A Lesson in Mismanagement

The teacher's return, at least by the end of the school year, seems unlikely. During their investigation of Milhomme, district spokesman Henry Fraind says, Miami-Dade County Public Schools police videotaped Milhomme spanking one child with a flat, rulerlike stick; they interviewed numerous other children in her class who confirmed that she regularly struck her students.

Fullard and the group of like-minded parents at the meeting are adamant in their belief that Milhomme should not be punished. But they are more concerned with how that investigation got started in the first place, and why. He's correct in linking the Milhomme case to "elements" in the school opposed to the Edison Project: Norgan made complaints about both Edison and Milhomme.

"Maybe two months ago, actually I had some of Milhomme's students for reading," Norgan says. "I heard two of her students talking about how they got beat with a stick in her class. When I asked them what happens when they act up in their homeroom, they told me she beats them with a stick on the rear and on their hands."

Some days later she found a student of hers who had been in Milhomme's class for reading "crying his eyes out" in the hall. He told her he'd been hit with a stick. Norgan says she reported the incident to an academy director (the Edison Project equivalent of an assistant principal). When nothing was done, Norgan told her story to Eddie Pearson in late January.

Norgan refuses to apologize for reporting the violation, pointing out that, if it had been discovered that she had failed to do so, she could have lost her state teaching certificate.

The school police investigation, including covert video surveillance and interviews with children, led to Milhomme's arrest on March 1. In an embarrassing repeat of the arrest a year and a half ago of nine Miami Killian Senior High School students, who were carted off for writing a profane pamphlet, the State Attorney's Office didn't back up the school police with an indictment.

Another parallel with the case of the Killian Nine: The American Civil Liberties Union, at the request of a Milhomme student's parent, is investigating whether the school district violated the children's rights.

"We have very serious concerns about police officers taking children out of class and videotaping them without the consent of their parents," says attorney John de Leon, president of the local chapter of the ACLU. "It's a potential Fourth Amendment violation as an unreasonable search."

Henry Fraind, who, in addition to being the district's official spokesman, also oversees the public school's police department, says any police officer has the right to question a student while investigating a crime.

"If school board policy allows police to take a six-year-old out of class with no parental permission, then there's something wrong with that policy," de Leon says. He emphasizes that the ACLU isn't taking a stand for or against corporal punishment, a practice that Miami-Dade County Schools have forbidden for the past twenty years.

Much of the enthusiastic parental support for Milhomme likely stems from widespread acceptance of corporal punishment within black and Haitian-American homes. Also fueling her defenders' zeal is the suspicion that Milhomme was targeted because she is Haitian American. It has moved the race card to the top of the deck.

"I was at the first PTA meeting after Milhomme got arrested, and all the crowd wanted to know was who were their enemies," teacher Moses Vazquez says. "One gentleman tried to speak against paddling, and he got booed down."

Yet unconditional support for Milhomme is far from unanimous among parents at Reeves. Jasmine Farquharson's son was once in Milhomme's class. She has since transferred him to another school. "He was being beaten, and he wasn't learning anything," she says firmly. She adds that she has spoken to school police about Milhomme striking her son.

"I don't oppose corporal punishment," Farquharson adds. "If a parent decides to do it, it's his or her business. But kids go to school to learn, not to be beaten. If spankings are going to be applied, it should be a parent's place, not a teacher's place."

In the past two months, with all the investigations, accusations, and political agendas flying around the school, an atmosphere of paranoia has descended on Reeves Elementary. In a faxed response to an interview request from New Times, Dyes-Paschal declined to comment. "As you are probably aware, an internal investigation is presently being conducted based on allegations made by several disgruntled employees here at Henry E.S. Reeves Elementary School," she writes. "Until the investigation is completed, I am under strict instructions from my attorney not to make any statements whatsoever."

Dyes-Paschal may not be talking to New Times about her faculty, but she certainly is talking to her faculty about New Times. On April 16 she called an emergency faculty meeting to discuss phone calls she and other faculty had received from New Times. In that meeting Merri Mann, director of education and professional issues from the main office of the UTD union, told teachers they had every right to talk to the press, but that they should be careful of what they say and warned them they could be misquoted. Mann confirms her speech to the Reeves faculty, calling it a primer on dealing with the press.

At this meeting Dyes-Paschal told her faculty she believed hidden cameras and listening devices, like the camera supposedly used to film Milhomme administering a beating, were still in place in the school.

What followed, one witness says, was an impromptu search for bugs in the office area. As some half-dozen staff members looked on, one woman stood on a chair in the hallway near Dyes-Paschal's office, poked a broom into an air vent in the ceiling, and declared, "We've got it. There it is!"

Capt. John Hunkiar of the school police says there is an open investigation at Reeves, but will not comment further. Henry Fraind confirms Dyes-Paschal is being investigated for violation of the school board's corporal punishment rule.