A former occupational therapist in the Plainview-Old Bethpage school district gave emotional testimony Monday, May 19, against Karen Heitner at a hearing into the behavior of the former Pasadena Elementary School principal.
Heitner is accused of inappropriately touching two female employees, pressuring four older female workers to retire and harassing other employees. The hearings began in April and continued into this month.
She was suspended with pay by the district, which then appointed Kristin Seidel as the interim principal at Pasadena Elementary School in August 2024 after a series of complaints.
If proven guilty during the 3020-a proceedings, the district can strip Heitner of her tenure and fire her due to the allegations made against her. These hearings are not criminal in nature, but do allow for the person accused to defend their stance and for the district to release a tenured employee from their position if they are proven guilty. A 3020-a proceeding is typically held in-house, but Heitner opted to have the hearing be public.
The hearing featured firsthand testimony from Stacey Ross, a former employee for 17 years in the district. She alleged that Heitner inappropriately touched her at an end-of-year PTA luncheon and made multiple inappropriate comments toward her.
Ross served as an occupational therapist in the district for nearly 17 years. She had worked at Pasadena Elementary School until 2021, when she requested to be moved to a different school, only to be brought back to the school later.
Ross said that she never sought a relationship with Heitner during their time in the building. Ross said “she was my boss” multiple times when referring to their interactions.
The first incident involved in the investigation occurred on June 25, 2024, when Ross alleged that Heitner grabbed her butt and said “I goosed you.” Ross said Heitner then proceeded to kick and hit her.
The school district’s attorney, Christopher Mestecky, then showed surveillance footage of the alleged incident that was put into evidence.
The video shows Ross putting her arm around Heitner afterwards, and when asked about her decision to do so, Ross said she “had just wanted it to be finished.”
Ross said later that day she ran into Heitner in the hallway and the principal said “there is the ass-graber.” Ross said she replied, “I don’t put my hands on people, Karen.”
“I felt violated,” Ross later said at the hearing.
The former district employee described another incident as “completely inappropriate.” Ross said Heitner had told her “why don’t you stick your tongue in the whole and suck it out?” when she asked what was inside a pink and green donut.
The investigation also looked into comments Heitner had allegedly made that discriminated against age. Ross said Heitner came into her classroom in February 2024 and asked her, “What are you, ready to retire?”
Ross said multiple times that she didn’t think the district would do anything about Heitner’s actions, saying that “nobody survived being on the other side.”
In emotional testimony, Ross said her main reason for leaving the school district in 2024 was because of Heitner’s actions toward her. She said she “gave up a lot” when she began a new job at a different school district.
Christopher Donarummo, Plainview-Old Bethpage’s assistant superintendent for human resources and safety, had led an internal investigation in 2024 into all of the allegations in the case.
Donarummo gave other examples of employees alleging discrimination at a previous hearing.
He said Heitner asked one employee if they were happy and if they had wanted to stay in the building. He also said Heitner asked a different employee if they were planning on retiring because she wanted to move that employee to a lower grade level.
Donarummo said Heitner denied most of these claims when he spoke to her during the investigation. He said he spoke to the Pasadena principal on five occasions during the investigation.
The assistant superintendent said at a previous hearing that multiple statements made by Heitner during his investigation were inconsistent with his own findings.
Donarummo had said Heitner said she denied pinching Ross’s butt, despite their being video evidence to the contrary. He also said Heitner denied having any further contact with Ross afterwards, which is also disproved in the video.
Donarummo said in April that two employees filed notice of claims, legal documents that inform a party of a person’s intent to sue for damages, against the district. Ross confirmed on Monday that she was one of the two people to file.
