Fired Winnetka School Teacher Gets $71,000 in Settlement

Winnetka School District 36 has reached a settlement with David Wartik, a fourth grade teacher whom the school fired last spring, according to the Chicago Tribune. The school will pay Wartik $71,000, and the agreement calls for silence from both sides, with the exception of this statement released by District 36 to the Chicago Tribune:

"The Board of Education terminated David Wartik for insubordinate and unprofessional conduct. David Wartik denied the charges and requested a hearing before an impartial hearing officer, as was his right under the Illinois School Code. Prior to a scheduled three-day hearing, he and the District entered into a settlement agreement that included his withdrawal of the request for hearing."

A Patch article from April 2012 noted that the Winnetka Public Schools Board voted unanimously to dismiss Wartik in mid-March. Wartik, who had been teaching at Hubbard Woods Elementary for 12 years, had been on leave at the time due to concerns about the Evanston police investigation into a possible incident that happened in the late 1990s at a private North Shore school.

The board dismissed him because of what it termed as Wartik's "purposeful obstruction" of the district's investigation, not because of the police investigation itself.

The police investigation was dropped in early April 2012.