By:Jeff Lipton
For seven years, as public relations specialist and director of communications, Elliott Levine said he gave the Lawrence Public Schools his all and was repaid by district administrators by being denied the same benefits of a civil service employee - status he said he was entitled to.
Not only that, but Levine, 31, of Oceanside, who said he was credited with helping launch the Lawrence Public Schools into the 21st century through technology initiatives, was also pushed out of the district, he said, when the superintendent did not renew his contract in 2000.
Now, Levine is fighting back, suing the district for unspecified damages for wrongful termination, compensation for benefits, unpaid salary and retirement pension benefits accrued during his employment. A lawsuit filed in Nassau County Supreme Court on May 31 accuses the school district of violating federal employment and civil service laws during Levine's employment from 1993 to 2000.
Levine said he was denied the rights and benefits of a civil service employee and wrongfully terminated by Superintendent Paul Kelleher. He also said he was given the authority and responsibility of a full-time employee but never granted the salary, benefits or tenure given to all employees.
He said he was promised to be given civil service status, but it never came.
"I wish it didn't have to happen, but because of their employment practices, the suit had to be filed," Levine said. "I wanted to be treated as a legitimate employee like everyone else."
Instead of becoming a full-time employee, he received the same salary and benefits of an independent contractor, he said, even though he was able to sign purchase orders and check requests and was provided with the same health and dental insurance offered to all employees. He was denied sick time, retirement benefits, other employee benefits and tenure.
"If I was out sick for a day, I would have to make up the time or lose the money," Levine said. He said he underwent surgery on his right hand twice and was losing money, and he had to come back to work before he should have.
"Elliott Levine was not a civil service employee," Kelleher said. "I think the district hired him for a number of years as a consultant. And he signed an employee agreement [on this]. He was not eligible to be a civil service employee."
Kelleher said he will not discuss why Levine was let go from his job, citing it is a personnel issue.
But Levine said he was told that his writing was not up to par, which he called "bogus" because he had won more than 60 state and national awards in school public relations and educational technology and was regarded as one of the top school public relations people.
He said he has tried to latch on recently as a public information officer, the highest public relations position in the county, but was disqualified by Nassau County Civil Service from taking the exam because of his status with the Lawrence district. Now he is working for a computer software company based in Philadelphia. He is also a columnist for a national school boards association.
In 1993 he was hired as a public relations specialist in the Lawrence district. Four years later he was promoted to district director of communications. He said he also launched the educational technology initiative leading to the district's current growth in computer instruction. Since 1996, he created and managed Lawrence Online, subsidizing more than $50,000 in free Internet access to the school system and creating the district's nationally recognized school Web site, Levine said. In addition, he said he helped launch the Lawrence Educational Foundation, which has raised more than $150,000 for academic programs in the Five Towns community.
At the end of his employment at Lawrence, he was making $57,000, which was well below what others in his field were earning, he said.
He even enrolled in and passed the civil service exams for a public school public relations position in 1997 and was assured by current district administrators that he would be properly hired through Nassau County Civil Service, he said. When Lawrence found out that Levine was considering leaving the district because he was not given the status he wanted, he said he was promised his status would change soon. In his two years working with Levine, Kelleher said he never personally promised him anything. "I vehemently deny that we broke any laws," Kelleher said.
In June 2000, Kelleher notified Levine he was "relieving him of his duties" without cause or prior warnings and refused to renew Levine's contract for the 2000-2001 school year, Levine said. "I was crushed," Levine said. "At first it was complete shock. I was being tossed out of a place I had grown up in and had come to know and love."
Levine said he would have been protected under tenure if the district had adhered to federal and state labor laws.
The school district currently employs three people to perform most of his former duties, he said.
Al D'Agostino, legal counsel to the school board, said he would not comment on the lawsuit.
Levine said he hated to file a lawsuit against a district he still holds dear, but administrators left him no other choice.
