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TL;DR: Boss 19 years my senior sabotaged my relationship, offered me drugs for sex, and behaved in a decidedly sinister/psycho manner. The administrator, who is the boss’s brother, blamed me and fired me (not the boss). What can I do?
I am (was) a 22-year-old kindergarten teacher at a private, $2,000/month Montessori school. I was engaged to one of our elementary teachers, who I’ll call S. The 41-year-old director of the school’s 3 campuses (I’ll call him G) created a wonderful sense of friendship and camaraderie amongst the teachers; I considered him a friend and mentor. The guy was fiercely intelligent and charismatic, with a talent for making people feel seen and heard so you instantly trusted him. I certainly trusted him.
The three of us (me, S, and G) along with a few other employees probably crossed that professional line and became personal friends, but we were all dedicated to our jobs and pushed each other to do them well. Questionable things began to happen. G failed to meet licensing regulations for the most recently opened school, and in fact procrastinated for months in making S a legal employee or filing with the IRS. He was cutting him (and only him) personal checks, and eventually one or two bounced. On one of these occasions, the check bounced just before he disappeared into the mountains for a weekend retreat with his secretive mens’ group, leaving him unreachable (and S unpaid) for a week past payday. He also attempted to discourage our relationship, trying to set S up with other women.
Despite all this, he paid us both handsomely and fostered an incredible sense of community, and gave us more freedom and empowerment as teachers than we’d found before.
A couple of months ago, he started suggesting we all do psychedelic mushrooms together sometime. Shortly after, a panic attack (I have chronic anxiety) kept me home from work, and he paid me a visit at my house that night. I thought he might have to fire me – instead, he suggested that the mushrooms can cure anxiety and PTSD, and showed me the research to back it up. I had never done any illegal substance in my life at that point, almost never drank alcohol, never even smoked a cigarette. This guy was persuasive, intelligent, successful, my boss and mentor, and maybe I had a little bit of a crush. I can’t pretend like there wasn’t a part of me that knew this was not an OK line to cross, but he seemed nonchalant and charming about it. And, after all, he was the boss, so there was no way I could be fired for it. G took me back to his house (S came along, protesting the whole way that this was a bad idea), and after his 6-year-old daughter went to bed (large house, she was far away), I tripped with him for the first time. It wore off around 5am and he sent me to school the next morning (appalling judgment on his part; I had not known what to expect from the drug at all).
He went on to say that that was only a taste, the real emotional healing and psychological rewiring will come from a larger dose. He suggested that S not be present, and S reluctantly agreed. We tried again the next weekend, but this time G gave me 7 grams (I had no idea how much I was taking, and didn’t realize until I talked to S that that is an obscene and possibly unsafe amount). I lost my mind and became very vulnerable during that experience.
The next weekend, G had rented a yurt in the mountains for himself, me, S, and another young female teacher G had a crush on for a carefully planned mushroom trip experience. Because of thoughts G had expertly manipulated in and out of my brain during the previous 2 mushroom trips, I was having doubts about my relationship with S and we decided to separate the day we arrived. Because of his headspace, S decided not to join us for the trip, and the other female teacher didn’t feel up to it. It ended up being just G and I again – again, he claimed we were going to make great progress this time and dig through my childhood traumas and fix whatever ails me. We reached some fairly intense emotional places and G began telling me that no woman had ever “seen” him the way I was seeing him, in all of his marriages, that this was very special, a once-in-a-lifetime thing, that he was falling in love, etc. He told me (lied) that S was moving on and dating someone else, and he told S (lied) that he and I were beginning a relationship. He also told us both in a million subtle ways how wrong we were for each other.
The very day that S and I broke off our engagement, within an hour, G once again proclaimed his profound love for me and tried to kiss me. I felt very confused and more than a little unsure of what would happen if I refused, so I went along with it. G went as far as to suggest that the next thing to help my psychological amelioration would be to learn to bond and experience love, so he (I kid you not!) suggested that we do MDA or MDMA together and have sex, complete with a whole bunch of scientific pseudobabble about how that will create experiences of bonding/love in my brain that will make me a better person in general – better teacher, mother, friend, citizen. It was very bizarre.
I agreed to this to humor him (would NEVER have actually gone along with it) to buy time (he wanted to schedule this experiment for Saturday). I wasn’t sure if I should come forward about his predatory behavior, because if I did, I would have to implicate myself for having taken the mushrooms with him. I also wanted to wait while he still thought he had me swindled to see if there was anything else inappropriate or illegal he was going to try that needed to be reported.
For four days, G drove me to and from school. I mentioned to him that he had lost S as a friend, was more than likely going to lose him as a teacher, and was putting his school, his daughters, and up to 20 years in prison on the line. It was very disturbing – he shrugged and said, “The way you look at me is special. I’m willing to let Rome burn for that.” He also talked about being really into BDSM and tying women up, alluded to childhood sexual abuse, and promised that he would do no more than kiss me until Thursday “for delayed gratification”. Conveniently, my cell phone mysteriously disappeared during all of this, and G refused to let me use his to contact anyone. Many of his tactics were geared toward isolation.
On the third miserable and lonely day of this, I managed to call S from the school phone and disclosed everything. He was shocked and dismayed, and as we compared notes we realized G had been feeding us both lies and turning us against one another. We immediately reconciled and looked at the next step. I explained to him why I was afraid to come forward (would have to implicate myself) and also because the more G felt like he had me successfully manipulated, the more he said scary and incriminating things, and I felt obligated to get to the bottom of this if there was something that truly needed to be reported. I wanted to find out if there was some damning indication that G was dangerous and not merely sleazy. I was also afraid that coming forward might cost me my job, which as a single parent of a toddler I could not afford lose.
S was terrified for me. Around 2:30am Thursday morning, he called the school administrator, N – who happens to be G’s brother, and disclosed everything, also sharing his fear of what G might do to me if this went on any longer. N listened to S, man to man, and asked for advice, and when I went to N to tell him what had transpired in my own words, he shut me down repeatedly, refused to look me in the eye, and expressed no interest in hearing what I had to say. I finally had to say flat-out: “Your brother tried to give me drugs to have sex with me.” N shoved his head firmly in the sand, muttering a bravado “Sorry about that. I’ll take care of it.”
N asked G to take an extended sabbatical, and S quit on the spot, but ultimately decided to return to work through Christmas break while a deal to sell the school was negotiated (because the parents petitioned to have S reinstated, but S made it clear that he refused to work for G in any capacity). N met with S and I Monday night and told us that, because G is his brother and such a key figure in the success of the school, he will be severely reprimanded but cannot be let go. He also recognized that we cannot continue to work together in any capacity. So, he explained that he was going to try to sell one of the school’s campuses and throw S and I into the package as complimentary teachers. It sounded nice, but what it boiled down to was that he had no assurance that the school would be purchased or that either of us would be hired on. There was also no telling how long we would be without pay while all this was in negotiations. The truth was also that I was being fired without notice, with no chance to explain my departure to the parents or even say goodbye to the children, which reflects terribly upon my reputation and integrity. N did at least promise that he would pay me through Christmas break, and I could keep my son enrolled with the 20% employee discount on tuition. The meeting ended amiably, because all the catches hadn’t set in, and S and I were just overjoyed to have the chance to work together.
N, who has never treated me with any kind of dignity or respect (I always get the impression that he looks at me disdainfully as some kind of a frivolous wench), looked at and addressed S through the entirety of our meeting, despite S reminding him again and again to address me as well. N contacted S, not I, the day after our meeting, to clarify that he meant that he would pay me TO Christmas break (just a week away), not THROUGH it, and that the potential buyers need to take some time to decide whether they want to hire me. The reason? G had explained the situation to them with himself as the victim, even saying that I had tried to seduce him and showing them a fake text I never sent saying I want to take him to bed, etc. (SLANDER!!!) S insisted that N contact me directly and he eventually relented, promising that he would, but never did. The next morning, S arrived at school and saw all of my son’s things (he was home sick that day) packed in bags and waiting at the door. “I need to sell the spot to someone who can pay full tuition” he said. Again, he refused to tell me directly, but kicked my son out of school by just packing his things.
That evening, I stopped at the school at closing time to collect the last of my belongings, and confronted N. I told him that I was upset with the disrespect with which he had treated me and my son, and he cut me off, shouting that this was not his fault, it was my fault and G’s fault for choosing to do drugs, and he would not have that in his school, and I needed to leave immediately. I tried to call him out on having lied at the Monday meeting and he shouted over me, repeating again and again that he was done talking about this. Finally, I tried to get it through his skull that his brother was a predator and S and I had been coming to him for help, not so he could give us the boot (baby and all) and keep his brother onboard (after the unspecified sabbatical).
N countered that he doesn’t know whose story to believe, so he’s not worrying about it and just eliminating the source of the problem. It makes me furious, because he’s enabling a predator. Allegations like the ones I made need to be taken seriously, especially when this person works in a position of power in a school. I don’t feel good about just walking away, not because of my ego but because of the cover-up and protection of G despite his shifty behavior.
Who can I report this to? What can I do to hold these people accountable?
If you report it to anyone, even an investigative TV reporter, you will need evidence that some crime occurred, and then all details, including ones that you may not want to advertise, will come out.
You can look into whatever state agency is involved with private schools in your state, but again ... you will be required to tell the whole sordid story.
There have been enough bad decisions made by all parties. I suggest counseling for you to help you deal with your anxiety, decision making, and the resentment this situation has caused.
I second the professional help, you are just as much at fault for all this as everyone else. You engaged in illegal behavior and are mad at them. You are not fit to be a teacher or a parent.
He told you that he wanted to do drugs and have sex with you, so he was being straight up in his intentions. Yep, he has his own issues and is probably narcissistic. You made a series of bad decisions and you were fired. That's the story. Accept it and move on. If there are licensing issues with the school, report it to the appropriate body.
you're incredibly irresponsible. Anyone with children at your school should be made aware of your illegal drug habits so they can removve their children.
when I went to N to tell him what had transpired in my own words, he shut me down repeatedly, refused to look me in the eye, and expressed no interest in hearing what I had to say.
I don't blame him. Nobody twisted your arm to take drugs, have sex with your boss, and go to work impaired.
But in the meantime, you should call the main Montessori headquarters and report this school and its administrators, including the other dumb gullible teacher who you did drugs and had sex with.
Ahhhhh mushrooms. The problem is you can never figure out the dosage - one shroom may be light, the next one will blow your mind. Next time stick to just plain old lab created LSD.
I predict that the thread will run for 8 pages and the OP will never return.
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