Elementary teacher fighting for her job 8 years after comments about a clown suit and guns

Diane Baumann, a veteran Palm Beach County teacher, has faced years of eyebrow-raising allegations. Now, the 52-year-old woman is fighting to keep her job.

Baumann — who told co-workers in 2014 at South Grade Elementary that she was stressed and "going to be up in a tower in a clown suit with a rifle" — will soon appear before an administrative law judge, fighting the school district’s recent attempt to oust her.

The school district has investigated Baumann at least six times in eight years, with the most recent questions arising in February, according to a Palm Beach Post review of more than 1,000 pages of public documents.

An in-depth look: School district fires teacher who once joked about clown suits and guns

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Most recently a teacher at K.E. Cunningham/Canal Point Elementary in the Glades, the longtime teacher is now accused of telling one student “f*** you” and threatening to stick a pencil up another student’s nose.

A third student said in a written statement that Baumann told him to "jump off a cliff."

Baumann, who denied the most recent allegations, also faced repeated questions at Diamond View Elementary School in Greenacres between 2019 and 2021. School leaders had accused her of keeping vague lesson plans, disregarding COVID-19 policies and failing to keep accurate student records.

Superintendent Mike Burke recommended Baumann's termination in June after the latest investigation, and the school board approved her firing a month later. Baumann then filed a challenge with the Division of Administrative Hearings in August.

A two-day hearing is scheduled for Feb. 8-9 in West Palm Beach.

Baumann will remain on unpaid suspension during the appeals process, according to her termination letter. Her attorney, Mark Wilensky, did not respond to a request for comment.

Baumann's trouble started with gun comments in 2014

Baumann started as a teacher at West Riviera Elementary in 1998 and earned positive evaluations for years.

It appears she avoided trouble until the incident at South Grade Elementary in Lake Worth Beach in 2014.

Along with making the comment about a clown suit and a rifle, she reportedly named “five people who worked at the school she would shoot if she brought a gun to the school,” according to a police report.

The teacher later told police she was joking, and she told school district leaders that her clown comment was referencing an episode of the TV sitcom "Roseanne."

The Post has since confirmed that in Season 6, Episode 5, actor Roseanne Barr says, "You're going to be shooting people from a tower in a clown suit."

Several co-workers said in police interviews that Baumann was known for making comments about weapons and wanting to hurt people. But most of those colleagues also vouched for the troubled teacher. She dealt with struggles in her personal life, they said, and she felt overwhelmed and unsupported at school.

“She seems very frustrated at times when handling her classroom challenges,” a co-worker said in her police statement. “Diane does not have a mean bone in her body. Diane enjoys talking to people. She would never harm another person.”   

Police deemed the gun scare an administrative matter, and the school district suspended Baumann for 10 days without pay. Around the same time, the Florida Department of Education conducted its own review and said, "Further action by this office is not warranted."

Teacher previously escaped firing with help from union

But in August 2021, after Baumann faced repeated questions about her behavior and the quality of her work at Diamond View Elementary, the superintendent tried to fire her.

The school board was prepared to vote on Baumann's termination about two weeks later. On the day of that meeting, the union president intervened.

“I think most of you can attest that in my 5 years as CTA president, I have rarely, if ever communicated about employee terminations," Justin Katz said in an email to board members. "But this one is suspect and deserves review to protect yourselves from a potential wrongful termination."

The district opened another investigation into Baumann without informing her of the allegations, he said, calling it a "fishing expedition." He also said the superintendent moved immediately to firing the teacher instead of following "progressive discipline practices," which usually start with a verbal reprimand before escalating to a written reprimand, unpaid suspension and then termination.

"This email is not some sort of defense of the employee on my behalf because as I have stated, I only know so much about the situation," Katz said at the time.

"But what little I do know leads me to believe it would behoove the board to be better safe than sorry, given that there are a number of suspect actions that led to this termination request," he continued.

Burke then reversed his decision before the school board could vote.

School district says Baumann repeatedly warned before firing

After the new allegations arose at Canal Point Elementary this year, attorneys for the school district have worked to justify Baumann's termination.

In a filing with the Division of Administrative Hearings, they said Baumann received plenty of warning in the past, including the 10-day unpaid suspension for her gun comments in 2014. She also received at least two written reprimands in 2020 for insubordination and failure to complete job responsibilities.

And in 2021, Principal Derrick Hibler held two meetings with Baumann, once after she "allegedly threatened to physically harm a student," and again for "speaking loudly in the afternoons and being confrontational with students," according to the school district.

Baumann will now have a chance to present evidence and fight her termination at the two-day hearing in early 2023.

Giuseppe Sabella is an education reporter at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at gsabella@pbpost.com. Help support our journalism and subscribe today. 

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Palm Beach County teacher appeals firing years after clown/gun joke