Yet Another Reason that Washington Middle School's Principal Needed to be Exited

I print this email to show the extent of what was happening this year at Washington Middle Schools.  I also print it to show that this business of saying it was just HCC parents complaining is just bunk.  The principal was an equal opportunity offender and this was a grievous offense.

I also - again - point out that the Executive Directors seemingly cannot handle issues arising in their schools.  (bold mine)

I suspect this complaint was the final straw in exiting Principal Ginolfi as principal at Washington Middle School.

Subject: Complaints against Emily Butler Ginolfi
Date: April 23, 2019

Dear Superintendent Juneau, Ms. Codd, Mr. Medina, Office of Student Civil Rights, and School Board Members,

We are writing to lodge complaints against Washington Middle School (WMS) Principal Emily Butler Ginolfi pursuant to School Board Policy No. 2162 Education of Student with Disabilities Under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Policy Nos. 3210 and Policy No. 5010 Nondiscrimination, Policy No. 4220 Complaints Concerning Staff or Programs, and School Board Policy No. 5250 and Board Procedure 5250BP Reporting Improper Governmental Actions and Protecting Whistleblowers Against Retaliation.

The basis for these complaints are two-fold.

We represented an African American male student with a disability who was subject to unjust discipline at WMS earlier this year. Attached is the hearing officer decision overturning the discipline that was issued. 

Of critical note, you will see that the hearing officer agreed that Ms. Butler Ginolfi inappropriately substituted sexually charged language into a Notice of Disciplinary Action after failing to conduct a reasonable investigation of allegations against our client. 

Our client was suspended from school for essentially being tall, dark-skinned African American boy who was were he was based upon his status as being a special education student, while trying to defuse a situation created by others. Ms. Butler Ginolfi painted our client as hyper-sexualized and, therefore, a threat to others. She also utterly failed to consider our client’s known learning disabilities when electing to have a security guard take a written statement from him instead of conducting interviews. 

We left both of our grievance meetings with Ms. Butler Ginolfi stunned with the way she spoke about not just our client, but about African American boys and students with disabilities generally. We have a combined over 20 years’ experience as government attorneys, including both being former Seattle Public Schools Senior Assistant General Counsels. We had never heard an administrator speak this way, nor had we encountered such an unjust disciplinary action.

This caused us to question if our client was alone in his experience with Ms. Butler Ginolfi. We made Public Records Act requests of the Seattle Public Schools, some of which have yet to be fulfilled. However, what we have learned to date is stunning. According to the data provided to us, every single suspension that has been issued at WMS this school year has been issued to students of color. This extreme disproportionality is not consistent with prior year's discipline at WMS, when it was not under Ms. Butler Ginolfi’s supervision and is reflected in multiple other areas of protected class status.

This is what we have learned so far from the data provided to us:

• Not a single white student has been suspended this year, in spite of the fact that they are the largest racial/ethnic group represented at WMS (39.2%)

• African American youth are significantly disproportionately represented. They make up about 3 times more of the suspension cases than expected based on their representation in the WMS school population.

• American Indian and/or Pacific Islander youth (the only 2 groups that have less than 10 cases and are thus designated FERPA) are also significantly disproportionately represented. They make up about 28 times more of the suspension cases than expected based on their representation in the WMS school population.

• Male youth are significantly disproportionately represented. They make up about 1.4 times more of the suspension cases than expected base on their representation in the WMS school population.

• Special education youth are significantly disproportionately represented. They make up about 3.6 times more of the suspension cases than expected based on their representation in the WMS school population.

• Just under one out of every three suspension cases involved a black male youth designated special education.

We ask you to take swift action to investigate these complaints. We believe that with receipt of this email and the attached, Superintendent Juneau has sufficient reliable information to believe that Ms. Butler Ginolfi has committed an act of unprofessional conduct and should make a report to the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction pursuant to WAC 181-86-110 and we ask her to do the same.

We also ask you to consider placing Ms. Butler Ginolfi on administrative leave while investigating these complaints, as every single day that passes is another day where Ms. Butler Ginolfi's actions and inactions are harming WMS students because of their status as protected class members.

Best regards, --

Shannon M. McMinimee and Chris Williams

Partners, Cedar Law PLLC