Discrimination litigation

This story on The Weekly's blog and this story from the Queen Anne News are about the efforts by Beverly Raines to oppose her re-assignment from principal at Brighton to principal at Lawton.

It's a weird story to begin with. The Superintendent moved Ms Raines from Brighton to Lawton one year before her planned retirement. So Lawton will have three different principals in three years. How is that good? Did Brighton need a new principal so urgently that it justifies putting Lawton through that sort of turnover? This was just one part of a wave of principal transfers, many of which appeared to create unnecessary instability. (See the blog post of May 17, Principal Moves)

Then it just gets weirder. Ms Raines doesn't want to leave Brighton and she is seeking a legal remedy to the transfer from the Courts. She, and a number of other District employees are suing, claiming discrimination based on race, age, and gender.

Here is the part that is the weirdest for me: according to Nina Shapiro's copyrighted story in the Weekly, one of the litigants is Ron Howard (no, not Opie - the vice principal at Aki Kurose), who claims that the District's efforts to discipline him for failure to report a sexual assault on campus were racially motivated. There is so much here that I don't understand. First, the report that the District has tried to suspend him for five days without pay, but has not been able to. What's up with that? Why haven't they been able to suspend him? Second, the fact that he's suing even though he has not actually been disciplined. Third, the suggestion that it was okay for him to delay reporting the sexual assault because the act might have been consensual - as if that were a factor in his decision or as if a middle school student could give consent. Finally, some of you may remember that when this story was first reported the news media did not provide the name of the Aki Kurose administrator who failed to make the report. Now, by bringing this suit, Mr. Howard has identified himself as the administrator in the case. Weird, weird, weird.

Here's a link to the Court filings for those who have an account with the Court. If anyone can take a peep at it I would bet there is more weirdness within.

Comments

What a big hot mess! Unfortunately you can't read the filings without some kind of subscription. But again, it points to the issues of shuffling principals around. Nobody ends up happy.
dan dempsey said…
In regard to shuffling and Ms. Raines:
Look at Brighton's WASL scores, poverty, AYP etc. ...... why would Ms. Raines be moved?

This move appears to be based on something other than student achievement. Perhaps MG-J could explain it.
.
Josh Hayes said…
I'm sure she could. I'm equally sure she won't.

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