Home > How Did Disgraced Pinkerton Teacher Get ’DEC’ Job Without A Reference From...
How Did Disgraced Pinkerton Teacher Get ’DEC’ Job Without A Reference From...
by WireNews+Co - Open-Publishing - Monday 5 August 2013How Did Disgraced Pinkerton Teacher Get ’DEC’ Job Without A Reference From Her Former Employer?
Headmaster says school reported crime to ’social services’ but failed to report teacher-student sexual abuse to police
Diane E. Kanady (formerly Burrell and Foster but known as "Deb" or "Debbie" i.e. Diane E. Burrell) was fired from her position at Pinkerton Academy when it became known that she had groomed and sexually abused a male student on a supposed ’school outing’ at Bretton Woods ski resort.
Foster was the IT teacher for Pinkerton.
Immediately following her departure from Pinkerton, Mrs. Foster, as she was known to her students then, landed a prestigious ’teaching’ position with Digital Equipment Corporation. Digital, or DEC as it was known, was a leader in IT at the time, founded by Ken Olsen.
Based in Maynard, Massachusetts, DEC had an office in Merrimack, NH, where Foster was employed.
The question remains: How did a teacher, who had been fired from her long-standing position with a ’reputable’ Academy, move so quickly to a new position with a large IT company without a ’good reference’ from her former employer?
What kind of reference did Pinkerton Academy give Foster after terminating her employment?
Mary A. Anderson, the current headmaster of Pinkerton, who recently and hastily announced her ’retirement’ following WireNews+Co’s exposure of the story, knew Foster well. They were colleagues at a small academy and Anderson was a rising star and maybe even the newly appointed Headmaster at the time of the crime.
Pinkerton refused to confirm when Anderson became headmaster and WireNews+Co was unable to locate publicly held information to confirm the date of her appointment.
According to Harry Burnham, president of the Board of Trustees, Anderson was the first female Headmaster in the Academy’s history and has been with the ’Academy’ for 40 years.
Starting as a teacher, Anderson would have known the other teachers working for Pinkerton well in the 70’s. Pinkerton, a very small ’school’ at the time, did not employ many teachers and had far fewer students that it does now. The crime took place a little more than 34 years ago. Anderson would have been in her position at the Academy for 6 or more years.
In fact, both Mrs. Foster and Anderson started working at Pinkerton at approximately the same time.
It may be that a newly appointed headmaster chose to hide the sex abuse of one of its teacher (perhaps a good friend of hers) to protect her rapid advancement. Even if Anderson was merely a colleague of Foster, she would have been aware of the former teacher’s ’relationship’ with her student, which continued long after Foster was fired from her job.