One Teacher’s Road to Vindication
By Michael D. Simpson, NEA Office of General Counsel
What is your teaching career worth? In dollars and cents? If a school board illegally took your job away and destroyed your right to practice your profession, how much should they be made to pay?
It’s a hard figure to calculate. But last February, a Charlotte, North Carolina, jury was up to the task. They awarded Jeff Leardini $1,173,716 for the loss of his career, one of the largest verdicts in history on behalf of a teacher.
In some ways, this is a tragic story: yet another episode of a great teacher brought down by baseless allegations of physical contact with students. But this one has an unusually happy ending.
In an interview with NEA Today, Leardini described his ordeal. It began on April 27, 2006, when Leardini, a sixth-grade language arts teacher employed by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS), was called into
