Shawnee school founder stepped on child’s hands, fired teacher who reported: lawsuit
Two former employees are suing the Christots Montessori School in Shawnee after they say the founder, Paul Steck, stepped on a 3-year-old student’s hands as punishment for not sitting still.
Veronica Hollinger and Cecilia Green say they were the only black women employed by the school and were fired after Hollinger filed a police report and called the parents of the student.
The women filed separate lawsuits in the U.S. District Court in Kansas last week.
Green’s suit says she was fired because she kept in touch with Hollinger, and Steck “didn’t want anyone working for him that was against him.”
Officials at Christots Montessori School, a private school for students from 18 months to 6 years old, declined to comment when reached by The Star.
The lawsuits list as defendants the school, founders Paul and Linda Steck, and director of the school Bethany Enyart.
The day the 3-year-old’s hands were allegedly stepped on, Hollinger’s suit says, a co-teacher supervised the classroom while Hollinger helped prepare a Seder meal for the school that the administration had asked her to work on.
When she returned to the classroom, Steck had entered the room and was unhappy that the children were not sitting quietly with their hands in their laps, the suit says.
The suit says Hollinger watched as Steck stepped on a 3-year-old girl’s hands as punishment for not keeping her hands in her lap. When Hollinger and her co-teacher mentioned the incident to Steck, he allegedly said “Well, maybe she will learn where her hands belong.”
Hollinger reported the behavior to Enyart, the school’s director, who said she would contact the child’s parents and “proper agencies.” When Hollinger eventually called the parents herself, they told her they had not yet heard about the incident, according to the lawsuit.
In April 2018, Hollinger was called into a meeting to explain why she called the child’s parents. She was told that a report with the “proper agencies” had been filed about the incident. According to the suit, the report blamed Hollinger for the incident because she had left the classroom.
It is unclear from the lawsuit what agency the report was filed with.
When Hollinger protested the details of the report, the suit says, Steck grabbed her wrist and yanked her arm.
Hollinger filed a report with the Shawnee Police Department and was placed on a “leave of absence” the same day, the suit says.
Around this time, Linda Steck approached Green about the incident. The suit says Green asked to be left out of it.
On April 29, the suit says, Steck fired Green via text message. He told her in a subsequent phone call that he “didn’t want anyone working for him that was against him” and was upset that Green was still in touch with Hollinger.
Hollinger and Green’s suits also detail concerns Hollinger had over the state of her child’s education at the school and the response by administration at Christots.
Both women are suing for wrongful discharge and discrimination. Hollinger is also suing for retaliation, assault and battery.
