District releases teacher's discipline file

By: JENNIFER KABBANY - Staff Writer | Friday, December 16, 2005 10:56 PM PST ∞

TEMECULA ---- A kindergarten teacher facing charges of child endangerment and being under the influence of cocaine in the classroom had exhibited signs of drug abuse a year before her arrest, according to personnel documents released by the school district Friday.

Teacher Lynne Marie Filippini's discipline records state that in the beginning of the 2004 school year, she asked co-workers ---- including her principal ---- for prescription painkillers, particularly Vicodin, on at least 11 different occasions, the documents state.

In one instance, Filippini was given the painkiller Darvocet by a grandmother who overheard her complaining about a headache, and in another case Filippini asked and was given prescription Tylenol with codeine by a fellow teacher during the prior school year, records state.

Temecula Valley Unified School District administrators conducted a meeting with Filippini in September 2004 asking her to stop, which she did, said Assistant Superintendent Chris Cordner.

The documents released Friday in response to a California Public Records Act request also reveal more details about the events leading to Filippini's arrest last month. Filippini, 47, was arrested at French Valley Elementary School on Nov. 8.

On Oct. 18, Filippini exhibited behavior that included excited speech, intense paranoia, imagined sores and bumps, and constantly moving her tongue in a repetitive motion around her mouth, according to her discipline file. Administrators sent her to her physician that day, asking her to get checked out, Cordner said.

Officials sent her to her doctor again on Oct. 31 after incidents that day and a few days before of nosebleeds, which spotted the carpet and even a student's worksheet, the documents state.

On the day of her arrest, Filippini's nose was again bleeding and she was approached by the school nurse, who told her officials from her children's day-care facility at Rancho Elementary School called to voice concern over the bleeding they noticed when she dropped them off. Filippini apparently responded in a confused manner, the documents state.

Filippini then asked to be excused for the day, but by that time district officials had alerted police, who gave her a sobriety test, which she failed, the documents state. She also consented to her purse being searched, and police found "a pipette and two containers, which appeared to likely have traces of drugs," according to district records.

Since her arrest, the district attorney's office filed six counts against Filippini, one of which was a felony charge for allegedly having 13 grams of cocaine in her home. She is also facing five misdemeanor counts: two for driving to school under the influence of cocaine the day of her arrest and three child-endangerment counts, one for each of her two children and the last one for the 18 students in her class.

In the year between the painkiller requests in 2004 and the incidents cited on her behavior in October and November, no new discipline records were filed with the district.

Cordner said there was little administrators could have done differently. He said they told her to get help when she was asking for the painkillers and she stopped the behavior. In the weeks leading up to her arrest, administrators sent her to her doctor and she came back with clearance to work.

"If you don't have the basis, just the suspicion, then you have an employee claiming you are making things up that aren't true," Cordner said. "The principal all along has really tried to advise and get this teacher to, at different times, reflect and get some assistance."

Typically, it's the teachers union's job to get troubled teachers help, he said, and district administrators' hands are tied when it comes to cracking down on allegations and suspicion, lest it be accused of heavy-handedness and not following the rules regarding teachers' rights.

But Temecula Valley Educators Association President Bob Rollins has a different take.

"If you see someone giving a prescribed pill and you don't do anything about it ... that's something the administration should be following. That's not something I do," said Rollins, who was elected president of the teachers union in May of this year.

"If there were campus problems, work related and on site, then maybe they should have been investigating that and going through those steps," Rollins said of district officials.

Filippini pleaded not guilty and her next court date is Jan. 25. Meanwhile, she has enrolled herself in a residential rehab program, said her attorney, Steven Harmon, who declined to comment on the documents released Friday.

"I haven't seen the new information yet. I have heard some about it," he said. "I am looking forward to seeing it and right now we are still in the process of reviewing the information given to us by the district attorney's office."

Harmon said Filippini is doing well and is very serious about her rehabilitation program.

Contact staff writer Jennifer Kabbany at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2625, or jkabbany@californian.com.