From the Law Offices of Brown, Brown & Young, P.A.:
Exonerated of All Charges a Year After Original Accusation; Given New Teaching Assignment
John Hickey, the Harford County elementary school teacher who had been barred from teaching and who once faced criminal charges after being falsely accused of biting a student, has been reinstated with full back pay and no loss of service time as an elementary school teacher in good standing in the Harford County Public School System.
The reversal of all prior findings and recommendations, and the reinstatement of John Hickey, were made by the Harford County Board of Education on June 25, 2012, following a lengthy court and administrative fight by Hickey and his counsel, David E. Carey, Esq., to not only clear Hickey but make the actual facts known.
On June 10, 2011, near the end of his 18th year as a 4th and 5th grade teacher at Fountain Green Elementary School in Bel Air, Maryland, Hickey found himself accused of biting one of his students on the wrist, and was placed on administrative leave. In August of 2011, the Superintendent of Schools of Harford County recommended that Hickey be terminated, and he was placed on leave without pay, pending administrative action; he was also charged with second degree assault in Maryland District Court.
From the beginning, Hickey vigorously defended himself against the accusation, appealing the rulings and findings. “The incident simply never took place,” he says. “I have no idea why the accusation was made, but it was a fiction.”
Facing not only the irrevocable loss of his career and the destruction of his family finances, but also criminal and perhaps even civil charges, Hickey retained David Carey, a principal in the Bel Air law firm of Brown, Brown & Young, P.A., to not only defend him, but reverse the findings in every instance.
“That a teacher as accomplished and beloved as John Hickey had to go through this was an absolute travesty,” says Carey, who has over 20 years of legal experience in personal law matters including criminal defense law. “Teachers, parents and students alike came to John’s defense as soon as the charges were made,” he adds.
“Nonetheless,” says Carey, “my client found himself pretty much a pariah — kicked out of the job he loved, targeted by vicious comments in the ‘blogosphere,’ barred from his coaching and umpiring Rec League duties, and made the subject of news articles that painted him as perhaps being some kind of monster,” Carey says. “And this is a man, a teacher, a father and a coach who has glowing recommendations, with hundreds or even thousands of loyal and grateful former students, and who had established a career full of significant achievements — for instance, in his last performance evaluation, John Hickey’s principal described him as a ‘MODEL EDUCATOR’!”
Carey says that he and Hickey had no illusions about how long it might take to clear his name, or what sacrifices might have to be made along the way. “Although we knew that the wheels of justice and administrative redress would grind slowly, we were committed to pursuing this until John Hickey was totally and completely cleared and his reputation restored,” Carey firmly states. “For instance, it wasn’t enough for us, for John and his family, to have had the criminal charges dismissed,” he adds. “Those assault charges should never have been brought in the first place. That’s why we petitioned, and succeeded, in having the charges EXPUNGED. So if you look this up, you will find nothing — and that’s as it should be! Because nothing had ever happened!” Carey says.
On behalf of Hickey, Carey spoke with dozens of witnesses. “I was astounded that pretty much every one I talked to offered to testify on Hickey’s behalf, including students, teachers, guidance counselors and others,” Carey states. Carey simultaneously filed appeals in the administrative Harford County schools process, and fought to have the charges dropped in Harford County Court.
After months of preparation, in December 2011 a three-day hearing took place on the “Matter of John Hickey” before the Harford County Board of Education’s Hearing Examiner, during which faculty, administrators and students testified. On April 17, 2012, the criminal charges were dropped by the Harford County States Attorney, and later all charges were completely expunged from the record. Finally, the School Hearing Examiner, in a written decision, stated that the Harford County Board of Education should “reject the Superintendent’s recommendation to terminate Mr. Hickey” and reinstate him.
On June 25, 2012, the Board of Education adopted the Hearing Examiner’s recommendation, reinstating John Hickey, restoring his back pay, benefits and seniority, all with no loss of service time.
“That was just about as complete an exoneration as we could have wanted,” says Carey. “It will never, of course make up for what John Hickey and his wife and family underwent in the past year, but all his friends and I hope that it will, at least, allow John to get on with his life and resume his career as an excellent teacher, and a teacher of excellence.”
For the 2012-2013 academic year, John Hickey has been assigned to the Third Grade at Deerfield Elementary School in Edgewood. “I am very much looking forward to returning to the classroom,” Hickey says. “Although I’ve primarily taught fourth and fifth grades in my career, I’m familiar with third grade, and I look forward to the challenge. I hope to really make a positive difference in my new students’ academic careers.”
Hickey has no doubt as to where credit for establishing the truth lies. “Truly,” Hickey states, “I want to thank Dave Carey and his hard-working staff — they gave me my life back.”
When asked what he regrets most about the way his almost two-decades tenure at Fountain Green ended, Hickey says, “There’s no question that what I missed most was the closing Promotion Ceremony that year, when the students say goodbye to the teachers they are leaving as they progress to Middle School. I was barred from attending, so my students didn’t have the chance to say goodbye to me, nor I to them. Many of their families, since, have called to say how much they missed that, too,” he adds.
John Hickey and his wife, Cindy, who is also a Harford County Public Schools teacher, are residents of Jarrettsville, Maryland, where they have raised three sons.
and what became of the kid who cried wolf?
Good question. My guess is looking for a good lawyer. If I were Mr. Hickey I’d take this kid for all legal costs (to include litigtion to recover) with interest and a mound of “pain, suffering” and anything else that suited my pleasure. I would shake this kid of everything s/he has or will have for years to come and a very public apology.
Yay! I knew you were innocent Mr. Hickey!I’m so glad they proved that you were innocent! Your my favorite teacher!!!
Well said, Mr. Jagdman. Apparently Mr. Hickey is the favorite teacher of a lot of students.
What is not clear from the article is whether or not the superintendent changed his recommendation for termination after a clear presentation of the evidence. From the article it appears that Mr. Hickey was reinstated by the BOE despite or in response to the superintendent’s recommendation. In either case, at the very least, the superintendent owes Mr. Hickey a very public apology. In addition, children and their parents who lodge false accusations of this nature must be held accountable. I would like to see one of our local delegation submit a bill in January to include punishment for students, upon adjudication, for the lodging of false accusations to be suspension or expulsion from school. False accusations of a sexual nature should have the harshest punishment. If students are to be expelled for possession of weapons or drugs why not for possessing of viscous LIES? Finally, his legal expenses should be paid in full either by the county or state government or through litigation that the county or state government pays for. Lastly, Mr. Hickey should be offered his old position back and not required to change schools and grade levels over this.
Well you see Mr. Hickey was my teacher once, and what i think happened, even though i know Mr. Hickey didn’t bite her, but if for some reason he did by accident, he was probably pretending to bite her arm and then she moved her arm up while Mr. Hickey was pretending to bite her arm and his teeth hit her arm but she knew it was an accident so she told her parents, “Mr. Hickey bit me today.” but she meant by mistake but hadn’t told her parents that so her parents got all ticked off and told the principal and then called the police and because of that, he never got to say goodbye to my grade and missed the goodbye ceremony. but the girl who told her parents was one of Mr. Hickey’s favorites to pick on. (In a playful teacher way) And all that was ruining Mr. Hickeys life and I’m just glad he got his life back and gets to be a teacher again because if they didn’t let Mr. Hickey be a teacher again, that would but throwing away a lot of potential!
And I know this is true because my father used to work at Giant with Mr. Hickey but then my dad got a new job and Mr. Hickey got to be a teacher.
The Superintendent of Schools recommended that Hickey be terminated? I guess the Superintendent has a lot of egg on his face over this one. Will there be a public apology to this good teacher by the Superintendent who sought his dismissal and placed him on leave WITHOUT pay?
The school system owes this teacher more than just back pay, reinstatement, etc. As to the student and the parents of the student I’m not sure what legal remedies might be available against them but they should be pursued aggresively.
I think we have had quite enough of the Superintendent. How much more will the BOE tolerate?
By law all school system superintendents in MD serve a four year contract. Local school boards do not have the authority to fire a superintendent within the contract years. The authority to terminate rests with the State Superintendent of Schools after a request from the local school board and must be for good cause, meaning a significant violation of ethics or a criminal act. The only recourse local school boards have in replacing a sitting superintendent is not to offer another contract at the end of the four years. Those that would like to see the school board replace Dr. Tomback (who is in the last year of his contract) need to make their opinions known by contacting their elected representatives at the local and state level, and lobby school board members to make a change. Remember, a majority of the school board will become elected positions in 2014. You may want to remind current school board members of that fact.
Did HCEA help him at all with this charge? I didn’t see that mentioned. I thought that was why most folks joined the union in case of false accusation. Maybe he wasn’t a member?
I really doubt it. HCEA seems to have other agendas and sticking up for teh falsely accused is not on their radar.
I’m wondering about HCEA too. Seems like their lawyer did not support this man. Perhaps he was NOT an HCEA member?
I am disgusted that an unsubstantiated accusation resulted in this man’s life nearly being destroyed. Really Tombeck? You turned on him because of one accusation??? YOU deserve to lose your job.
I would really like to know if he was a member because if he was and received no assistance from HCEA, I would like to know why. That is always HCEA’s biggest sales pitch – we will provide legal council. I’m starting to wonder especially if this man paid his union dues and ended up having to hire his own lawyers anyway.
I’ve been a teacher in Harford County for twenty years. Ten years ago, after nearly two years of taking classes, I finally completed the (33) credits required for my certification. Each course I took was pre-approved by the Board of Ed, in writing, before I enrolled, and as I completed each class, I submitted my grades as per policy. Imagine my surprise, after completing my program, when I was told by the Board of Ed that HALF of my coursework wasn’t acceptable! I was told that they were 40-hour pass/fail classes, and thus were not recognized by the State of Maryland. WHAT? I was so relieved that I had HCEA to back me, especially because I had all those, “This class is approved!” signatures as proof that the classes would count. Ha ha ha!! Not only did HCEA turn their back on me and basically refuse me access to their lawyer–I ended up having to hire my own lawyer out-of-pocket to plead my case! Needless to say, I am no longer a member of HCEA, since I had been told time and time again that if I ever needed a lawyer, HCEA would be there for me.
Just my two cents.
Is this guy Tombeck really the best HCPS could do? Lot’s of people at Aberdeen still miffed about the demotion fiasco and now this.
I come from a long line of educators in my family. All 3 of my children were the lucky participants of having this caring and talented man as their teacher. Not only did they learn academics they learned life lessons they will never forget, I would think we would want all teachers to aspire to this.
I had him as my fourth grade teacher I’m now 22 and I can see he was the worst teacher I had ever had. He was totally out of control always picking on me he flipped out and threw a chair at the chalkboard once and he would always let the pretty girls do whatever they asked. This is not an exaggeration this man most likely did what he is accused of and I can’t believe he gets his job back!!!
JDIZZLE,
The evidence is in and the jury has spoken. You have been sentenced to go back to school and this time you must get an education before you leave. The “smoking gun” that convicted you was the rant you just made.
Alex, I agree… I’ll also add please let JDizzle do his trolling and simply fizzle when we ignore him or heer or whatever… 🙂
Just voicing my experiences and opinons Alex
Apparently there was a really shoddy investigation performed by the current investigator for the local school system. It appears that Superintendent Tomback’s rush to judgment caused irreparable damage to Mr. John Hickey’s reputation!
It remains to be seen if Dr. Tomback’s evaluation is affected by this travesty of justice? Will the taxpayers be forced to ante up for another four years of Tomback’s tyrannical behavior?
Shoddy investigation results in school system liability which results in financial awards for the teacher.
Here is what I would do if I were Tomback. I would immediately publicly apologize to the teacher. Then I would lead the way in getting him re-instated. Any job he wants, anywhere in the system. Then I would publicly bemoan the poor investigation that resulted in this travesty of justice for this fine teacher. Then I would fire the investigator aka throw him or her under the bus. Then I would go to the BOE and ask for more money to hire a better investigator – one that I used to work with in my previous job.
But perhaps Superintendent Tomback has one foot out the door and is lining up his next gig so no time to devote to this. It is stupid stuff like this that increases the membership of HCEA.
Speaking of HCEA, I hear nothing of any role they played in this. Very curious.
Ive heard from a former coworker that he was not a member of HCEA. Not verified.
Why would Tomback apologize? Obviously he thought the teacher was guilty. Tomback is the one that makes the final decision on disciplinary actions against school system employees. Any recommendation for termination, even if initially made by a subordinate, must have his stamp of approval. Given that Tomback’s decision to terminate was overturned we can all reach our own conclusions about how the school board viewed the facts and investigation surrounding this whole situation.
There was additional info on another local site and they had this commentary,,,
“Harford County State’s Attorney Joe Cassilly says the case against the Fountain Green Elementary School teacher accused of biting a student was not appropriate for criminal prosecution…..Cassilly explained the incident was not entirely fabricated, but fell into the domain of something the school system could handle administratively.
“It was one of those crazy things where he was in the school situation and said to some student ‘if you’re going to do this, I’m going to do that,'” Cassilly said.
He went on to say that the student allegedly bit the teacher.
“The student did it, we think, daring him and perhaps he made a biting motion,” Cassilly said.
Cassilly said while Hickey may have held the girl’s arm, there was no other contact. Hickey did not bite a student, Cassilly confirmed. The incident was witnessed by other people who felt the reaction was inappropriate, but the girl didn’t file a complaint, Cassilly said.
“It just was one of those things that didn’t need to be in a criminal court before a criminal jury,” Cassilly said.”
So who was it that actually filed a complaint if the girl didn’t? And who decided to take it further? Looks like a waste of school system money on this one.
Since the student was a juvenile it have to have been the parents.
well when you compare the hickey marks on uncle jesse’s neck from ol johnny here to the kids alleged “bite” marks, you can clearly see they are not related
RETiredawhile, If you are going to post, at least have the civility to post it in English, instead of all of the code terms you are using. This contributes nothing to this discussion.
So Hickey didnt give a Hickey after all.