In addition, the board had already promised to speak with parents before any releases, she added.
Child study teams collect academic and, sometimes, psychological records on students to help place them in the proper classes and provide them with the necessary support, Roth said. As a result, the records can be very sensitive, she said.
"It's my responsibility to see those records are kept confidential," Roth said. "I was trying to do my job."
Four months after the incident, the school board accepted Johnson's recommendation that Roth be reprimanded and have her increment withheld.
Johnson declined to discuss details of the case, except to confirm that he cited Roth for insubordination.
The suit follows arbitrator Jeffrey Teener's May 1 ruling that Roth, who filed a grievance with the district over the reprimand, be given her incremental increase. In June, the board voted to appeal the decision, though an appeal has not yet been filed with the court, Johnson said.
"What she's looking for is the arbitration award to be obeyed by the board," said attorney Steven Cohen, who represents the NJEA in South Jersey. ''The board agreed to binding arbitration, and, ordinarily, you shouldn't have to go to court. It's extraordinary to have to go to court."
Binding arbitration is a provision in the teachers' contract, Cohen said.
The NJEA also wants the Chancery Division of the court, where the suit was filed, to add the interest that would have accrued to the increment since the May 1 decision, Cohen said.
Roth said she lost $2,000 in salary in the 1992-93 school year.
The board definitely intends to appeal the arbitrator's ruling, Johnson said.
"The NJEA beat us to the punch," he said.
A Sept. 10 court date has been scheduled before Judge Myron H. Gottlieb, said Cohen, who explained that Gottlieb would be deciding whether the arbitrator's ruling should be upheld without rehashing the case.
He predicted that Gottlieb would render a decision that day.
Ever since the reprimand, Roth said, her work has come under a microscope.
"I feel my performance is very carefully scrutinized," she said. "I felt I conducted myself professionally."
