Teacher on firing line for improper credentials, throwing Scrabble letter at student
KONK LIFE STAFF WRITER
The Monroe County School Board on Sept. 23 put off taking a vote on Superintendent Mark Porter’s recommendation to fire a teacher accused of having improper credentials and throwing a Scrabble piece at a student.
Board member Andy Griffiths said action will be delayed until the next meeting on Oct. 28 beginning at 5 p.m. at Marathon Middle/High School because of an issue with the notification of the board session this week.
Robin Lynne has been a district employee since August 2002, according to Porter’s petition for firing, and most recently taught at the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice’s Monroe Regional Juvenile Detention Center next door to the Monroe County Detention Center on Stock Island.
Instead of getting the appropriate certification to work as a “special assignment” teacher at the juvenile detention center, Lynne obtained an “elementary education” certificate, according to Porter.
Ramon Dawkins, the district’s executive director of human resources, notified Lynne of the certification issue with a July 25 letter mailed to her Ramrod Key home.
Dawkins warned Lynne, “Your employment with the district is in jeopardy.”
Then, Porter wrote, on June 2 Lynne threw the Scrabble piece at a student in violation of local School Board policies and the state Principles of Professional Conduct for the Education Profession in Florida.
Detention center staff member Charnette Butler-Valdez watched the incident and documented it in an incident report.
According to that document, Lynne was playing Scrabble with two students, one of whom “was taking too long and holding up the game according to Ms. Lynn[e],” whom Butler-Valdez interviewed.
The 16-year-old boy, identified by the initials C.H., “choose [sic] a wooden letter from Ms. Lynn[e]’s letters, then changed his mind and gave it back. Youth C.H. then [took] too much time to decide which letter to choose which mad[e] Ms. Lynn[e] frustrated.”
The teacher then “took a wood game piece with a letter on it and threw it at youth C.H. saying, ‘Here, take this one.’”
Butler-Valdez reported that she called Lynne out for what she did and Lynne “looked at me amazed and then I reiterated to her that she could not do that. She apologized to me saying, ‘I am sorry but I just get so frustrated.’”
“In a private conversation I told [Lynne] she cannot get frustrated because if the youth had retaliated it could be deemed self defense. She again apologized for her actions,” according to Butler-Valdez’s report.
In a Sept. 18 letter to Lynne, Porter wrote that her alleged actions “reduces the teacher’s ability to effectively perform duties. This occurred when a projectile was launched at a student by you.”
He also notes that Lynne, a member of the United Teachers of Monroe union, has requested a formal hearing with the Florida Department of Administrative Hearing.
That process is invoked after the School Board takes a vote on termination.
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