Fort Worth teacher says she was fired for discussing alleged abuse, gender bias at school
Editor’s Note: Ian Craig was removed as a defendant in Leanna McLaughlin’s lawsuit against Trinity Valley School in October 2020.
A Fort Worth teacher said her school fired her in retaliation for speaking with the parent of a student who said she had been inappropriately touched by another teacher.
Leanna McLaughlin was a history teacher at Trinity Valley School for four years. The position was her dream job, and she left collegiate teaching for the Fort Worth K-12 private school, she said in an interview with the Star-Telegram.
On Wednesday, she filed a lawsuit against the school in Tarrant County. The lawsuit also named Ian Craig, the head of the school, as a defendant. Craig said he cannot comment on pending litigation. The school is on spring break this week.
On Feb. 12, a former student of McLaughlin’s told her a teacher touched her inappropriately as a basketball game, McLaughlin said. The teacher pressed himself up closely behind the female student and touched her backside, the student told McLaughlin.
“She was shaking, crying. I was really, really concerned about that student,” McLaughlin said.
McLaughlin is close friends with the student’s family and spoke with her mother, who said the school had already contacted Child Protective Services. That afternoon, McLaughlin visited the student’s home to talk with her parents.
About two weeks later, on March 4, McLaughlin was called into a meeting with Craig, the head of the school, she said. She says he told her she was being fired for talking with the student’s mother, saying she violated the school’s policies of harassment, dissemination of confidential information, and not reporting abuse.
She was escorted off campus by security, she said.
McLaughlin said the school’s accusations do not make sense because the alleged abuse had already been reported to CPS.
“I was upset that I wasn’t able to go and lend support to a family whose daughter had been traumatized,” McLaughlin said. “That I was being fired for that.”
McLaughlin said she cried all weekend after being fired because she did not get to say goodbye to her students or explain the situation.
“I’m really upset that I don’t get to even tell them how amazing they all are and that I want the best for them,” she said. “And that the reason I was terminated was because I wanted to protect them.”
McLaughlin said part of the reason she was fired was because she previously filed a complaint with the school for gender bias. She said female teachers were being reprimanded for the “tone” they used in the classroom, while male teachers never got in trouble for that reason.
Female teachers were told they were being “too harsh or aggressive” for the same tone of voice that would have been seen as commanding in a man, she said. When she confronted the head of the social studies department about the unfair reprimands in April, he told her she “crossed a red line,” according to the lawsuit.
McLaughlin filed a complaint with the Texas Workforce Commission in May 2019, but the school did not investigate, she said.
The teacher accused of touching the student inappropriately was reinstated at the school after an investigation by CPS and police. The family decided not to press charges, McLaughlin said.
After the school fired McLaughlin, they offered her a non-disclosure agreement, which she did not take, she said. The agreement would pay out the rest of her contract of about $20,000 and would bar McLaughlin from disparaging Trinity Valley or filing legal action against the school, she said.
“I would love to have my job back,” she said. “The four years I’ve been teaching there, I’ve met such amazing kids. I feel like there’s a giant hole in my heart because they’re gone, they’ve been ripped away from me.”
This story was originally published March 12, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
