- Edgebrook Elementary teacher Allan Hill reported boys
at his school taunted a disabled classmate and exposed themselves to 13-
and 14-year-old girls.
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- Hill thought Principal Diane Maciejewski would take action.
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- She did--against him. Hill was reprimanded.
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- Students at the school claim the group of boys exposed
themselves to girls, spit in their hair and called them whores. Hill and
other students say the boys, known around school as the "Posse,"
would hit and mimic the disabled boy, who has a speech impediment.
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- Now, Hill is fighting back. He has hired attorney David
P. Schippers to represent him in a civil rights complaint against the Chicago
school system. Hill claims in the complaint he was unfairly censured.
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- "He asked the principal for an investigation, and
it turns out they came out to investigate him," Schippers said. "These
lads turned the table, and their mothers and fathers said he [Hill] was
harassing their poor little kids."
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- Schippers is no stranger to taking on major institutions.
He represented Republicans in former President Bill Clinton's Senate impeachment
trial.
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- In the complaint filed Wednesday, Schippers asks the
state Department of Human Rights to investigate the decision to discipline
Hill after he confronted the boys.
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- Maciejewski would only speak through school officials,
who maintain Hill went beyond the scope of his authority by intimidating
the boys. Hill "chastised" them and called them "gang-bangers"
in front of classmates, officials said. In another exchange, Hill allegedly
followed the boys in his car as they walked down the street away from the
school.
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- "We think Mr. Hill went too far, and we think the
warning resolution was justified," said Chicago Public Schools attorney
Marilyn Johnson.
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- Hill and his attorney say he was simply interceding to
prevent the situation from escalating.
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- "Here's a situation where you have a nation hollering
and screaming about bullying, and this guy does what he's supposed to do,
and they turn on him," Schippers said. "What if that poor kid
walks in one day and shoots somebody?"
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- Students claim the boys' behavior went beyond taunting.
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- "They call me skank, slut, whore; we're all just
tired of it," a 13-year-old Edgebrook seventh-grader told the Sun-Times
on Wednesday. "I want them to stop doing this because I'm sick and
tired of taking this from my own classmates. I'm tired of worrying about
what I look like, just so I won't get picked on."
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- And several others said the boys have evoked fear in
Edgebrook pupils, who know of the group's reputation in the northwest Chicago
community as neighborhood bullies.
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- "They are well-known around the neighborhood and
school," said one parent, who asked not to be identified. "One
of them threw another through a glass [window] at a pizza parlor, and they
deface property and do Halloween pranks. They're just a menace."
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- Dozens of Edgebrook alumni, teachers and students--including
the young daughter of Chicago School Board member Gery Chico--have written
letters asking school officials to rescind the warning letter issued to
Hill and made part of his official record. In January, Chico and six School
Board colleagues voted in favor of issuing the "warning resolution"
against Hill.
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- In her letter, Chico's daughter, a seventh-grader at
Edgebrook, calls Hill "the most-liked teacher in Edgebrook."
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- Johnson insists Hill was not punished for reporting the
incident, but rather for the way he responded to the male students.
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- "No one supports the concept of bullying,"
she said. "Nonetheless, everyone has to concede there is a means by
which you do that. It can't be vigilantism."
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- Linda Hunsicker, who has a daughter in Hill's class and
two grown sons who are former students, said the school system reacted
too harshly.
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- "I think the parents of the boys took it too far,"
Hunsicker said.
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- "It's a travesty. We're trying very hard to get
this judgment removed," said Edgebrook parent Gigi Barbara, whose
daughter is a seventh-grader.
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- "We see him as a hero," she said, "because
who knows what could happen if the kids being teased get to a breaking
point?"
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- Contributing: Rosalind Rossi
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- ***
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- STUDENTS SPEAK
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- Excerpts from letters to Chicago school officials by
students at Edgebrook Elementary School, who said they were victims of
bullies.
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- * An eighth-grade girl: "They have done numerous,
extremely rude things to me. One of them mooned me and my friends and called
me numerous names such as slut, whore. They have thrown money at me asking,
`How much?' "
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- * A seventh-grade girl: "A young man in my class
who is mentally challenged was being made fun of since he came to Edgebrook
in fifth grade. The boys in my class have been making fun of him. This
causes him many tears. Mr. Hill is the only teacher in this school who
acknowledged the torment."
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