In
late January, she says, her 7-year-old son Mason started complaining of stomachaches,
with the school nurse calling regularly to tell Hebert to come
get her child. The boy had begun waking up on school days with abdominal
pains. Sometimes he'd start whimpering just as Hebert was pulling up to the
International School of Louisiana (ISL), a fledgling foreign-language-based
charter school where the first-grader attends its French immersion program. "He'd
say, 'Mama, I can't go to school. My stomach hurts,'" Hebert recalls. "And
I'd say 'Get out of the car, Mason. You're going.'"
For parent Reese Johanson, it was the air of secrecy
surrounding Jean Phillipe Vauchel's first-grade classroom. "The thing that triggered me in the beginning
was that I couldn't see into his classroom. He had papers covering the window
and you couldn't peek in," Johanson says. "He was the only teacher who covered
the window." Later, it became her son Sebastien's offhand comments that Vauchel,
a French native, frequently called the kids "babies" and would tell them
to "'stop crying or I'll send you back to kindergarten.'
"And I'm thinking, why are kids crying in his class?" Johanson says. "It's
not preschool."
Over time, Johanson says, her son began to tell unsettling
stories about Vauchel's disciplinary tactics, which allegedly included pushing,
kicking, grabbing
and yelling. Johanson says she complained to school director Ron Mintz at
the beginning of the school year that Vauchel was tough and abusive. Mintz,
she says, "told me he'd take care of it."
But Sebastien continued to report that Vauchel would lose his temper.
Johansen says that when she again confronted Mintz in December, he assured
her that, in response to complaints he'd gotten from parents and from assistant
teacher Virginie Dufieux, he had instructed Dufieux not to leave Vauchel
alone in the classroom with the children.
"Ron said he didn't have another French teacher, and he didn't want to lose
the teacher," Johanson says. "Ron promised that [Vauchel's] contract wasn't
being renewed for next year. He said, 'Let's just get through the school year,'" she
claims.
Vauchel did not return calls for comment. The president of ISL's board of trustees,
Maria Redmann Treffinger, told Gambit Weekly that comment from anyone
employed by the school, including Mintz and Dufieux, would come only through
the board.
In January, Johanson says, her child was starting to
act up at home -- bullying his little brother and withholding affection,
Johanson says. "I started really
grilling my son (about Vauchel) in January."
On Jan. 29, Johanson says she wrote a long letter to
Mintz and the ISL board, detailing her son's accounts of Vauchel's behavior
and asking for Vauchel's
termination. Her letter also accused Vauchel of using "degrading" and "humiliating" tactics
as a motivational tool.
"They brushed me aside, assured me it would be handled and promised me a meeting," Johanson
recalls.
She says she finally got her meeting with Mintz more
than a month later, on March 18. "I was told there have been too many questionable things happening
in this man's classroom, and if there was another occurrence Jean Phillipe
had been notified he would lose his job," Johanson claims. "Two days later,
my son comes home and tells me that Jean Phillipe punched him."
Last month, Vauchel was arrested and charged with misdemeanor battery. He pleaded
not guilty in Municipal Court and is scheduled to stand trial June 3.
The International School of Louisiana, founded by parents and certified by the
state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) in 2000, prides itself
on providing challenging curricula in French or Spanish immersion. The tuition-free
public charter school began with kindergarten in August 2000, and plans to
add a new grade each year through twelfth grade. The school is striving to
become accredited through the International Baccalaureate Organization, so
that graduates not only receive a Louisiana high school degree, but an internationally
recognized high school diploma that can provide up to two years of credit in
an American university.
ISL shares space with the First United Methodist Church of New Orleans at the
intersection of Canal Street and Jefferson Davis Parkway, but plans to move
to another site within a few years to accommodate its burgeoning student
body.
The school's board of trustees provided only brief
comment for this story and would not answer specific questions. "The unfortunate matter involving a
member of our faculty has been addressed by the school," the board wrote
in a statement. "This faculty member is no longer working for ISL. Policies
and procedures have been reviewed and are in place to guard against this
type of concern."
In a 2002 BESE evaluation, ISL reported that 13 of its 16 teachers were certified
in the areas they teach, exceeding state standards. Three are certified in
Louisiana and 10 received certification in their countries of origin and
were recognized as Louisiana certified, according to the report, which said
some teachers were on educational visas from other countries. It was not
clear whether Vauchel, who taught at ISL since its inception, was among them.
ISL recruited its faculty with the help of the Council for the Development
of French in Louisiana, the report said.
ISL is due to have a third-year evaluation May 13, a standard procedure in
which a charter school evaluation team contracted by BESE will examine the
strength of the school's finances, academics and fiscal accounting reports.
If the school passes its review, its charter will be extended another two
years.
Gary Wheat, BESE's charter schools administrator, said he had not heard of
any incident involving Vauchel at ISL but would investigate.
"A single incident like this, depending on its severity, wouldn't necessarily
have an impact on the school, especially if the management of the school has
taken actions to rectify the situation," Wheat says. "It would be very concerning
if there were a number of complaints about a teacher, especially at a K-to-2
school ... you're talking seriously defenseless kids.
"Unless it's a case of serious neglect on the part of the whole school administration,
it shouldn't cause the school to close," Wheat says. "They are up for their
third-year renewal, so it may be added to their list that the students be constantly
in the supervision of competent and caring adults."
By all accounts, the school strives to provide excellent
educational and cultural opportunities for its 200-plus students, nearly
half of whom BESE classifies
as "at-risk." Some parents who spoke with Gambit Weekly on condition
of anonymity said they considered the Vauchel case to be atypical of the
school as a whole.
"Jean Phillipe honestly taught Mason a tremendous amount of French," Juleigh
Hebert says. "In all fairness, he's an excellent teacher. But you can't subject
small children to his anger problems."
Both Hebert and Johanson cite the Louisiana Children's
Code, a state law that requires "mandatory reporters," including school administrators,
faculty and staff, to immediately report child abuse or suspected child abuse
to
the state Department of Social Services or to local law enforcement. NOPD
ultimately was notified, but the call came from Johansen, not the school.
Unlike Johanson, Hebert only recently became aware of possible problems involving
Vauchel. The incident in which the teacher allegedly punched Reese Johanson's
child also involved her son Mason, Hebert says.
The boys told their mothers -- and a New Orleans Police Department detective,
an NOPD spokesman says -- that during rehearsal for their class play The
Lion King, the boys were horsing around. Vauchel allegedly lost his temper, "grabbed
Mason and punched him in the back, and then grabbed Sebastien, screamed in
his ear and punched him in the neck," Johanson wrote in an addendum to her
Jan. 29 letter. "Then JP pushed Sebastien on to the floor."
Hebert says she learned of the alleged incident not
from her child, but from Johanson. "Reese called me and said, 'Do you know
that your son was punched?' She said 'I'm calling the police.'
"I said, 'Wait, wait. This is someone's career,'" Hebert
recalls.
"So I called the school and I was told by [Mintz] that he didn't think that
it was actually as severe as Reese had reported," Hebert says. "He said something
untoward did occur, as it has in the past -- can you imagine telling me that?
-- and he had already asked [Vauchel] to leave for the day, and that Mason
was no worse for the wear."
Hebert went to the school to retrieve her son, and
Johanson reported the alleged March 20 episode to police. Hebert says that
a detective came to ISL a few
days later to interview her son, but says that no one from the school notified
her that a police officer was questioning the 7-year-old -- a notion that
Hebert says horrifies her. "I was home ill from work when the detective called
me and advised me that she had met with my son the previous day."
According to NOPD spokesman Capt. Marlon DeFillo, department policy allows
a police officer to interview a minor on the scene of a crime, without a
guardian being present. If the child is taken to a police station, DeFillo
says, a legal guardian should be present during questioning.
The NOPD's Child Abuse Unit brought misdemeanor battery charges against Vauchel,
DeFillo says. During his April 10 arraignment in Municipal Court, Vauchel
was placed under a peace bond and ordered to stay away from the alleged victims.
His trial is set for 8 a.m. on June 3 before Municipal Judge Bruce McConduit,
according to court records.
"While regrettable, we believe this isolated incident will not impair the ability
of the school to move forward with its mission of providing an academically
challenging public education in a foreign language setting," the ISL board
said in its statement.
In a March 28 letter, Mintz announced that Vauchel
had resigned effective immediately, citing "personal circumstances."
That week, Hebert says, "bits and pieces kept coming to the forefront." During
a subsequent parents' meeting, "my son decided to share with all these adults
that Jean Phillipe had actually locked him in the girls' bathroom for an entire
day, shutting the light off before locking him in there," Hebert says. "Virginie
(Dufieux), the assistant, nodded her head in confirmation to that, as well
as these other horrific stories about the child whose chair was kicked so hard
that he fell out, striking his head.
"She nodded in agreement to that; she also nodded in
agreement to the fact that she couldn't leave while he was there teaching.
The children could not
be left alone with him."
Hebert says that in recent weeks, she's talked in depth to her son about Vauchel.
He told her the teacher's demeanor would change dramatically when adults
came into the room, she says.
 |
Jean Philipe Vauchel
School Photo Courtesy of Reese Johansen
|
The child suffers anxiety and guilt over his role in his teacher's departure,
Hebert says, and frets that other teachers in the school will punish him for
it. Mason's anxiety grew when Vauchel allegedly showed up at ISL a few days
after Mintz told the children their teacher wouldn't be back.
"He was standing behind the fence, and I don't know why he was there -- there
should have been some sort of restraining order by the school as far as I'm
concerned," says Hebert. "He told Mason he was a nice boy."
On the same day Mintz announced Vauchel's resignation, ISL board of trustees
president Treffinger sent a school-wide letter informing parents that Mintz
would stay on until the end of the school year, but that his contract would
not be renewed.
Treffinger, an attorney with the state Department of Social Services, would
not discuss the school's personnel issues except to say the board plans to
replace Mintz in June with Dr. Tom Crosby, whose experience as a teacher
and administrator included stints in schools in the United States and several
other countries. In its statement to Gambit Weekly, board members
call Crosby "a visionary leader with more than 25 years of experience in
education."
In the wake of the Vauchel matter, Hebert and Johansen have criticized the
board as well as Mintz for not interceding sooner. However, a school's board
members typically do not get involved in day-to-day operations. Instead,
their duties generally involve setting broad policies, ensuring the school's
financial stability, and hiring a director or headmaster. The head of school
then carries out the board's policies and supervises all day-to-day functions
-- including hiring and firing teachers. Usually, a board's only recourse
when things go wrong is to replace the head of school.
At an April 3 meeting with the board that parents had requested, Johanson
distributed copies of her letter, detailing Vauchel's alleged behavior, to
about 200
parents. She also blasted the board for what she called an inadequate response
to her complaints. Treffinger, an attorney with the state Department of
Social Services, told the parents that Mintz was not invited back because
of his "refusal
to participate in strategic planning," which she called an "insurmountable
obstacle." She declined to say whether it had anything to do with Vauchel,
saying the school could not discuss Vauchel's case because of the pending
police investigation.
Some parents complained about poor contact with the board on other matters. "It's
very clear," Treffinger acknowledged, "that communication is the number one
issue."
The ISL board sent parents a letter inviting them to a meeting with a school
counselor on April 22, during the week the school was on spring vacation, "to
address concerns related to the reported events." A follow-up letter to Hebert
said the parents of three children had attended the meeting and had agreed
to have their children talk about "recent events and transitions" with
the school's counselor. It extended the same offer to Hebert.
After the April 3 meeting with parents, the ISL board announced it would
establish better interaction with them. Board members distributed their email
addresses
and phone numbers, and discussed ideas for a parent-teacher association.
In a follow-up letter, the board referred to its recent struggles as "growing
pains."
"We regret that the parents appear to have lost confidence and trust in the
board but we are, as you can see, willing to work toward building more effective
communication," the letter read. It also said board members had not been "fully
aware of many of the issues and concerns you recently raised."
Even after entertaining thoughts of a lawsuit, Johanson plans to send Sebastien
to second grade at ISL next year, saying she believes there's enough positive
aspects of the school to give it another chance. The promise of increased
parental influence is what ultimately convinces her. "Parents are starting
to take charge more and demand more of a voice," she says.
Hebert says she is contemplating legal action, and after initially registering
her son for another year at ISL, says she has changed her mind and won't
be sending him back. "I don't think it's in Mason's best interest," she
says.
