NHPS
Paula Langlois.
An argument over which parking spot and entryway an elementary-school teacher in a wheelchair is allowed to use has cost the school district hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Paula Langlois, a teacher at Fair Haven School who’s had multiple sclerosis for nearly a decade, was told by the current principal that she couldn’t park in a reserved spot nor use a front door. She filed suit in 2016, alleging her rights were being violated, as the school district denied reasonable accommodations, discriminated against her disabilities, and intentionally inflicted emotional distress.
This year, according to records obtained through the Connecticut Freedom of Information Act, the city decided to settle the case with Langlois for $390,000. It will pay out the third installment on the six-figure deal this month, leaving a $100,000 balance for next school year.
After her initial diagnosis, Langlois began using a wheelchair in 2011. At the time, then-Principal Mary-Margaret Gethings gave her a dedicated parking spot near the only handicap-accessible entrance, assigned her to a self-contained classroom near the elevator and created a special plan for fire drills.
During that time, Langlois’s lawyer, Amanda DeMatteis, said she was able to perform “all essential functions of her job” with “reasonable accommodations in place.”
Aliyya Swaby Photo
Heriberto Cordero becomes Fair Haven’s principal in 2015.
But that changed in 2015, when Heriberto Cordero became Fair Haven’s principal, Langlois said in her lawsuit in state court. “Shortly thereafter, the reasonable accommodations provided to Langlois ceased,” DeMatteis said.
According to a complaint, the dedicated parking spot was “blocked,” and its signage removed.
When Langlois brought it up to Cordero, he allegedly told her to “park across the street at the church because that is where the overflow parks.”
Additionally, according to the complaint, teachers were told they’d need to use the side door to enter the building, up six steps, while the handicap-accessible entrance at the front of the building was off-limits.
Again, when Langlois brought it up, the district said that it couldn’t give her keycard access, but that an administrator would be present every morning to let her into the building. But that almost never happened, DeMatteis said, “causing her to wait outside, rain or shine, hot or cold, until a fellow teacher or security officer opens the door.”
She added, “Many days, Langlois would sit in the rain, her clothes soaking, along with student work, waiting for someone to let her in the building.”
In May 2016, then-Superintendent Garth Harries stopped by her classroom to see the situation for himself. According to the complaint, Harries told her that installing a key pad by what he called her “preferred door” would cost $11,000, even though the district would soon re-model the school’s front facade. He added that she needed to “be patient.”
DeMatteis said that Harries missed the point, “failing to recognize that this is the only handicap accessible door the School has,” not just the one that Langlois wanted to use.
She said Langlois tried “explain[ing] her frustrations,” saying how hard it was to endure “multiple days of waiting outside in the elements, being berated by Human Resources and [Principal] Cordero and constant bouts of crying.” But after a year of repeated requests for keycard access, “taken under advisement” by district administrators, nothing was done.
In January 2016, the elevator at Fair Haven School went out of service for several weeks. According to the complaint, no one told her, so she asked her union for help, which DeMatteis said caused Cordero to berate her “for going over his head.”
“Principal Cordero made the problem worse by revoking Langlois’ assigned parking spot and forcing her to park behind the School, accusing her of taking ‘internal problem’ to the union,” DeMatteis wrote. “She then had to enter the School through a locked freight door, which is not ADA-compliant and does not have a delayed close. Because Langlois’ wheelchair could not clear the door prior to its closing, the door would slam shut on her wheelchair, causing damage or [injury to] her arm.”
After she told Cordero that the heavy door slammed into her many mornings, he allegedly said, “I don’t know anything about your arms, just that you are in a motorized wheelchair and should be able to zip around the building.”
Finally, in August 2016, Langlois gained keycard access to the handicap-accessible door at the school’s front entrance. But soon after, it started to “frequently malfunction,” closing before her wheelchair could clear the entrance, DeMatteis wrote.
Around the same time, due to construction, her reserved parking space was moved. The blue paint had almost “completely faded,” DeMatteis said, but when Langlois asked if she could spray-paint it herself, Cordero allegedly told her, “No, it took over a year for the door, let’s see how long it takes for lines to be painted.”
By “refus[ing] to accommodate” her physical disabilities, the district caused “substantial emotional distress” that led her to seek mental-health counseling, DeMatteis wrote. That included “many sleepless nights, bouts of uncontrollable crying, an inability to get out of bed, and a lack of drive to continue her career.” Her neurologist said it even worsened the symptoms of her multiple sclerosis, DeMatteis added.
At the time an initial complaint was filed to the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities, the school district sent the New Haven Register a statement. “The New Haven Board of Education is very proactive in meeting its obligations under the ADA, including making reasonable accommodations where appropriate for staff, students and visitors to New Haven Public Schools,” it read.
Cordero did not respond to an email requesting comment on Wednesday morning.
Christopher Peak Photo
Fair Haven School, where a doorway dispute cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The lawsuit finally led to changes that Langlois had been requesting for years.
Since the settlement was finalized in late April, slightly below Langlois’s initial $500,000 offer, the district agreed to fix up the handicap-accessible doors, elevators, parking spaces and curb ramps at Fair Haven School in compliance with federal law; to give Langlois keycard access to the handicap-accessible side door ever weekday from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.; and to post a sign on every door that parking in reserved spaces is “STRICTLY PROHIBITED.”
Additionally, according to the terms of the settlement, Langlois retains her job at Fair Haven School, and the city will not oppose her application for disability allowances on her eventual pension.
“In exchange,” the document reads, Langlois “hereby releases and forever discharges THE BOARD … from any and all claims, causes of action, losses, charges, complaints, liability, damages, punitive damages, fees (including without limitation attorney’s fees), costs and expenses of any nature or kind whatsoever.”
There’s one exception, excluding a separate case where Langlois is seeking workers’ compensation for December 2017 injuries, after she was thrown from her motorized wheelchair while going up a defective curb ramp.
The school district maintained that, in signing the settlement, it is not admitting that it “discriminated against Langlois or otherwise violated her rights.”
The agreement prohibits either party from making “any disparaging, negative, false or misleading statements,” and it calls for the destruction of all Langlois’s medical records that proved her case.
OK, you won, as you should have. Now, donate your bounty by starting a scholarship fund for kids in NHPS with physical disabilities. Be the Good Angel.