A Facebook post about a school drop off incident and the subsequent fallout has triggered a lawsuit. — AFP
A Pennsylvania mom is suing a school district after she says school officials retaliated against her because of a Facebook post.
The mom was dropping off her kids in the school drop-off line at a North East School District elementary school in Erie County on Aug 29, the first day of the 2023-24 school year, according to a federal lawsuit.
McClatchy News reached out to the school district for comment but did not immediately hear back.
While in line to drop off her children, she stopped to let the kids get out of the car, the lawsuit filed March 5 said. As her kids were exiting her vehicle, other vehicles in front of her began to move forward.
The mom didn’t move up because her kids were still getting out of the car, the lawsuit said. That’s when the superintendent, Michele S. Hartzell, “quickly exited the school doors, frantically waved her arms, and yelled loudly and repeatedly at (the mom) to move her vehicle forward, despite the fact that (the mom’s) children were still exiting the vehicle,” the lawsuit said.
The mom moved her car once the kids were out safely, the complaint said.
Then, when she got home, she wrote a post on Facebook.
“Bad news, we already got yelled at by the Superintendent,” the post starts off, according to court records. “My children received their first lesson of the school year – the superintendent screams at parents with her arms in the air as a tactic to ‘move the line along’.”
The post continued on to recount the mom’s experience dropping her kids off that morning.
Later that day, Hartzell sent an email to the mom, asking that she remove the post, court records said.
“I am respectfully requesting that you remove your negative post from today, specifically the one about me regarding the first day of school. Possibly consider using some kind words such as, ‘wow, it is nice to see our Superintendent help out’,” the email said.
The mom responded with an email in which she told Hartzell she would not take down the post, and said Hartzell embarrassed her in front of others in line, according to court records.
“The cars in front of me happened to move as my children were mid-disembarking from my vehicle. Did you imagine how that would make the children feel? The parents who pay your salary? The children who have noise sensitivity or fear?” the email said.
The lawsuit says after this, Hartzell told the school district’s president of the board of directors, Nick Mobilia, about the incident and the Facebook post, then shared surveillance video with him of the drop-off incident.
Hartzell and Mobilia “agreed thereafter to target (the mom) in retaliation for expressing her opinions and refusing to give in to Hartzell’s demands”, according to the lawsuit.
The mom says Mobilia showed the surveillance video to members of the public, including patrons at a wine cellar he owns.
“Hartzell retaliated against (the mom) for her protected conduct by complaining about (the mom) to Mobilia and other members of the Board of Directors of the district, as well as (it is believed, and therefore averred) members of the public,” the lawsuit said.
Mobilia “denigrated and ridiculed (the mom), and solicited criticism of (the mom) and (the mom’s) Facebook post from those patrons and community members who viewed the footage”, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit is asking for an undetermined amount for First Amendment retaliation and representing the mom in a “false light”. – The Charlotte Observer/Tribune News Service
