DALLAS — A Dallas ISD kindergarten teacher, and mother of two students, has filed a civil suit against the school district, accusing it of discriminating against her and violating her First Amendment rights.
Anali Vidaña has been a kindergarten teacher at Mockingbird Elementary school for the past nine years and has two children enrolled in the district, including one who receives special education services. She argues DISD has retaliated against her for challenging discriminatory actions, as well as for speaking up on behalf of her son and opposing misconduct by her principal in reporting students learning English.
The suit says Vidaña claims DISD inflates the number of students that qualify as ESL to receive additional funding and voiced her disagreement over this to the principal in November 2022. But the principal reportedly didn't like Vidaña challenging these numbers.
Vidaña also raised concerns about the support her special needs son was receiving, the suit says. She had a conference regarding her son with the principal, an assistant principal and her son's three teachers to discuss the concerns, where the principal reportedly spoke to Vidaña very sternly and that she was only to speak to the people in the meeting about her son's needs.
"Following this meeting, other teachers were told by Huff to 'stay out of the situation' with [Vidaña's] son," the suit reads. "Huff used fear tactics to manipulate and control her faculty and staff into compliance."
Following this, the suit says Vidaña was made to take coaching and made to look incompetent.
The principal later reportedly told Vidaña she couldn't lead the school with her or her child in it because of "cultural differences between us."
”Huff thus stated directly that she could not work with [Vidaña] – or have her child in the school – because [Vidaña] is Hispanic," the suit alleges. "This statement was obviously discriminatory."
The suit states that further retaliation continued, including reassigning Vidaña multiple times and stripping her of her $4,000 annual stipend for teaching bilingual classes. Once Vidaña's attorney wrote to the district regarding the action, DISD restored the stipend and said there had been an error.
"Similar 'errors' continued to befall [Vidaña] when she returned to the Mockingbird campus in August 2024," the suit reads. "For example, she was excluded from a welcome back email, was not informed of a 'new rule' that classroom doors must be kept open, until the new principal publicly reprimanded [Vidaña] in front of her class and a Special Education Teacher Assistant."
Vidaña is seeking all amounts recognized as damages, interest, as well as litigation costs like attorney fees and any further relief that may be entitled to in the suit.
Dallas ISD declined to comment on the litigation.
