A former math teacher at Frederick Douglass High School has filed suit against the Atlanta Public Schools system, saying he was not retained after he complained about overcrowding and discipline problems at the school.
“Instead of helping me, they retaliated against me,” said Djavanshir Gadjiev, who taught math at APS schools from 2007-2008 through 2010-2011.
Gadjiev’s suit, filed in U.S. District Court, names APS and a pair of former Douglass administrators, instruction supervisor Stephanie Bailey and principal Thomas Glanton, as defendants.
Gadjiev’s suit makes several allegations, including that:
-Bailey used his password and user identification to change Gadjiev’s attendance records to show that the size of his classes were much smaller than they actually were
-Bailey told Gadjiev that he was not to recommend any black male students for out-of-school suspension
-Bailey demanded that Gadjiev falsify the grades of 20 students who had failed his class because such a high number of failures could keep the school from meeting federal annual yearly progress goals.
-Glanton failed to address discipline problems that were so pervasive Gadjiev was verbally and physically assaulted by students.
APS spokesman Keith Bromery said the district has not been served with the suit and is not in a position to comment on it. Bromery said he knew of no other similar complaints made by other teachers at Douglass.
Glanton is no longer the principal at Douglass; he is assistant principal at Burgess-Peterson Elementary in southeast Atlanta. Bailey is an instructional supervisor at Douglass.
With Douglass failing for years to make federal annual yearly progress, Gadjiev said he was re-assigned there in 2010-2011 from South Atlanta High School, where he was honored for his work in teaching math.
In a telephone interview from Naples, Florida, where he has found work as a calculus and pre-calculus teacher, Gadjiev said he was forced to teach a pair of math classes that had 67 and 75 students - at the same time.
Gadjiev said he had to rotate between the classes, which always left one unsupervised. Gadjiev claims in his suit that he complained to Bailey, who told him to, “Do your best.”
“She told me this was probably a computer glitch,” Gadjiev told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “This was continued two consecutive months.”
Gadjiev said many of the students should have been receiving special education, but his pleas for that type of assistance for them went nowhere. Glanton offered no relief, either, Gadjiev said.
“He would say, ‘What am I supposed to do? I’m a new principal at this school? What can I do?’” Gadjiev said.
As Gadjiev continued to complain, he said Bailey struck back, telling him his classroom management skills were poor and that he needed to follow a professional development plan.
As the school year ended, he was told his teaching contract would not be renewed, he said.
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