Teacher With Damaged Voice Fights L.A. Schools

It was the maddening bureaucracy of the Army that prompted Joseph Heller to coin the term “Catch-22.” Teacher Maxine Russell believes that the Los Angeles Unified School District could have provided the inspiration just as easily.

The North Hollywood woman was a nominee for National Teacher of the Year in 1979 and has a long list of professional accomplishments, but, in 1983, a work-related vocal cord injury put standard classroom teaching outside the limit of her speaking stamina.

Today, after extensive work with two therapists, her voice is soft but audible. However, her vocal cords remain permanently swollen.

“I can talk for about an hour before it starts to go,” said Russell, 41, who is married and has two teen-age children.

She said that, for a year, she has been sufficiently recovered to do a long list of jobs other than standard classroom teaching, such as reading or math specialist, but has received little help from the school district in finding a position.

In separate actions, Russell and her attorneys filed for a disability pension from the state Teachers Retirement System and for vocational rehabilitation services from the state Rehabilitation Bureau, which handles workers’ compensation cases.

Won Funds on Appeal

A board denied the pension request, finding that, although Russell could not teach, she could do other work. On appeal, however, an administrative law judge awarded her a pension for a two-year period, from September, 1984, to September, 1986, because the school district had not offered her “a comparable position which she could qualify for and perform.”

Russell has received voice therapy and vocational counseling through the workers’ compensation case, but has yet to win her principal objective--an order that the school district either give her a job that accommodates her voice limitations, or pay for her retraining in another field. She has been accepted to USC’s two-year social work school.

Although Bierly & Associates, the company that represents the district in workers’ compensation cases, continues to fight Russell’s claim, some school officials concede that the teacher’s voice was damaged on the job.

“That appears to have been established,” Karen Hemingway, deputy director of the district’s contractual relations branch, said of the work-related nature of Russell’s injury: “We make what accommodations we can. But it appears that, since her voice problems were the main reason for her disability, it’s a fairly difficult thing to accommodate.”

Russell disagreed, saying she sent the district’s placement and assignments office a list of 14 acceptable job titles that a person with her certificates--she holds both teaching and administrative credentials--can fill.

The jobs include coordinator of a gifted program, coordinator of curriculum, assistant principal, director of a science or media center, integration coordinator and several others.

However, Michael Bordie, director of the district’s certificated placement and assignments office, said Russell would have to find such jobs on her own.

“Those kinds of positions we don’t deal with in this office,” he explained. “They’re quasi-promotional. They’re handled by regional offices.”

Russell countered that, because she did not teach for three years while recovering from her injury, her name and work aren’t familiar to administrators in regional offices or to principals, who can request an individual to fill a special post.

“It’s Catch-22 again,” she said.

Handles 8 to 10 Requests

Leon Cazes, coordinator of the district’s office of handicapped personnel services, denied Russell’s contention that the district does little to keep a good employee who becomes handicapped on the job. He said each month the office handles eight to 10 “reasonable accommodation” requests, where an employee asks that a job be modified to accommodate a handicap.

“About 50% of the time they get it,” he said.

However, he said that often the accommodation is clear-cut and easy to enforce, such as giving a downstairs classroom to a teacher with arthritis or providing a blind teacher an aide to write on the blackboard.

Russell’s request for reasonable accommodation--she asked to be exempted from assignments that include bilingual classes, music or team teaching--was turned down.

Had to Leave Job

Cazes said the reason was that last year Russell found a principal willing to give her a job with exactly those restrictions, making the accommodation unnecessary. Russell said that the principal later added team teaching to the assignment, and that with no reasonable accommodation order for protection, she was forced to leave. The principal was on vacation and unavailable for comment.

Sandy Sholkoff, a consultant with Career Options of Van Nuys, a vocational rehabilitation company, has worked on several Los Angeles school district cases, including Russell’s. Through workers’ compensation, Russell won the help of Career Options to find work with the district or in a comparable position with another employer.

“It’s not always clear why or why not the school district will take someone back,” Sholkoff said. “I don’t know how to say this, but the school district may not give a definite answer. They may string them along.”

Former students and those who worked with Russell agreed that she was an excellent teacher. Russell was among the Los Angeles school district’s five nominees for National Teacher of the Year in 1979.

Called a Caring Teacher

“You could tell how she cared about her students compared to other teachers,” said Graciela de la Cruz, 19, of Huntington Park. The Cerritos College sophomore was taught by Russell in the sixth grade at 28th Street School in South-Central Los Angeles.

“She tried to help everyone and a lot of the kids were like street kids,” De La Cruz said. “She had an incentives program based on points. You earned points for your papers or for behaving well in class. Then, at the end of a certain time, she’d bring in pictures and toys and all kinds of stuff and auction them. You’d buy them with your points.”

Etta Grey, Russell’s classroom aide for two years at 28th Street School, remembered the auctions.

“She’d have many, many things--books, pens, dolls, games that maybe cost $8, $10, $12 and a child couldn’t afford. She was an outstanding teacher. She really got the children involved.”

Spent $1,500 a Year

Russell estimated that she spent more than $1,500 a year from her own pocket on the incentive program and other bonuses such as musical equipment, classroom supplies and an after-school basketball league she started, as well as weekend outings to movies, plays or sports events.

Anthony Simien, 21, was in Russell’s fifth-grade class at 102nd Street School in Watts.

“She really pushes the students to the best of their ability and I’m really grateful for it now because it’s paying off,” said Simien, who is a senior at University of the Pacific in Stockton.

“She taught me more than subjects,” said Wing Ng, 19, a native of Hong Kong and now a junior at California State University, Northridge. “She taught me manners and things like that. I used to be really shy and she encouraged me to be in a play she was directing. I’d never done anything like that before.”

Injury Documented

The permanent swelling of Russell’s vocal cords has been documented by several doctors, both her own and those named by the district. She said the injury took place in May, 1983, at a nighttime advisory council meeting, which she attended despite a case of laryngitis. She said it was only the second time she had had laryngitis in 15 years as a teacher.

Russell contends that then-principal Robert Tafoya insisted that she speak to parents in the audience about a grant she had helped obtain, even though she wrote a note to Tafoya saying her voice was weak and she had better stay quiet.

“In the note, I said I’d type the answers and give them to him in the morning, but he told me to give them now,” Russell said. “I talked for about two minutes, then my voice competely went.”

Tafoya, now principal at a different school, said he doesn’t remember the meeting.

“I don’t recall asking her to speak,” he said. “I would never do that.”

Tafoya said he doubts the incident took place because, “If someone wrote me a note, I would save it,” and he has no such note.

As administrator of the district’s workers’ compensation program, Bierly & Associates investigated the incident. Officials of the company refused to disclose their findings.

Tafoya confirmed being interviewed by a Bierly representative. Russell said she gave investigators the names of two witnesses who would support her version. The two, still at 28th Street School, said they never were contacted by Bierly.

The protracted fight with the district has created financial hardship for her family and taken an emotional toll as well, Russell said. She described herself as eager to get on with something, whether it is a new career or a return to a position in education.

“I got my strokes hearing what a good job I did as a teacher, and I miss that,” she said. “I don’t like being idle. I walk seven miles a day, I do aerobics. I’ve read 150 books and I’m climbing the walls.”