OXNARD : Teacher Suit Alleges Bias in Job Transfer

An Oxnard elementary school teacher filed a race-bias suit Tuesday against the Oxnard School district, alleging that she was transferred because she is Latino.

Cecelia Bishara, a Chilean-born, 11-year veteran of the Oxnard school system, filed the suit in Ventura County Superior Court, saying that the unwanted transfer spurred her to resign.

Kent Patterson, the district’s assistant superintendent for personnel, said Tuesday that Bishara was transferred to a bilingual first-grade class in a different school because the district eliminated the bilingual kindergarten class she was teaching.

Bishara’s suit charges that the district passed over equally qualified non-Latino female teachers and chose her to be reassigned when it had to fill a vacancy at the Kamala Elementary School.

Patterson confirmed that Sierra Linda Elementary School Principal Edmundo Chavez transferred Bishara out of her bilingual kindergarten class and assigned her to a bilingual first-grade class at Kamala School on April 26, 1988.

The suit says that Bishara’s doctor advised her to go on a medical leave of absence Sept. 9, 1988, because of her anxiety over the transfer. And the suit charges that the district refused Bishara’s repeated attempts to reverse the transfer, making its final refusal on Jan. 19, 1989.

Bishara quit her job the next day because of “risk to her emotional well-being” and her belief that the transfer was equal to being fired, the suit says.

The suit asks the court to order the district to pay Bishara lost salary and wages, psychiatric and medical expenses and unspecified punitive damages.