Parents protest Wilson teacher’s leave of absence
Parents of Wilson Elementary School preschool students peacefully protested outside the campus Friday for the return of teacher Nancy Gonzalez.
Dozens of parents held up signs on the corner of Placentia Avenue and Wilson Street. Messages of “Ms. Nancy es inocente” and “We want you back” waved high.
Gonzalez “put herself on leave” after a series of events involving an end of school party.
Two weeks prior to Gonzalez’s leave, parents of her class voted to arrange a special lunch for her students on the last day of school. They planned on collecting voluntary donations from other parents.
Donations would have been used to purchase food, plates, utensils and decorations for the event at the Costa Mesa school.
“We, the parents, wanted to raise donations for the lunch and buy Mrs. Gonzalez a gift with whatever was leftover,” parent Bianca Vargas said. “Ms. Gonzalez never asked for any money at all.”
On May 25, three of the preschool’s parent volunteers met with Wilson Principal Julie Perron to get approval of the event. According to the moms, Perron had “OKd” the lunch.
Three days later, the women said the lunch was canceled after Perron received a phone call saying that Gonzalez was “soliciting the money.” The women and other parents said they have no knowledge of who the caller was.
“Ms. Gonzalez is innocent and had nothing to do with collecting anything,” class volunteer Rocio Patricio said.
According to Patricio, the women had also been told that day that they were not allowed to collect money.
Afterward, parents explained to Perron that Gonzalez did not seek donations and that parents had not collected any money so far.
“We wanted to explain that it was a complete misunderstanding and wrote formal letters of apology,” parent Leilani Garcia said. “We didn’t know we weren’t allowed to collect money.”
The parents noticed Gonzalez was not there to teach on Monday or Tuesday. Then Gonzalez’s preschool students went home with letters addressed from the school district on Wednesday informing parents that Gonzalez had put herself on leave. It said teaching assistant Catherine Marrone would teach the class for the remainder of the school year.
When reached for comment, Perron said she could not discuss the situation and directed any questions to the Newport-Mesa Unified School District.
District spokeswoman Laura Boss confirmed that Gonzalez is on leave but said she did not have any other information about the issue. She added that it is typical when an employee is put on leave for them to be paid while the matter is being investigated.
“She has taught our kids how to write their names and read,” Garcia said. “The children keep asking for her and we don’t know what to tell them.”