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District pays ex-teacher $225K settlement

by Nick Veronin

A former elementary school teacher who resigned from her position at the beginning of the 2009 school year was paid $225,000 in a legal settlement with the Mountain View Whisman School District, according to documents obtained by the Voice.

Patricia Polifrone, the former Huff Elementary fourth grade instructor who drew the ire of some parents for what they called "abusive" teaching practices, was paid $112,500 upon reaching the settlement around September 2009, and another $112,500 in January 2010.

The stated purpose of the agreement, was to "negotiate Polifrone's resignation from the District, and release all claims that Polifrone may have arising from her employment and the publicity surrounding it."

The settlement contained a "covenant not to sue" condition. It also stipulated that neither Polifrone, nor the district, were admitting wrongdoing in agreeing to the settlement.

The former Mountain View Whisman teacher was to begin teaching at Graham middle school at the beginning of the 2009-10 school year. She was transferred to the middle school after a group of parents of Polifrone's students at Huff complained that she verbally berated her students.

"This abuse has done so much damage to so many students," said Christine Fortes in emails to the Voicearound the time of the controversy.

In the Voice's online forum, some readers defended Polifrone, saying the concerned parents were overreacting.

Polifrone could not be reached for comment.

Posted by Adam, a resident of the North Whisman neighborhood, on Jul 9, 2011 at 8:17 am

Great more parents that probably want to shelter and pamper their little "princes/princesses"... even making a mess in their diapers (at age 5) is considered a heroic, special event worth of blogging about...

We've already seen this group of whiny, self-entitled generation from the beginning of the "everyone is so wonderful and special and should only be praised" experiment and we want to dial it up even more? It's part of America's downfall.

And don't think an entire new national economy can be built from people building poorly designed and hacked together websites so we can sell ads and eyeballs to one another

Posted by Moved Away, a resident of another community, on Jul 17, 2011 at 8:21 pm

The Polifrone debacle is an example of one of the reasons public schools are failing. Cowardly and apathetic administrators enabled her abusive behavior for years. Then they paid her a lot of money to go away. First we left the district to escape the horrible administration and put our child in private school. Then we left town to get away from the whole silicon valley mess. This is not the California we grew up in.

As for Adam, I'm not sure how your rant relates to the Poliforne disaster, but there are plenty like her in military schools. Send your precious treasures there.