MEET THE BAUMANN SCHOOL BUS DRIVERS
SCHOOLS
Appeal No. 17507
STATE OF NEW York
BEFORE THE Commissioner OF EDUCATION
In the Matter of the Appeal of JOSEPH P. GIARDINA from Action of the Board of Education of the BEDFORD CENTRAL SCHOOL
SUR-REPLY AFFIDAVIT
with Respect to Respondent's Alleged Illegal
Subsidy of Voluntary Student Travel and Other Frivolous Objections
STATE OF NEW YORK)
) ss: COUNTY OF SUFFOLK)
LAWRENCE W. REICH, being duly sworn, deposes and says:
1. I am a member of the firm of Ingerman Smith, L.L.P., attorneys of record for respondent Board of Education of the Bedford Central School District, and I am fully familiar with the underlying facts and circumstances of the appeal from my review of the books, documents and records of the municipal respondent and from my telephone conferences with school officials.
2. I submit the within Sur-Reply Affidavit in opposition to Petitioner's Verified Reply, which contains egregious errors of fact and which improperly expands the scope of the appeal.
3. I respectfully request permission from the Commissioner pursuant to Section 276.5 of the Rules of Practice Relating to Appeals to file the within Sur-Reply and Exhibit thereto, the Affidavit in Support of Joan
Joan Estes Barickman (attached hereto and incorporated by reference herein as "Exhibit 1"), for the purpose of responding to such erroneous information and to complete the record herein.
4. The Academic Community for Education Success (ACES) Program has used field trips as an integral part of its experiential learning program almost from the time of its inception.
5. As is more fully detailed in the Barickman Affidavit, an extensive curriculum for the trip was prepared, as part of a six-week interdisciplinary unit in subjects including language arts, Spanish, social studies and science.
6. The trip plan included a method to help defray the personal cost for any student wishing to attend the trip but whose family was unable to do so.
7. Both the ACES students and their parents were made aware of the availability of money to help defray the cost of the trip for any student unable to afford the trip.
8. It is manifestly improper for petitioner Giardina to raise the issue of Ms. Legato's lack of participation in the trip for the first time in his Reply Affidavit; his Petition does not assert that students were "left behind" for lack of funding, and he should not be permitted to expand the scope of the Petition through new allegations in the Reply Affidavit.
9. Upon information and belief, perhaps the author of the Verified Reply confused his claims in the Giardina appeal with those claims he asserted in the Carbone appeal, which led to this muddled pleading which confuses the two.
10. Upon information and belief, the author of the various Petitions has too many balls in the air and is confusing and/or blending claims in the separate appeals.
11. In Carbone, the District argued that petitioner could not assert the rights of third parties; this is equally true herein; if Francesca Legato's rights were violated in any respect, which Respondent strongly denies, petitioner Giardina clearly lacks legal capacity to assert Legato's rights.
12. Petitioner ignores the extended explanation of the curriculum leading up to and planned for the Costa Rica trip in the proposal; instead, petitioner places disproportionate emphasis upon a few short paragraphs which explain the use of experiential techniques in the ACES program.
13. The counseling aspect of the ACES program is secondary to instruction and does not amount to the practice of psychiatry or psychotherapy, nor should a few paragraphs in the trip proposal regarding experiential teaching and social counseling be construed as such.
14. As is plain from the Barickman Affidavit, the trip is educational in purpose and nature.
15. Petitioner refers in his Verified Reply to the recent litigation by Ms. DeBari and others in which she alleged that the District had promoted Satanism and third world belies in violation of her rights under the First Amendment.
16. Annexed hereto as Exhibit "2" is the opinion of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Altman v. Bedford Central School District, 245 F.3d 49 j2d Cir. 2001), which opinion sustained the position of the school district and directed the dismissal of plaintiffs' Complaint in all respects.
17. Petitioner refers in paragraph "13" to the District's alleged promotion of "Mother Earth" and to "worry beads"; such assertions were not raised in the Petition nor arc they related in any manner to the Respondent's Answer.
18. As such, Petitioner should not be permitted to raise these new assertions in his Reply.
19. For the foregoing reasons, the Commissioner should accept the within Sur-Reply for filing, and should dismiss the appeal in its entirety.
LAWRENCE W. REICH
Sworn to before me this
2nd day of May, 2003
IN SUPPORT OF SUR-REPLY Appeal No. 17507
STATE OF NEW YORK
BEFORE THE COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION
In the Matter of the Appeal OF JOSEPH P
GIARDINA from Action of the Board of Education
of the BEDFORD CENTRAL SCHOOL DISTRICT AFFIDAVIT
with Respect to Respondent's Alleged illegal
Subsidy of Voluntary Student gave: and Other
Frivolous Objections
STATE
OF NEW
YORK
ss.
COUNTY OF WESTCHESTER)
JOAN ESTES BARICKMAN, being duly sworn, deposes and says:
I have been employed as a teacher by the Bedford Central School Distract and have been assigned to serve in the Academic Community for Educational Success (ACES) Program since its inception in 1977.
2. I am personally familiar with the underlying facts and circumstances of the appeal, and I submit the within Affidavit in Support of Sur-Reply in opposition to petitioner's Reply Affidavit, which contains errors of fact and which raises issues not addressed in the Petition
3. As part of the ACES program of experiential learning, ACES students have been taking field trips integral to the curriculum since 1978.
4. This fact is well-known within the Community, and the program
brochure which is available to all interested students stresses that the program is more experiential in nature than the traditional Fox Lane High School program and includes a travel component.
5. The duration of the major trips and the distance from the Bedford Central School District has increased over time, including trips to Canada in the 1980 's.
6. These curriculum-related field trips extended Beyond the North continent around 1992.
7. Until the current school year, the educational component of these trips, along with funding for students who could not afford to pay all or part of their personal expenses, was defrayed through grant moneys available for such purpose.
8. Following the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001,the Board of Education instituted a policy requiring Board of Education approval for certain extended field trips.
9. Pursuant to such new policy, the Superintendent sought Board of Education approval for the proposed Costa Rica trip by ACES in February. 2003
10. Unlike previous years, no grant funding was available for the 2002-2003 ACES Costa Rica trip to defray the cost of the educational component of the trip, including the cost of chaperones.
11. Under the new Board policy, ACES submitted its proposal together with an extensive curriculum to the Superintendent of Schools for his review and approval
12 The Superintendent approved the proposed trip and forwarded the proposal to the Board for its review.
13. This proposal was initially approved by the Board on December
18, 2002 and the funding component was approved on. January 15, 2003,
14. As has historically been our practice, prior to the trip, a flyer announcing the trip, and its costs was sent home to the patents of ACES students. This informed parents, among other details, of the cost of the trip and of the availability of funds for any student whose family could not afford all or part of the cost of the trip.
15. In addition, a meeting for parents regarding the Costa Rica trip was held, at which time parents were again informed that funds were available for any student whose family could nor afford all or part of the cost
16. At no time did Francesca Legato, or her parent, ever advise me or my colleagues that she was unable to afford the trip or that money was an issue in her decision not to participate therein.
1. Had she made me so aware, I would have assured her that ACES fund raising would cover the costs associated with her participation and would have strongly encouraged her to participate.
18. In fact, I personally encouraged Francesca Legato to attend the field- trip and informed her that money was available if her family was unable to afford paying for her to attend.
19. In all the years which I have been a teacher at the ACES
Program, I have never known of a situation when a student did not attend one of the ACES trips due to a problem with funding.
20. There were six chaperones for the Costa Rica trip; three full-time teachers and one social worker, each of whom are regular staff members of the ACES Program; one wildlife teacher, a former staff member of the school; and a college English professor.
21. The regular staff members were engaged in their duties during the entire duration of the trip. t his included continuation of the lessons which were a Part of the six-week interdisciplinary unit which led up to the trip.
22. The wildlife teacher and English professor were engaged in ACES Program activities during half the trip, and as such, only half of their expenses associated with the trip were paid for with the appropriated funds.
23. The trip was the culmination of the interdisciplinary unit which included Costa Rican culture, Latin American literature, the relationship between the geography and history of Costa Rica. rainforest ecology and the
study of Spanish.
24. Many major assignments were carried out by the students during the trip. in writing, science and social studies, as a continuation of the unit which had been studied extensively in class prior to the commencement of the trip.I
25. Those students who did not participate in the trip had a parallel
curriculum with their "explorations" taking place on the internet and through the use of other sources.
26. Upon return from the trip, all the ACES Program students completed extensive research projects related to the Costa Rica unit.
27. I am distressed by the references to psychotherapy and psychiatric counseling and to the allegation that the ACES program is essentially a counseling experience (Verified Reply. 08)
28 It is a bizarre distortion of fact to allege that the primary or motivating purpose for the trip is to provide psychiatric and/or psychological counseling.
29. At no time did the chaperones "practice psychotherapy' on student participants, nor did the trip provide a psychotherapeutic i environment.
30. The Costa Rica tied trip was first and foremost an academic experience. as demonstrated by the detailed curriculum submitted as part of the trip proposal.
31. The curriculum is fully aligned with New York State curriculum requirements.
32. Far the foregoing reasons, the should be dismissed.
Joan Estes Barickman sworn May 2, 2003