Lycee leader banned from Audubon campus, says her daughter was bullied there

Posted by Robert Morris at 7:45 pm schools

Jan 302013

The interim director of Lycée Français de la Nouvelle Orléans was banned from the Audubon Charter School campus in 2010 over a dispute with a student, an incident she said this week stemmed from her attempt to prevent her daughter from being bullied there. Meanwhile, the school released a number of statements Wednesday addressing questions surrounding her hiring and other issues.

Gisele Schexnider told a classmate of her daughter that she would “see him after school,” language that Audubon Charter’s assistant principal interpreted as a threat and thus ordered Schexnider not to come on campus, according to a report published Tuesday by The Lens. Schexnider told Lycee parents on Tuesday night that the boy had been harassing her daughter, that she was simply trying to arrange a meeting between herself and the boys’ parents, and that her words were misconstrued by Audubon officials, according to a subsequent report in The Lens.

The school also released two statements related to the reports Wednesday. In the first statement, the school offered new details on its contract for legal representation by Adams and Reese that was mentioned earlier this month, saying it had retained attorneys Lee C. Reid and Jaimmé Collins for assistance responding to public-records requests from The Lens and to defend the school and two board members, Jean Montes and Paige Saleun, in a defamation lawsuit by a special-education coordinator who was fired late last year.

The second statement details Schexnider’s qualifications for the interim post leading the school. She previously taught French at Louise McGehee School, had part-time faculty positions at the University of New Orleans and taught kindergarten at the International School of Louisiana. She was selected in part because she was raised in France and advocated for the school’s opening to the French government, according to the statement.

Budd

It is factually incorrect that she was an assistant professor. She does not hold a terminal degree in her field and it is against policy and precedent at UNO or any other college to be entitled assistant professor without such. This is blatant misrepresentation.
- Actual current Assistant Prof.
  
  Stick to things you actually know about Budd. Plenty of Assistant Professors are hired at UNO and elsewhere without having a terminal degree. She may or may not have held the position, I have know idea, but this comment is factually incorrect and inflammatory.
  - Budd
    
    I know because I work around professors and I know because I have heard the same from administrators from three local universitys. The only part of her title in a university that rings true is the part-time faculty position.
    
    When one runs around saying they were an ‘Assistant Professor’ when one only has a Master’s it is a misrepresentation. This rank is the first of the tenure-track process and it is so uncommon as to be statistically insignificant for a person with only a Master’s to be entitled such at any 4-year college in the US (with a small but growing exception around business school faculty it seems).
    
    If you are in this position with a Master’s and no Doctorate then I congratulate you on your uncommon accomplishment. But she cannot have really held that title teaching with a Masters in French at the Department of Foreign Languages at UNO. Go ask them if you do not believe me.