Plainview-Old Bethpage district seeks to fire Pasadena Elementary School principal Karen Heitner 

The Plainview-Old Bethpage district wants to fire a longtime elementary school principal who officials allege made sexual innuendoes, inappropriately touched two female employees and pressured older female workers to retire.

Lawyers for the principal, Karen Heitner, called the accusations “outlandish” and “politically motivated.” They said that the allegations were made by a small group of "disgruntled" employees who resisted being held accountable for their poor work performance.

Heitner was the principal of Pasadena Elementary School in Plainview for about a decade before she was suspended with pay in August, after an alleged incident at a PTA luncheon last June sparked a district investigation, according to attorneys for the district and Heitner. Heitner made $202,258 in 2023-24, according to a Newsday database.

Neither side has publicly disclosed the specific administrative charges against Heitner but the district’s attorney, Christopher Mestecky, with Guercio and Guercio in Farmingdale, said she violated the district’s policy on sexual harassment and discrimination.

Hearings begin

Attorneys for the district and Heitner gave their opening remarks to state-appointed hearing officer James Brown Thursday at the school district office in Plainview. It marked the first day of a disciplinary hearing known as 3020-a, a state-mandated process that a district must undergo to terminate a tenured educator.

Such hearings are typically held behind closed doors, but Heitner opted to make hers public. Last year, Amagansett School principal Maria Dorr had also chosen to allow the public into her 3020-a hearing over allegations that she took a $25 gift card from another employee. A hearing officer last month cleared Dorr of all charges and she has since returned to work.

The district’s first witness Thursday was Christopher Donarummo, Plainview-Old Bethpage's assistant superintendent for human resources and safety.

Donarummo, who investigated the allegations against Heitner, detailed several instances in which he said he determined the claims to be credible and found the principal had violated district policy.

One alleged incident occurred at a PTA luncheon last June, when Heitner was accused of inappropriately touching the buttocks of two female employees — an occupational therapist and another staffer — and then saying, “I goosed you,” according to Donarummo's testimony. Heitner denied making the comment, Donarummo said. 

Heitner also allegedly made sexually charged comments to the same employees in the past and she is accused of trying to set up a third employee with a friend of hers, even when the woman said she wasn't interested, Donarummo testified. Heitner denied making the alleged comments but acknowledged trying to set the employee up with a friend, Donarummo said.

Heitner’s “repeated brazen” behaviors created a hostile work environment, Mestecky said during the hearing. She also provided false information to the district when investigated and had an “utter lack of remorse,” instead “blaming the victims and lying” to the administration, he said.

Heitner’s attorney, Arthur Scheuermann, of the School Administrators Association of New York State, declined to respond to Donarummo’s testimony Thursday. But in his opening statement, he said that what the district characterized as inappropriate touching was an “innocent glance” and the “innocuous encounter” was “distorted” into something “unworthy of any belief."

Scheuermann described Heitner as “an outstanding principal” who improved the academics at Pasadena Elementary.

When Heitner became principal in 2014, 48% of the school’s fourth graders scored proficient in English and by 2023, that number had increased to 83%, he said. Test scores for math also improved, from 71% to 93%, in the same time frame, according to state data.

As part of her responsibilities, he said, “Difficult decisions had to be made about poor-performing staff members."

It was not clear which employees Scheuermann was referring to and what performance issues the principal may have had with them. 

Scheuermann also criticized Donarummo’s investigation, saying the administrator had a predetermined conclusion and failed to conduct a full and fair investigation.

The hearing concluded Thursday without delving into allegations of age discrimination against older female employees. The next hearing is scheduled for April 22.

Nina Melzer, president of the Plainview-Old Bethpage teachers union, attended Thursday’s hearing but declined to comment to Newsday.

District spokesman Ron Edelson said in a statement that the district “stands firmly behind the reasons these 3020-a proceedings were initiated."

His statement read in part, “Since the defendant chose to make these proceedings public, the public will now have full insight into the reasons for the district's actions and the opportunity to observe them being examined in detail."

In 3020-a cases, the hearing officer issues a decision after the hearings conclude. It is unclear how many more hearings there will be in Heitner's case.

By Dandan Zou

dandan.zou@newsday.com@DandanZou

Dandan Zou covers education for Newsday. Previously, she worked for a community newspaper in Maryland and a personal finance magazine in Washington, D.C.