Ex-teacher from Cameroon sues Gilbert district, alleges race bias

A former teacher in Gilbert Public Schools, a Black woman from Cameroon, has sued the district, alleging racial discrimination that she said resulted in economic and emotional harm.

Gladis Mopecha, who worked for the district as an English-language learner specialist from 2005 to 2010, is also suing Superintendent David Allison; Nikki Blanchard, the superintendent of human resources at the time Mopecha was employed; Vicki Hester, principal at Meridian Elementary School; Cheryl Lira-Layne, the district’s English-language learner coordinator; Dennise Redford, the English-language learner coach for the district; and Deborah Singleton, principal at Spectrum Elementary School.

“Once Gladis was targeted for racial discrimination, it was relentless,” her lawsuit says.

An attorney representing the district, Georgia Staton, said the district does not comment on litigated matters. “We obviously believe the plaintiff’s claim has no merit,” she said.

From 2005 to 2007, Mopecha’s evaluations were satisfac-

tory, but, the suit says, attitudes changed in 2008 when the political climate in Arizona heated up over immigration. That year, Mopecha received reviews that were critical.

Spectrum Elementary’s Singleton told Gladis to eliminate her accent, according to the suit so Mopecha paid more than $1,000 for lessons, which did not prove effective.

The next year, Singleton’s ratings of Mopecha improved and showed no rating of “below standards,” as they had in 2008. Still, Singleton admonished Mopecha about her accent and communication skills, the suit says.

During the 2008-09 school year, Mopecha was assigned the additional duty of helping students out of their parents’ cars at the drop-off point at Spectrum. A parent complained that Mopecha had grabbed a child by the arm and told her to hurry up, an allegation that was disputed.

Mopecha told Blanchard and Singleton that other parents now refused to allow her to help their children out of their cars, locking the car doors when Mopecha approached.

“Gladis was treated differently than her teacher colleagues, by parents and by administrators because of her race and nation of origin,” the lawsuit says.

During summer school for English-language learners in 2009, Mopecha encountered teachers who claimed they had trouble communicating with her. “It was clear to Gladis that those teachers did not want to work with an African woman,” her suit says. She was terminated from the summer-school program.

In the 2009-10 school year, Mopecha was assigned to three elementary schools: Spectrum, Meridian and Greenfield.

“Anatmosphere of public resentment against immigrants inundated all ELL teachers in August 2009,” according to the suit.

Hester, principal at Meridian, “made a special effort to discredit Gladis as a teacher, although (Mopecha’s) workload of 36 students was higher than the entire workload the previous year,” the suit says. Mopecha also had six students at Greenfield and 16 at Spectrum in 2009-10.

Mopecha learned from a colleague about a meeting early in the school year chaired by Hester that “devolved into personal attacks on Gladis, with Hester prompting teachers for more details,” the suit says.

On Nov. 10, Singleton wrote a critical evaluation of Mopecha.

Mopecha believes the district intended to fire a teacher with an accent while gaining a scapegoat for any failings that a then-ongoing state audit of the English-language learner program might reveal, the suit says.

“The working environment at Meridian became increasingly hostile as the year progressed,” the suit says.

“A teacher colleague told Gladis that she was not allowed to work with kindergarten students any more, apparently based on a parent complaint that they didn’t want a Black woman touching their child,” it says. “One of the kindergarten teachers told Gladis that many parents discriminated against her because of her heritage and the color of her skin, to the point of several parents pulling their children out of this teacher’s class.”

Mopecha resigned in December 2009, effective May 2010.

In March 2010, the district learned it had passed the state English-language learner audit, and Singleton praised Mopecha’s hard work and contribution to a successful audit, according to the suit.

By that time, her lawsuit says, Mopecha had lost 40 pounds from the stress, her health was impaired and her self-esteem was ravaged.

Mopecha applied for jobs in Gilbert Public Schools and a dozen other districts with no success.

She was unavailable for comment for this story but is reportedly working at an unidentified charter school.

She applied for unemployment benefits about October 2010, marking “harassment/hostile work environment” on the form, and the district opposed her application. She was denied benefits and appealed.

At a hearing at the Department of Economic Security, the administrative law judge found that the district had violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by engaging in “unlawful employment practices.” The judge also found that the district discriminated against Mopecha “and (was) harassing her on the basis of ... national origin,” the suit says.

The judge also found that Mopecha’s daughter was being bullied and the that district was not addressing the situation. The judge found that overall, the working environment was “negative, hostile and unbearable.”

In her lawsuit, Mopecha asks for compensatory and punitive damages and attorney’s fees.