Lee County Teacher Accused of Hitting Child Agrees to Settlement

May 25, 2008

news-press.com

The Florida Department of Education has agreed to a settlement with a Lee County teacher it was investigating on allegations she had hit at least two disabled students while she worked in Charlotte County.

Catherine Hile, 42, who teaches autistic students in kindergarten through second grade at Gulf Elementary in Cape Coral and the department agreed to the settlement Tuesday, according to the Florida Division of Administrative Hearings.

Terms of the settlement were not disclosed. It could not be determined Sunday whether Hile’s employment status with the Lee County School District was affected by the settlement.

The division itself closed the case Friday and canceled hearings that had been scheduled for this week in Port Charlotte.

The state investigation, which came to light in January, cost Hile a shot at the coveted Golden Apple Award, one of the highest honors a Lee County public school teacher can receive. She had been named a finalist in that competition, but her name was withdrawn after the school district informed the Foundation for Lee County Public Schools of the state probe.

The foundation runs the Golden Apple Teacher Recognition Program, which honors six Lee County teachers every year.

Hile was placed on paid suspension in the fall of 2005 while she taught at Charlotte Harbor Center, a school for children with disabilities run by the Charlotte County School District.

The News-Press reported in 2005 that Hile had been given a letter of reprimand in April 1994 when she was accused of using inappropriate language and hitting a student in the face. She also had been given a memo in November 1994 about her classroom environment. The memo said it appeared to be “unsafe.”

The Charlotte school board voted in December 2005 to accept her resignation. Assistant Superintendent Doug Whittaker said the district’s investigation produced more than enough evidence that Hile struck a student. She was accused of hitting a student three times after that child struck an autistic classmate the same number of times.

No criminal charges were filed against Hile in Charlotte County.

Hile then was hired as an exceptional student education liaison at DeSoto Middle School in Arcadia in January 2006. She was fired in March 2006 without cause under a state rule that allows teachers to be fired for any reason, or none, in their first 97 days of employment, DeSoto County schools Superintendent Adrian Cline said. That rule also allows teachers to leave a school district with no notice or reason in their first 97 days.