A former wood shop teacher at Norwich Free Academy is suing the school for wrongful termination, claiming he was forced to resign after bringing up safety violations in the school’s woodworking room.
According to a lawsuit filed in Hartford Superior Court, Pomfret resident Keegan Day was hired as a technology education teacher for the 2014-2015 school year and was assigned to teach woodworking.
Right away, Day “noticed that the [woodworking] room was deficient in safety systems and that its use presented safety and zoning violations/hazards that put the Plaintiff and students at a serious risk of injury,” the lawsuit alleges.
According to the suit, the wood shop lacked a proper ventilation system, did not have enough space for the students or machines, had broken or missing safety mechanisms and inadequate sanitation for eyeglasses.
Day brought his concerns to the department head in September 2014, who “seemed dumbfounded” to hear about the issues and said she was unsure of the regulations, the lawsuit claims.
He met several more times with school faculty, and in October, the academy hired a consultant to perform a mock OSHA audit. The consultant returned an 18-page report detailing the wood shop’s safety violations and, according to the suit, characterized the room as “an extremely unsafe working/learning environment with a number of very serious safety compliance hazards for both students and employees.”
The consultant recommended students stop working in the shop until safety problems were corrected because the violations “put the students and the employees at serious risk,” the lawsuit alleges. The school superintendent allegedly told Day those upgrades would cost at least $200,000.
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Day said the next month, the principal sat him down to review “performance deficiencies” even though he had only received positive feedback up until that point.
The principal allegedly told Day he would be terminated and gave him a resignation letter to sign, saying he would “never work as a teacher again” if he didn't step down.
The lawsuit claims Day was “frightened and intimidated” into resigning. He is now suing the academy for more than $15,000.
The school contested Day’s claims in a statement released Friday.
“Norwich Free Academy provides a healthy and safe place to learn and work for all students and employees. The health and safety of students and employees are among the Academy’s highest priorities, so no student or employee learns or works in an unsafe environment. All issues relating to health and safety are addressed, not ignored. NFA’s wood shop classroom, including equipment, meets all safety standards for its intended use,” the statement says.
The school added that “the Academy does not comment on personnel matters or pending litigation.”
