Pettit seeks $600,000 in damages from DUSD

Douglas Unified Schoolo District Board members met for more than an hour in executive session with their attorney cojncernign a $600,000 claim filed again st the district by current Superintendent Earl Pettit.

The board did not announce a final decision about the claim July 12 to make a final decision.

The board indicated they may have another special meeting this month, and its next regular meeting is Tuesday, July 7.

The board met on Thursday,k June 18 to discuss the matter. Superintendent Pettit was not present.

There has been a nning seres of conflicts between Pettit and some members of the  board for months.

There have been  conflicts between Pettit and Stevenson School, with parents over plans to split the school into K-3 and 4-6, and questions over Stevenson parents waiving the use of the new version ESL program.

The latter is now the basis of a claim filed against the district which could cost DUSD nearly $750,000.

In a letter from Petit through the law office of Gary L. Lassen, the Superintendent notified the district of a claim and demand “that Pettit work unfettered to fulfill the duties and responsibilities of Superintendent of the Douglas Unified School District through June 30, 2010.”

According to the claim, “Soon after Mr. Pettit assumed responsibility as Superintendent, he became aware of failures to comply with State mandates regarding the delivery of English Language Learning or ELL Program at Stevenson School. As a result of investigations, and monitoring from the Arizona Department of Education, it became evident that the Principal of that school was vigorously ignoring and flagrantly disobeying the requirement of Arizona law.

“Throughout his first year as Superintendent, persons in the community and certain board members, particularly Mr. Charles Hoyack, president of the Governing Board, have interfered and undermined Mr. Pettit’s ability to serve as Superintendent. Governing  Board members have acted in violation of Governing Board policies, Arizona Law, including the Open Meeting Law, and employment contract with the Superintendent.”

Much of the one-and -a—half page claim cites conflicts between Pettit  and Hoyack, specifically, and the board, generally,  in not allowing him to perform his job

“Defamatory statements have been made and facilitated by members of the board casting Mr. Pettit in a ‘false light’ negatively impacting his abilities to perform his duties and allow the District to comply with the requirement of state law. These defamatory statements were encouraged and inflamed by members of the community, particularly Mr. Hoyack, acting outside his regular capacity as Board Member and resulted in defamatory statements being published and posted on blogs or websites of the local media.

“Mr. Pettit’s reputation has been tarnished and he has not violated any law, policy or done anything unprofessional.”

The claim calls for payment, including all fringe benefits under contract, or cash equivalent to Pettit through June 30, 2010 plus the additional sum of $600,000 for damages.

The board has until July 12 to decide the issue. If the district board does not settle the claim, then Pettit can go through the court system and file a lawsuit.

During the meeting the board did set up some ground rules, that were unanimously passed:

√ Direct all employees to cooperate with District legal counsel.

√ Direct Mr. Pettit not to use district time, resources, personnel, equipment, etc., to monitor or interfere with the district’s review/defense of the  claim he filed.

Direct Pettit to only monitor or review staff communications based upon the findings of the District attorney that is legally justified and of reasonable scope.

√ Direst that Business Manger Denise Evans name be provided to The Trust (District insurer) as an authorized district representative for requesting legal services through The Trust.

Background

Most of charges made in the claim stems from a one-month reassignment of Pettit to his home, pending a completion of an investigation concerning the removal of 100 students from the Stevenson School English Language Learners program.

The reassignment came at the end off an hour-long executive session that was part of a three-and-a-half hour March 10 meeting. It included a status report on the ELL program and a question -and-answer period for parents, staff and others. There were more than 100 in attendance at the meeting.

At that time, the concern by some board members was the timing of the change, since budgeting had yet to really start. There were concerns about teacher contracts, the ongoing discussion about attendance zones and how much revenue would be coming from the district after the end of the Legislative session.

“I don’t think we should leave the district without leadership,” Kramer said

“We’re here today because of a lack of leadership,” Hoyack said. “I believe the superintendent was aware of the ELL problem as far back as July 2008. He should have taken action then. He also misrepresented the nature of the investigations. An internal investigation needs to be done. It is important to have Mr. Pettit and Mr. Ortiz off school grounds temporarily until the investigation is complete.

“We need to wash the laundry and get everything cleaned up.”

The meeting was initially called the week prior to update the board on status of a district, Arizona Department of Education and Auditor’s General investigation of the ELL withdrawals.

It turned out the only investigation was the district’s.

Leann Gilbreath, Director of Monitoring for the Office of English Language Acquisition Services for the ADE, said they were in Douglas in February as part of their annual monitoring of schools in Arizona. There was no investigation, according to Gilbreath, and she did not recommend any investigation on Principal Ortiz.

Gilbreath said she became concerned about the school’s ELL for a few reasons, including:

• The fact there were three different list of students enrolled in the ELL at the school.

• Students were not removed or waived from the program on an individual basis, but actually during mass school meetings.

•  About 100 students were waivered out of the program by parents when there had been no waivers the previous two years.

• Waiver forms had been signed by parents whose child had already tested out of the program.

She explained that the withdrawals should have been done on a student-by-student basis. Parents would be given information, including grades, for their child over the previous few years along with a detailed explanation of the program.

Instead there were two or three meetings in which the staff met Stevenson parents, explained the changes  and had waivers for parents ready to sign.

She said that parents have the legal standing to remove their child from the program, but proper procedures were not maintained during the process to get parents the information they needed.

Hoyack also said that repeatedly Pettit had informed the board there was an Auditor General and ADE investigation into the district’s ELL program, when in fact there was no such investigation.

There were also questions about how a letter from the Superintendent and a preliminary report on ADE’s findings made it to Stevenson School, and the way Ortiz left the building.