Great Barrington teacher suing over book-ransoming incident resigns because school is not ‘safe’ for her | South Berkshires

GREAT BARRINGTON — The middle school English teacher who was questioned by police in her classroom last winter about a book and other complaints has resigned, saying the school district was “not a safe place for her to work.”

Arantzazu Zuzene Galdos-Shapiro submitted her resignation from her position as an eighth-grade teacher at WEB Du Bois Regional Middle School on June 10. Her departure was effective June 14, according to the Berkshire Hills Regional School District’s personnel report released last week.

In her resignation letter, Galdos-Shapiro said she wanted to leave her job for health reasons, among others, “which has suffered greatly under these conditions and the violation of my rights.” Her decision, she added, came after the “painful realization” that the district was “not a safe place for me to teach.”

District Manager Peter Dillon said he could not comment further other than to say he had received their communication.

The district has since posted a job posting for the position. Galdos-Shapiro has worked for the district for six years, according to her letter.

In May, Galdos-Shapiro filed a civil lawsuit in federal court against the county, city and police over the circumstances of the Dec. 8 incident in which a plainclothes police officer entered her classroom after school and questioned her about the illustrated book “Gender Queer: A Memoir.”

“Gender Queer” is a coming-of-age novel with an age recommendation of at least 14 years, according to several online booksellers and the School Library Journal.

Police responded that day to a custodian’s complaint about sexually explicit images in the book, as well as allegations – later determined by an investigator to be false – that Galdos-Shapiro had a student sit on her lap and had asked students to hide information from parents. In her court filing, she calls those allegations “baseless, false and defamatory.” The custodian, Adam Yorke, has since left the district.

That district-hired investigator also found that the district had violated its own policy when Dillon had given police the green light to allow an officer into the classroom that day. Dillon had told the investigator he had acted out of an abundance of caution, although he admittedly had limited information.

Another independent investigator hired by the city to investigate police actions that day concluded that a police officer’s visit to the classroom was “lawful and appropriate” under the circumstances.