School Workers Appeal for Order Against Gadfly

Calling Rick Selan a “workplace menace” who has caused them anxiety attacks, migraines and high blood pressure, 13 Los Angeles Unified School District employees sought a restraining order Wednesday against the special education gadfly and former school board candidate.

“We really feel that at this point, he’s become dangerous,” said Sharon Giglio, assistant principal at Mark Twain Middle School in Venice, where Selan taught math for 22 years until 1999.

Giglio was among a group of staffers--all women--who went to Los Angeles Superior Court seeking an order to keep Selan away from them. The school district is representing the group, whose members range from administrators to secretaries.

Selan, who ran unsuccessfully for the school board earlier this year, called the women’s complaints hogwash. He accused the school district of wasting tax dollars as it tries to silence him and other special education advocates.

Selan offers free representation for students whose low-income parents are seeking special education services from the district. Most of his clients live on the Westside in District D, where his activism is concentrated.

“They’re retaliating against these people’s children to get back at me,” he said.

The parents of Selan’s clients said that without his help--and his confrontational style--the district would ignore their children.

“Because of Rick my children want to go to school in spite of everything that has been done to them,” said Mary Danehy, who has twin girls with learning disabilities. Another special education advocate, Loren Grossman, said of Selan: “Absolutely, he is a person who’s not the most refined in his responses. However . . . he does nothing but promote the best interests of the child.”

As a half-dozen parents and two dozen district employees waited Wednesday in a courthouse cafeteria for Selan’s attorney and the district’s lawyer to settle the case without a hearing, the school staff described how one 52-year-old retiree with a fax machine and a cane has come to dominate their jobs.

As many as five times a day, they said, Selan blasts school offices with haranguing faxes, which he sends to Board of Education members, reporters, City Hall and, occasionally, Gov. Gray Davis. Selan’s accusers said that in his regular telephone calls and visits to their campuses, he is loud, intimidating and threatening to nearly everyone he deals with.

According to district employees, secretaries hide from Selan, administrators pop extra blood-pressure pills when they hear his voice, and some teachers and parents refuse to go to meetings that he attends.

“This is the classic case of a bully,” said Ivan Spiegel, a parent at Twain Middle School.

In all, Spiegel and 28 school district employees filed 138 pages of declarations and exhibits in Los Angeles County Superior Court to support the need for a restraining order against Selan.

“People are very afraid of him,” said Sgt. Jeff Crawford, who supervises security in District D.

“He takes up all my time,” Crawford said.

Instead of holding a hearing Wednesday, Judge Aurelio Munoz asked the attorneys to try to settle the case and report to him this morning.

An out-of-court settlement already prevents Selan from visiting Twain, his former school, when Principal Yvonne Noble is there. The settlement was the result of Noble’s attempt to obtain a restraining order last year.

Staff members at Twain said Selan has been a nuisance for seven years, but it took a call to the FBI by another school’s principal before the district agreed to take Selan to court. The school district is too concerned with his 1st Amendment rights, Noble said.

“They don’t push the issue because they’re afraid of a lawsuit,” she said.

The district’s attorney, William Trejo said, “We understand our limitations and Mr. Selan’s right to access to public facilities.”

The dispute between Selan and the school district is tinged with the passions that often flare when special education is involved. Parents complain of unresponsive bureaucracies. On the schools’ side, administrators and teachers accuse parents of abusing the system to get special treatment.

The women seeking to keep Selan away from them contend that his aggressive pursuit of special education programs for students with various disabilities is a cover for a years-old vendetta against the district.

“He uses the children as a way to get to us. He doesn’t care about them,” said Giglio, Twain’s assistant principal.