Peter Sills
Two former teachers at the MASTERS Program charter school located on the Santa Fe Community College campus seek damages from the school in new lawsuit.
Two former teachers at The MASTERS Program charter school filed a lawsuit against the school Monday morning, alleging school administration retaliated against them for voicing concerns that it was violating special education law.
The teachers, Diana Boyd and Kristin Carlisle allege the school violated the state's Whistleblower Protection Act and Human Rights Act, and seek compensatory and special damages, emotional distress damages, reputational damages and statutory damages.
The lawsuit alleges a series of actions the school’s administration took against Boyd and Carlisle after the teachers separately raised issues with school administrators on their handling of special education students and individualized education plans (IEPs).
On March 6 this year, Boyd and Carlisle filed an official complaint with the PED alleging the school violated state special education law with respect to 10 different issues.
Out of the 10 issues raised in the complaint, the PED only substantiated two: that the school failed to make IEPs accessible to staff and inform staff of their responsibilities related to implementing IEPs, and that the school failed to properly develop students’ IEPs.
“The actual allegations that employees blow the whistle on don't even have to turn out to be correct, as long as the employee has a good faith basis to blow the whistle—as long as they believe what they are doing is true,” Shayne Huffman, the plaintiffs’ attorney, tells SFR. “Even if it turns out to not be true, they're still protected under the law to encourage people to speak up. In this case, however, they were right. The PED substantiated [some of the] complaints that they made.”
Once the school had become aware of the teachers’ complaint to the PED, Huffman tells SFR, the ongoing retaliation “really ramped up.”
The first incident of retaliation, the lawsuit says, occurred in December 2023, after Carlisle and TMP Head of School Karla Haas Moskowitz discussed a student’s performance, and Haas Moskowitz responded to “find a way to disenroll the student,” and that “the student might need to be tested for a disability and TMP would therefore be unable to serve the student.” According to the PED’s later resolution investigating potential violations of special education law, Haas Moskowitz denies this allegation.
Within a few days of this conversation and after Carlisle contacted Governing Council President Steven Stauss on the matter, the lawsuit says, Haas Moskowitz “called Carlisle into a meeting at her office and accused her of committing fraud,” and alleged Carlisle’s colleagues “maintained a ‘fraud file’ on Carlisle.”
“[Haas Moskowitz] never actually told her what it was about, she never gave her any documentary evidence,” Huffman says. “She didn't tell her anything. So, those were the big pieces of retaliation.”
A few days after this meeting, the complaint states Haas Moskowitz “called or pretended to call” the PED Licensure Bureau in front of Carlisle and asked over the phone “whether she could revoke a teacher’s license if the teacher was unethical,” though Huffman says “she didn't have the authority” to do so.
Retaliatory actions the lawsuit alleges the school took against Boyd, however, did not begin until February. That was when she spoke at the school’s governing council meeting to share additional concerns about the school’s special education practices. On February 29, a few days after the governing council meeting and back and forth with Haas Moskowitz in person and via email, Boyd was placed on administrative leave. Haas Moskowitz alleged “serious misconduct.”
Her allegation claimed Boyd “followed a student into the restroom” and that Boyd’s discussion of special education “constituted inappropriate communication within the school community.” The lawsuit also claims she told Boyd that “as a lesbian woman, Boyd should never be in the restroom with a female student.”
Huffman refers to this allegation as “absurd,” and says there is no policy against teachers using a public restroom at the same time a student does. This retaliatory action is the basis for the second count on the complaint, alleging discrimination against Boyd for her sexual orientation.
“The head of school made it very clear she was telling her that because she was a lesbian woman,” Huffman says. “The implication, of course, is that somehow there's something fundamentally wrong about being in the restroom.”
According to the complaint, the school’s assistant head of school Tina Morris later conducted an investigation into this specific claim about Boyd. Huffman says security footage Morris showed Boyd used the restroom three minutes after the student went into the restroom with friends and left 42 seconds later. The students remained in the restroom for an additional 7.5 minutes. Morris concluded Boyd should have been permitted to return to work as of March 15, but Haas Moskowitz kept Boyd on administrative leave indefinitely.
“[Haas Moskowitz] refused to allow [Boyd] to go back to work, even though she was cleared of allegations,” Huffman says. “It's quite frankly appalling that [Haas Moskowitz] would use student safety as a conduit, as a pretext, to try to retaliate against Boyd.”
The lawsuit claims these actions gave Boyd “no choice but to resign,” which she did by the end of June 2024. She was still on administrative leave.
In March, Carlisle was “diagnosed with anxiety induced by her workplace,” and briefly took sick leave. Carlisle resigned in early April 2024, due to the “hostile work environment” and “diagnosis of anxiety.”
SFR reached out to The MASTERS Program by phone and Haas Moskowitz by email for comment, but has not received any response as of publishing.
Huffman says the plaintiffs are looking for accountability in addition to damages.
“The Whistleblower Protection Act was enacted by our legislature about 15 years ago, and it's a really, really important law that protects the rights of public employees to successfully work and share anything that they think is unlawful or unethical,” Huffman says. “We ought to be protecting people that are willing to do that, and endorsing the type of punishment against them.”
Editor's Note: This article has been corrected to reflect that The MASTERS Program Head of School's name is Karla Haas Moskowitz, not Karla Moskowitz. SFR regrets the error.
