RI Central - Avanzato lays cards on the table, explains lawsuit

North Kingstown School Comittee hopeful Lynda Avanzato says her pending litigation against the district won't pose a conflict if elected

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NORTH KINGSTOWN — Lynda Avanzato is a mother, an attorney and an endorsed Democratic candidate for North Kingstown School Committee.

She and her husband Joseph are also suing the North Kingstown school department.

In addition to the school department the Avanzato lawsuit cites former Superintendent Dr. James Halley, Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) employee Patricia Watkins and DCYF Director Patricia Martinez — in her capacity as director of the agency — as defendants for violating their son Michael’s medical confidentiality.

“This case is about our son and our child and our family and actions taken against him by James Halley,” Avanzato said in an interview last week.

Ultimately, she said, the suit is also about retaliation her family endured as a result of being outspoken critics of Dr. Halley’s administration.

The pending litigation is being handled by the Rhode Island Interlocal Risk Management Trust rather than school department attorneys.

Avanzato has not sought an advisory opinion from the Rhode Island Ethics Commission on her decision to run for office in light of the case, but said she is confident recusing herself from School Committee votes and discussions related to pending litigation against the district would cure the conflict, should she be elected.

“I did research ethics opinions and found some similar cases where the Ethics Commission said there was no conflict as long as the officials recused themselves. In fact there is a case as close as East Greenwich where a candidate ran for office in the last election and has pending litigation against the district there,” she said.

Avanzato said she also sought opinions from at least three other attorneys on the matter who advised her there was no conflict as long she recused herself from dicussions relating to her case.

“This won’t prevent me from voting on the key matters of running the school district,” Avanzato said. “There’s no way in this country that a citizen loses the right to run for office simply because they have a pre-existing legitimate legal claim against a government entity for abuse of power and retaliation, or any other violations of the citizen’s rights.”

In 2005 while on a family vacation in Mexico, Michael Avanzato contracted a parasite called cryptosporidium. The parasite caused a brain complication called psuedo tumor cerebri (PTC) that acts much like a brain tumor by putting pressure on the brain and causing dizziness, nausea and severe headaches. If unrelieved, the condition can cause blindness.

At the time Michael contracted the illness, he was a fifth grader at Stony Lane. His condition caused him to miss the remainder of the 2004-05 school year from February on. He returned to school in September to start the 2005-06 school year but suffered periodic relapses which resulted in additional absences during his sixth grade year.

The Avanzatos worked with the school department to set up at-home tutoring sessions for Michael while he was unable to attend regular classes. Avanzato said two of those sessions had to be cancelled because her son was too sick to meet with his tutor.

Avanzato said due in large to the care and consideration shown by his teachers and tutors, her son managed to get straight As during his illness.

The lawsuit centers around a meeting held May 22, 2006 between Halley, Watkins, school department social worker Joan Hurley, school truant officer Jim Baker and Ruthanne Logan, who was Michael’s principal at the time.

“The school social worker and truant officer both testified they felt the meeting was totally inappropriate and that they felt our confidentiality was violated, Michael’s confidentiality was violated and they felt there was motivation other than the best interest of the child,” she said.

It was months afterward and “through the grapevine” that the Avanzatos learned a meeting on Michael’s condition had taken place and that a DCYF representative had been present.

“We first found out about the meeting we initially sent communications to the principal and the superintendent trying to find out what had occurred because there was no parental notification,” she said.

The Avanzatos were told who attended the meeting but not what was discussed. After receiving verification that Watkins, a DCYF employee, was present, the Avanzatos wrote to DCYF to ask about the nature of the meeting.

In a reply letter to their inquiry, DCYF stated that their agency had not authorized an employee to attend such a meeting.

“At the meeting we weren’t there, the teachers weren’t there, the tutors weren’t there, no one who had any information about what was going on with the child in the home was there. So, it really made no sense,” she said.

“We got stonewalled, we got completely stonewalled. They would not even answer questions about what was discussed or what happened at the meeting,” she said.

Avanzato said she and her husband then went to the School Committee “at least three times in writing” and submitted a formal request to have their inquiry put on the agenda.

“It never get any further than the chair [Donald DeFedele]. I don’t know if [the School Committee] even took a vote on putting it on the agenda,” she said.

The Avanzatos filed their suit on March 7, 2007 and are seeking unspecified damages.

“Going forward, we really wanted to find out what happened at that meeting, we were very concerned, and we went through the proper channels, the chain of command,” she said. “We were really left with no other recourse.”

In addition to their concerns surrounding the meeting, Avanzato said they were frustrated with the administration’s handling of other matters relating to Michael’s condition.

At one point the Avanzatos received a phone call from Dr. Daniel McGregor, who was the special education director at the time, saying that after reviewing the medical documentation provided by Michael Avanzato’s doctors, a school department doctor believed Michael’s absences were unwarranted and that he needed to return to school.

The administration also questioned why Michael’s tutor had been “turned away” and, according to depositions filed in the case, the possibility of pursuing neglect charges against the Avanzatos was discussed at the May 2006 meeting.

When the Avanzatos explained that two of Michael’s tutoring sessions were cancelled because he was too ill to participate, Avanzato said the district tried to pull the tutors altogether, citing a concerns of “contagion.”

“We were going through hell with this. Our son was deteriorating before our eyes. The school department is supposed to help people when their child is sick, especially with a severe illness, and they were just adding to our burden,” she said.

In her deposition, Hurley said that based on her experience and familiarity with the situation she felt the Avanzatos took approprite action with respect to both Michael’s medical and educational needs and that she did not feel the “Avanzato situation was a situation of child neglect.”

In her testimony Hurley said was “didn’t know of all of the politics involved” between Halley and the Avanzatos prior to the May meeting but said she later became aware of the history.

When asked if, based on what she later learned she felt “the comments at the May 22, 2006 meeting regarding contacting DCYF were a result of the political situation between Dr. Halley and the Avanzatos,” Hurley said she believed “it was a good possibility.”

“We wanted to stop the harassment,” she said. “They had already tried to take the tutor away, they had already tried to get him back in school when he couldn’t even walk.

“We wanted to make sure we stopped these tactics against us because I thought, ‘what next, all his grades come back Ds?’ I really didn’t know what they might do next,” she said.

In addition to the unspecified damages, Avanzato said her family is also looking for recognition from the school department that there was never a basis for neglect charges relating to the care of their son.

Michael is well now, Avanzato said, and just entered ninth grade at North Kingstown High School.

As for her candidacy, Avanzato said she doesn’t want the suit to overshadow her goals for the School Committee.

“The incident that caused us to file suit is one of the many reasons I am running for office. As I became more involved, it was apparent to me that this was not an isolated instance and there were other inequities amongst schools and children,” she said.

“There are also many other issues that I addressed within the school department in the past seven years as an involved parent that contributed to my interest in running.”

Avanzato said she has volunteered in the schools and attended School Committee meetings for years, and is familiar with the educational and financial matters the district faces.

“Fortunately, we have now had a change in leadership in the school department, and many of the long standing tribulations have improved,” she said.

While Avanzato believes the district is headed in the right direction by “focusing on educating our children” she feels there is more work to be done.

“I would like to be a part of moving the district forward to better our schools and town. If elected to serve on the School Committee, I hope to continue to move forward from the divisive past towards working collaboratively with all North Kingstown elected officials in the best interest of all citizens.”