INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — The only Spanish teacher at Gifford Middle School, Xiomara DeLuke, after being suspended and removed from the classroom without pay for about a month, was terminated by the Indian River County School Board on Tuesday.
She worked as an Indian River County School District teacher for 20 years and had good evaluations from the district prior to February.
The school board sat as a quasi-judicial body for about eight hours hearing testimony from Superintendent Mark Rendell, who recommended termination, and DeLuke, who was fighting to keep her job. Both had legal representation and the school board often asked for legal guidance from their attorney, Suzanne D’Agresta.
DeLuke’s strongest argument concerned lack of due process. Over a three-month period, from February to April, she was suspended without pay for five days, then again for seven days and then received a termination letter. She was not informed of her right to appeal the first two suspensions, her attorney, Nicholas Caggia, pointed out, in violation of the state administrative code.
Caggia also argued it was unfair for the school board to present evidence and testimony on the two suspensions to support terminating DeLuke before allowing her to gather evidence or to defend herself against the suspension charges.
D’Agresta said DeLuke can appeal the decision to the Fourth District Court of Appeals in Fort Pierce.
The termination letter laid five charges and the board voted unanimously that she was guilty of all five and that each separately warranted termination. The charges were: Misconduct in office, not making a reasonable effort to prevent disruption of the learning environment and to protect the health and safety of students, intentionally subjecting students to embarrassment, retaliation and insubordination.
The key incident involved a student in the class giving “a neck” or slap to another student on the back of the neck after DeLuke said “that’s a neck,” the board interpreting this as a teacher call-to-action to embarrass and demean a student. The student who gave the slap admitted it could be seen as a form of bullying but denied the teacher’s words made him do it.
In another incident, DeLuke denied she told a student “to shut their trap,” but admitted she told students to “shut up” as “a last resort,” which is common practice among teachers, she said.
The worst forms of reprisal, according to the board, were DeLuke’s removal of a student from her class who reported her to administrators, and contacting the mother of another student asked to give a statement by administrators. DeLuke was told repeatedly not to do anything that would appear retaliatory, and then did, which was also deemed insubordination.
Gifford Middle School Principal Roxanne Decker said about 30 complaints were lodged against the teacher over the course of the year, most detailing DeLuke’s Jekyll-and-Hyde behavior, hugging students one day and subjecting them to stringent demands the next. DeLuke said she had been recently diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and the medication had affected her behavior.
