A Monroe County special needs teacher whose job has been in limbo for a year will appeal her case to yet another higher authority to get her job back.

The School Board last month upheld Maryeugene Dupper's November 2008 firing, despite an administrative law judge's July 22 ruling that the district rehire and pay her eight months' salary and benefits.

The case is rare, as records show there hasn't been an order for the reinstatement of a fired teacher in Monroe County for many years.

"That action will be appealed," her union attorney, Mark Herdman of Herman Sakellarides P.A. in Clearwater, wrote in a Nov. 9 letter that was sent to teachers throughout the school system. "The School Board will have wasted another $75,000 to $100,000," if the appeals court reinstates her, he added.

Dupper, who taught physically challenged students at Gerald Adams Elementary School on College Road, failed to discipline her students, develop lesson plans for them or properly track their educational progress, the district alleged, according to records in the dispute. Principal Frannie Herrin criticized Dupper for, among other things, not using a state-mandated software program, called Galileo, to test her students.

After she learned former Superintendent Randy Acevedo planned to fire her, she appealed to the Florida Division of Administrative Hearings, which ruled in her favor, saying the district fired her on the grounds of student performance, though it did not make student performance part of her job evaluation.

The Galileo program "is not the type of objective testing program the Legislature has specified should be the basis of evaluating student performance," the judge wrote. Because the district didn't have a way to measure student performance in her classroom, the district couldn't prove her students weren't learning anything, he said.

"Had the School Board ... first placed primary emphasis on the performance of Dupper's students, and then concluded ... she was performing unsatisfactorily, then the decision to terminate her employment would likely have been appropriate," he wrote, adding that she had not been given her due process.

Superintendent Joe Burke filed an exception, or counter-argument, to the judge's order.

The district argues it did everything it could to help Dupper succeed, including changing her teacher's aides, providing a classroom mentor to guide her work, and giving her nine work-improvement plans to follow. When all else failed, the district gave her a 90-day probationary period to improve, after which it offered to transfer her to another school, which Dupper declined.

The district's list of complaints against Dupper said she:

• Failed to use the Galileo software to track student performance;

• Had trouble establishing the scope and sequence of lessons and effective classroom management. On one occasion, Herrin wrote, a student danced on a desktop as Dupper continued to teach. Dupper didn't stop or discipline the dancing student;

• Failed to keep adequate progress notes or write specific lesson plans for her disabled students, a requirement not only under state law but also under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which requires special-needs teachers to develop lesson plans geared to each student's disability;

• Failed to notice that students had left her classroom until they were found outside of class and were returned to her. This happened repeatedly, Herrin complained;

• Failed to write a discipline plan, though Herrin said she asked her to do so nine times; and

• Continued to fail to prevent her very young students from leaving the classroom without her knowledge.

Herdman did not return The Citizen's phone calls seeking comment Thursday, but in the Nov. 9 letter he sent to teachers, he complained about the district's treatment of Dupper.

"The ... lack of regard for due process rights ... should send a clear message to every teacher in Monroe County," he wrote. "You cannot count on the administration or the School Board to recognize your rights, or to act to enforce those rights."

Union President Leon Fowler said he did not know Herdman was going to send the letter to teachers. The union and the district are in the last throes of contract talks for 2009-2010.

When the two sides meet Monday for more negotiations, either side could declare an impasse in the talks, which would boot it up to an administrative law judge and mediation, Fowler said.

jguerra@keysnews.com