The New Hampshire Department of Education is, for now, restoring a teachers’ license after revoking it because she helped a student over the age of 18 get an abortion.
The education department’s reversal comes several days after the teacher filed a lawsuit against the state’s top education officials, alleging that they improperly disclosed information about her and did not follow procedure when revoking her credentials last week.
On Thursday, the teacher’s attorney, Jim Armillay, said her credentials had been reinstated, but that the education department is still moving forward with its case. A meeting on the disciplinary proceedings is scheduled for July.
The abortion incident has attracted significant media attention since it was first made public in an op-ed by education commissioner Frank Edelblut.
Edelblut wrote the op-ed in April in response to an investigation by NHPR and APM Reports into how he handles citizen complaints about school climate, library books, and curriculum. In the op-ed, the commissioner referred to a number of allegations about potential misconduct by teachers, including one in which “an educator lies by calling in sick so they can take a student – without parental knowledge – to get an abortion.”
The education department released further information about the allegations in response to inquiries from NHPR and other media outlets. This included a letter from the department indicating the teacher was under formal investigation for potentially violating the educator Code of Conduct by taking a student to obtain an abortion.
Though the department’s investigation is confidential, the lawsuit filed on Monday reveals more about the incident and the education department’s inquiry.
According to the lawsuit, the teacher, named “Jane Doe” in the court documents, learned last fall that one of her students at a New Hampshire private school was pregnant. She provided information to the student about a community health center that provided “free options counseling and educational resources to pregnant women.” The student decided to get an abortion at the clinic, and the teacher gave the student a ride to her appointment.
Within a week, administration at the school learned of the teacher’s involvement and fired her. The school provided an investigative report to the Department of Education, noting that the teacher had “called in sick stating that they had food poisoning,” but had in fact brought the student to a “medical appointment.”
The Department opened a formal misconduct investigation into the teacher soon after. It revoked her license last week, effectively preventing the teacher from keeping her current job at a public school, the suit says.
New Hampshire law requires parents to receive written notice at least 48 hours before an abortion is performed on an unemancipated minor. The lawsuit says the student who got the abortion was over the age of 18 and no longer living with her biological parents. It alleges that Commissioner Edelblut knew this, but misconstrued the story in his April op-ed to suggest that the teacher had violated the state’s parental notification law.
The suit also alleges that the department did not follow proper procedures for revoking the teacher’s credentials and informing her of its findings, as required by RSA E. 511.
According to the lawsuit, the education department shared information about the ongoing investigation with media that, though redacted, mistakenly included identifying information about the teacher. Some of these details appeared in an article last week in the Boston Globe.
A spokesperson for the New Hampshire Department of Education declined to comment on the case. Michael Garrity, a spokesman for the Attorney General’s office, wrote that the office “will review the complaint and respond as appropriate in due course.”
In an email to NHPR, Jim Armillay, the teacher’s attorney, wrote:
“We are confident that when presented with all of the evidence in this case, an impartial hearing officer will determine that Ms. Doe did not violate the Code of Conduct for New Hampshire Educators, and that no sanction is warranted. We look forward to continuing the process to resolution.
In the meantime, Ms. Doe is excited to get back into the classroom to do what she loves: teaching New Hampshire’s students.”
