District Retaliated Against Ex-Assistant Principal Over Misconduct Probes: Suit

HIGHLAND PARK, IL — A longtime Highland Park High School teacher who alleges she faced retaliation for reporting misconduct by administrators filed an amended lawsuit after a federal judge partially dismissed her suit.

Amy Burnetti was hired as a business education teacher in 2009 and in 2013 promoted to chair of the applied arts and fine arts department.

Following the resignation of former Highland Park High School Principal Tom Koulentes, who now the principal of Libertyville High School, at the end of the 2016-2017 school year, Burnetti was promoted to assistant principal of HPHS.

As part of the administration of then-Superintendent Chris Dignam, Burnetti was involved in reporting misconduct, taking part in a Lake County State's Attorney criminal investigation and reversing a policy that allowed a child sex offender parent to be present on campus "in violation of state law and without required oversight," according to her suit.

In June 2017, Dignam's administration discovered the outgoing administration had destroyed thousands of school records.

"Ultimately, the new HPHS administration determined more than 10,000 documents were destroyed, and 10,000-20,000 documents were found in the trash compactor. The destroyed records included confidential student materials such as 504 Plans, student psychological assessments, Individualized Education Programs, and financial records, among other items," according to Burnetti's 21-page amended complaint.

"Other items missing or destroyed included a football helmet and equipment worn by a student who was injured during a HPHS football game and who later filed a suit for damages," it said.

This led to an investigation by the Robbins Schwartz law firm, and the matter was referred to the Lake County State's Attorney's Office, which interviewed Burnetti.

Around the same time, Dignam's administration found the prior administration had allowed a sex offender on the Highland Park High School campus, where his child attended, without supervision, as is required by state law.

Burnetti was responsible for delivering the news to the student's mother. According to the then-assistant principal, some members of the Township High School District 113 board at the time were friends with the parents and tried to reverse Dignam's decision to ban the registered sex offender from campus during the 2017-18 school year.

The parents contacted the District 113 board's outside attorney, Anthony Loizzi, to try to reverse the decision and tried to meet with with Burnetti to convince her to reverse the decision, but she could not, according to her suit.

In the spring of 2018, the board arranged for a $300,000 negotiated resignation with Dignam.

In July 2018, Burnetti renewed her contract as assistant principal for the 2018-19 school year. But 19 days later, she was informed by the interim superintendents that she had been demoted back to her position as department chair, and now-Highland Park High School Principal Debbie Finn was hired on an interim basis at a special board meeting that month.

Burnetti alleges that Finn "has has professional and personal ties with the prior HPHS administration, Koulentes, [and former Assistant Principals Eileen] McMahon, and [Casey] Wright, who were then under investigation by the State’s Attorney’s office."

According to her suit, one of the reasons Finn and members of the board demoted her was because of her participation in the investigation into the outgoing HPHS administration — actions that were protected by the Illinois Whistleblower Act.

Following the removal of Dignam, District 113 General Counsel Anthony Loizzi asked Lake County prosecutors to drop the probe, stating that the district "has no interest in pursuing any criminal charges or further criminal investigation," even though "it was earlier determined, and was relayed to the Board, that Mr. Loizzi had a personal relationship with the former HPHS Principal who was under investigation, which created a conflict of interest or an appearance of a conflict of interest," Burnetti alleges.

During the 2018-19 and 2019-20 school years, Burnetti says she told Finn's administrative team that the father of the HPHS student registered as a sex offender was not supposed to be on campus — pointing out that the district had sent letters to the parents notifying them that the father could not be on campus, subject to statutory exemptions, according to her complaint.

"Despite the statutory prohibition, the father on the child sex offender list was (and is) permitted back on the HPHS campus," it said.

In December 2019, Finn notified Burnetti she was demoted again for the 2020-21 school year, citing "inappropriate" behavior during a meeting, the complaint alleged.

And in February 2020, the board asked Burnetti to voluntarily resign as department chair — despite receiving a letter from faculty objecting to her removal — or face a public "notice of non-renewal." But Burnetti, who refused to resign, was unable to present evidence to rebut the allegations due to restrictions associated with the COVID-19 virus.

After the second demotion, Burnetti retained attorney Noelle Brennan, who first filed a federal lawsuit on her behalf in April 2021 against the board, Finn, former co-interim Superintendents Ben Martindale and Linda Yonke and former board members Lizzy Garlovsky and Debbie Hymen.

On May 4, U.S. District Judge John Tharp partially granted a motion to dismiss Burnetti's complaint but provided her the opportunity to file an amended version.

Tharp ruled that Burnett's claims relating to her 2018 demotion were not filed within the two-year statute of limitations, but the board and the individual defendants could still be liable for allegations relating to her demotion in 2019.

Burnetti filed her amended complaint May 12.

In response to an inquiry regarding the district's reversal of the decision banning a sex offender from the campus, District 113 spokesperson Karen Warner said in an email that previous superintendents, interim superintendents and present superintendent have all followed the law.

Highland Park Patch asked how many registered sex offenders who have been specifically permitted to be on District 113 campuses.

"Publicly available court records reflect this information" Warner said, "but District 113 does not comment on matters pertaining to individual students or their parents."