Strange Goings-On at Kemp Mill Elementary

I would not try to guess how this story is going to turn out.

A teacher at Kemp Mill Elementary School was fired for inappropriately touching a student. Turns out the teacher had complained about the principal of the school, and the principal had threatened him. A student wrote a statement accusing the teacher, and the student's parents started a web site saying that their kid was tricked by the principal into writing the statement ... There are several news stories about this, I think WTOP is as good as any.

SILVER SPRING, Md. - Was a popular Montgomery County elementary school teacher fired because he inappropriately touched a child, or because he was leading a group of ten teachers in filing complaints about the principal?

Dan Picca, a fifth grade teacher at Kemp Elementary School, is adamant he did nothing wrong in April when a student fell and hurt his shoulder while waiting for a bus. Since the school nurse had left for the day, Picca checked the child for injuries.

"I was checking out his shoulder to make sure his shoulder was not dislocated. And as I was doing that, another teacher walked into the room," Picca says.

That teacher filed a report with principal Floyd Starnes.

"She basically stated that she walked into the room, that there were kids around, that he was standing in front of me, and that I was checking out his shoulder, which is absolutely correct," Picca says.

In the incident report filed Starnes, a different picture emerged.

"(The report states) Starnes had [the boy] sitting in my lap and I was 'massaging' his shoulder," Picca says.

The boy's mother, Hedy Ross, says her son was questioned by Starnes, and she believes he was coached. Ross bases that on language in the written statement , which she says her son was told to write.

One word jumped out at her: "massage." Ross says she has never known her son to use it, and it was spelled correctly, while other words like "sitting" were misspelled. Ross' son told her Starnes told him to write the word.

Ross says she was never told her son had been questioned.

"It's a totally false statement," Ross says. "The fact that that statement was used to terminate a teacher - that there was a hearing that I didn't even know about, where my son was used as evidence - really makes me angry, and I'm still shocked about it." Fired Md. teacher claims he was targeted

That is a statement by the mother of the kid who wrote the complaint. Usually the parents are the most adamant that a teacher has done something to their child. In this case, they are saying the teacher didn't do anything, and the document attributed to their son is false.

The accusation of child molestation is a pernicious one. Once you've been accused of something like that you can never get rid of the stink. You want the schools to be careful, nobody wants pedophiles in the classroom, but you don't want somebody losing their job because of a false accusation, either.

There are twists to this story. It turns out this principal is facing a major mutiny from his faculty.

Picca says he's being targeted by Starnes because 10 teachers at Kemp Mill Elementary filed complaints about the principal with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The complaints range from claims of a hostile work environment to allegations that Starnes sexually harassed teachers, including Picca. Both male and female teachers complained that Starnes would call them "baby," "doll," and "sweetie," language they felt was demeaning and uncomfortable.

Picca claims when he first brought the complaints to the principal, Starnes told him not to go through with the complaints because Starnes had "personnel information" that could harm Picca's job status.

So the principal threatened the teacher if the teacher filed a complaint.

I am having trouble imagining this guy calling both men and women "baby," "doll," and "sweetie." Maybe a truck-stop waitress would do that, I can picture that, but a male grade-school principal? Do you think anybody asked the principal to change his language, or did they just go in together and write up a big complaint? No, really, I don't think a man has ever called me "doll."

It turns out the teacher has had some issues, too.

Picca does have a record that includes two investigations in the 90s. In February of 2000, he was warned by Superintendent Dr. Jerry Weast that his behavior involving male students was "...inappropriate, unprofessional and highly suspect." Child Protective Services was contacted in those cases, according to Picca.

Picca maintains he did nothing wrong. He says if there were any basis to the prior investigations, "[Weast] would not have sent me back into the classroom, which he did, and which is where I was for ten years, incident free."

The incident report Picca says was filed by Starnes does not indicate that Child Protective Services was contacted.

It is hard ... no, it is impossible to read between the lines here. Is this some kind of shadowy homophobia at work, or is it just a fight with lots of low blows? Kemp Mill Elementary is in Silver Spring, I'll bet we have a reader who has kids there, maybe some of our readers can fill us in.

As it stands, ten teachers have complained about the principal, and the principal has complained about one teacher. It does appear that the principal manipulated a student into writing a note complaining about the teacher, and the kid's parents are upset about that. I don't know how many teachers have received letters from the Superintendent telling them that their behavior was "inappropriate, unprofessional and highly suspect," but that definitely casts a shadow on the teacher.