with writing lesson plans.

When Notz asked him if four sessions were sufficient time to improve lesson plan skills, he said it was not. “I would like the full support package being an eight-week period,” Flynn said.

He said Farina showed a willingness and eagerness to succeed, and demonstrated professionalism.

Under cross-examination from Rose, Flynn described the first lesson plan Farina showed him. “It was sub-par … It needed a tremendous amount of work.” When Rose asked Flynn if he saw any improvement over the four weeks, Flynn said he did not.

While Rose was questioning Flynn, Carrano asked Attorney David N. Axelrod, the partner in the law firm, to stop talking with Notz because it was “rude” to the witness and made it difficult to hear the testimony.

“You are annoying all of us,” Carrano said, instructing Axelrod to write notes to Notz instead of talking during testimony. Axelrod became visibly upset and left the room for a few minutes. Axelrod is overseeing Notz and from time to time he suggests questions for her.

During additional questioning by Notz, Flynn agreed it would be a struggle for a teacher to begin writing detailed lesson plans if she had not been required to do so for 27 years. However, when Notz asked him if it would be a difficult transition from teaching kindergarten to teaching fourth grade, Flynn said, “The technical application of teaching remains similar.”

Last week a number of Farina’s former colleagues testified that she was a weak teacher.

Notz also questioned Carl Seeley, an eighth-grade teacher at Walsh Intermediate School who also served as the vice president of the teacher’s union. At Farina’s request, he sat in on weekly meetings that Farina had with administrators during the 2008-09 school year.

“There was some tension in the meetings,” he said, in response to Notz’ questioning. He said the last meeting before Farina’s termination “was very tension-filled.”

Other Witnesses

Several parents and grandparents spoke in Farina’s behalf, each describing her skills as a teacher.

“She was a teacher who was kind and approachable. Academically my children were ready when they entered first grade,” said Renee DeAngelo, whose children are now in college.

A grandmother (whom we won’t identify, to protect student privacy) said her grandson had Farina as a fourth-grade teacher two years ago. She testified that he was having problems academically and socially, and that Farina was able to assist him. “I was grateful for her help,” she said.

Another mother, whose two sons had Farina as a summer school reading teacher in the 1990s, testified that both boys were able to increase their reading skills because of Farina’s “compassion and her experience.”

Marylou Duggan testified that both her children had Farina as a teacher in the early 1980s. “My kids had an amazing experience,” she said, adding that Farina inspired her daughter to become a teacher.

One mother, who moved to town from another state, said her daughter improved her reading skills in Farina’s fourth-grade class two years ago. “She made her feel so comfortable and helped her,” the mother testified, adding that the classroom was always “very neat and friendly.”

Jackie Pullen-Daniels, whose granddaughter had Farina for a second-grade teacher last year, said she and her daughter were involved in the girl’s education and were pleased with Farina. Pullen-Daniels, who is an English instructor at a business school, said she was dismayed when she heard about Farina’s hearing.

“I do know she did the job for my granddaughter, and I’m appreciative of that,” she testified. “I’m saddened someone would question her capabilities.”

Two weeks ago, Farina’s father, Joe Farina, took the stand. Joe Farina was Branford High School’s popular athletic director and a former football coach when his daughter first arrived as a teacher in the school system in 1981. He described her recent serious illnesses and said she did not deserve how she was being treated. Joe Farina asked the board to do the “right thing.”

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