Lawsuits Pile Up Against Decatur Schools

"Reporter of the Year" award recipient, Kara Kenney, reports on two recent lawsuits brought against the MSD Decatur Township.  These are in addition to the racial harassment lawsuit filed last August by a 16 year old student (see "Decatur School District - Discrimination Lawsuits and (Could It Be?) Stinson Retiring").

Kenney reports:

Bus driver Teresa Surber, 56, alleges she went on medical leave for a hysterectomy in the spring of 2011 and when she returned, MSD of Decatur Township did not renew her contract.

Surber had worked with MSD of Decatur Township for 25 years, RTV6's Kara Kenney reported. 

In the lawsuit filed May 11, Surber alleged the district kept younger, less qualified bus drivers.

The next filing mentioned by Kenney is the 2nd one filed by former School District Security Officer, Keith Jones.

Jones filed an age discrimination complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission after he was terminated in 2010. 

Jones’ [2nd] lawsuit states the school’s former Chief Financial Officer, Jeff Baer, retaliated against him by coming out of retirement to write a letter in Jones’ file calling him a “bad employee.” 

“That was wrong,” said Ken Roberts, Jones’ attorney. “It’s important because Jones was an elderly employee and elderly employees should have the same rights as everyone else. You should not discriminate on the basis of age. And once someone makes a charge of discrimination you can’t come back and retaliate against the person.” 

Roberts said Jones had no previous write ups, and an otherwise clean employee record.

In addition to suing the District, Jones' lawsuit over retaliation also names individuals Don Stinson, Jeff Baer, Susan Adams as well as the District's attorney, Jon Bailey, and his law firm, Bose, McKinney & Evans.  Bailey was also the attorney for Wayne Township's School District when former Superintendent Thompon's infamous contract was signed and which is now a matter of litigation (see Kenney's earlier report on WRTV "Atty. Central to Superintendent's $1 Million Retirement Fired").

Jones filed an age discrimination complaint with the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on January 4, 2011.  On January 19, 2011, after the District was notified of the complaint by the EEOC, Jeff Baer came back to the District headquarters and penned a negative letter against Jones and put it in Jones' file.  Baer had been retired from the District for six months when he penned the letter.  Retaliation against an employee for filing a complaint is strictly against the law.

Curiously, the Distict's attorney handling Jones' age discrimination lawsuit, Karen Sharp, tells Kenney the following:

On behalf of the school district, attorney Karen Sharp told RTV6 there is no evidence Jones’ firing and failure to rehire him was because of his age. 

“Mr. Jones, the Plaintiff in this lawsuit, previously filed two charges of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against MSD of Decatur Township, both of which have been dismissed as lacking evidence of any violation of the civil rights laws. The school agrees with the assessment of the EEOC that the Plaintiffs claims are meritless and will defend the lawsuit on that basis,” Sharp said in a statement.

It is curious that a lawyer would characterize the EEOC's action of 'dismissing' the complaint as meaning it lacked evidence of a violation.  In two minutes I was able to get the following from the EEOC's website:

If you plan to file a lawsuit alleging discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy), national origin, age (40 or older), disability, genetic information, or retaliation, you first have to file a charge with one of our field offices (unless you plan to bring your lawsuit under the Equal Pay Act, which allows you to go directly to court without filing a charge). We will give you what is called a “Notice-of-Right-to- Sue” at the time we dismiss your charge, usually, after completion of an investigation. However, we may dismiss for other reasons, including failure to cooperate in an investigation. This notice gives you permission to file a lawsuit in a court of law.

So, when the EEOC 'dismisses' a charge, it simultaneously issues a "notice-of-right-to-sue".  One cannot file a lawsuit until the EEOC reviews your charges and finds, in fact, that there just may be substance to your claims - not that no such substance exists.  Why a lawyer (also with Bose, McKinney & Evans) would make such statement to the press is perplexing, as it surely misrepresents what the EEOC process actual is.

Jones lawsuit over retaliation claims that Susan Adams, Don Stinson, and Jeff Baer conspired to have Baer to come to the District offices specifically to write the negative letter for the file. It further asserts that the letter contained false information and that Bailey repeated that false information in his response to the EEOC regarding Jones' age discrimination complaint.

At this point, the School District is fighting 4 lawsuits - one for racial discrimination and harrassment, two for age discrimination and one for retaliation.

Decatur School Board Meets Tonight - Much On Plate

The Decatur Township School Board meets tonight, first in executive session and followed by the regular monthly meeting. No word on whether the executive session will be a catered affair, as per usual, despite the economic hard times.

The agenda is posted here, but contains little information for the public to know what actually will be discussed and voted upon.

Central Office retirements will be buried in item 5.0 "Staff Report". Gary Pellico, Candace Milhon-Baer, Pat Jones, Dave Rather, as well as West Newton Principal, Janet Larch, are all taking their leave of the district. Jeff Baer's retirement was previously announced. Will the retirement incentive packages for these Administrators be discussed in public? Not likely.

Also buried in that staff report will be the layoff of a security officer, as Susan Adams firmly believes that blurry camera footage may not avert crime, but it is cheap and like outgoing Jeff Baer maintains, that's why you have insurance anyway. The Board will not likely discuss how effective cameras are at decreasing tempers at after school functions, giving guidance to youths who could follow many paths to adulthood, and providing immediate response to threatening situations. The latter is one of the many duties that Susan Adams thinks is the responsibility of the custodians, after all. When it comes to security, this Administration has let Adams run amok and to the detriment of all of the students, staff, and anyone of the public who attends events in our schools.

Hopefully buried in the staff report is the resignation of Don Stinson. This one item will get aired with all the usual self congratulatory, fact twisting, ego trip that normally accompanies all Board activities.

Somewhat buried is a fiscal matter for which I have been unable to get all of my questions answered. If and when I do get further information I will post it here. But, this is what I have at this point.

Agenda items 6.02 (Impact of 2010 Circuit Breaker on Marion County Schools), 6.03 (Resolution Approving Transfer to Rainy Day Fund), and 6.04 (Additional Appropriation Resolution), involve moving money from the debt service fund into the rainy day fund followed by the appropriation of money from the rainy day fund for ongoing operations. As you will recall, the Board has not always insisted on approving, in a public meeting and as required by law, all new appropriation of expenses that arise during the year that were not so appropriated during the annual budget hearings. So, this is a move in the right (as in legal) direction.

For the fiscal issues, let me backtrack for a minute into the outlines of what we are taxed on and how schools are now funded in Indiana. Changed from the old ways, schools are now fully funded by the State for operating expenses. This would include salaries, catered school board meals, electricity, and the like. Property taxes are now only levied to cover the amount of principle and interest owed on debt that year (debt service fund), the amount of principle and interest owned on debt encumbered to make pension fund contributions (school pension debt fund), money needed to cover routine building repairs (capital projects fund), and money to replace aging buses (bus replacement fund). For 2010, the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance, certified a property tax amount of roughly $12.9 million for debt service, $0.7 million for school pension debt, $3.7 million for capital projects, and $2.1 million for bus replacement, for MSD Decatur Township school district.

Item 6.02 (Impact of 2010 Circuit Breaker on Marion County Schools), will be where Dr. Baer talks about how the tax caps are cutting into how much of that certified levy will NOT be poured into MSD Decatur coffers and must be obtained by transferring money from operating expenses (general fund) to the debt service fund; for by State law, debt must be paid first and then you can spend any other money you have left on ongoing operations. The enormous debt of this school district for the size of the tax base is the cause of much of the budget cuts recently made in the district.

As far as logic goes, this is where things begin to break down.

Item 6.03 (Resolution Approving Transfer to Rainy Day Fund), will ask the Board to approve the transfer of $6.2 million FROM debt service TO the rainy day fund. The rainy day fund is a fund set up to receive excess, unspent money from the other funds, and from which those excess monies may be transferred to a fund with a shortfall. The act of transferring money from debt service to the rainy day fund suggests that this money is excess, which is absurd at this point. I have asked if this is to forgo getting another tax anticipation loan (AKA 'temporary loan'), and Gary Pellico answered that was how he understood it - not a definitive answer to my question. If this proves to be true, it could save the taxpayers interest payments on that loan, but it still does not fully explain why so much money is sitting in the debt service fund when the district has been saying it had to come up with budget cuts which included, among other things, $3 million to pay the interest on the 2009 tax anticipation loan.

Item 6.04 (Additional Appropriation Resolution), will combine the $6.2 million just transferred from the debt service fund with $1.7 million currently sitting in the rainy day fund, and appropriate it for paying ongoing operating expenses - salaries and the like.

Now this last item is a public hearing and the public has the legal right to be heard in the matter. The legally required public notice, published on May 26, says the following:

Notice is hereby given the taxpayers of MSD Decatur Township, Marion County, Indiana, that the School Board will consider the following additional appropriation in excess of the budget for the current year at their regular meeting place at 5275 Kentucky Ave., Indianapolis, IN 46221, at 7:00 pm., on the 8th day of June, 2010, per IC 6-1.1-18-5.
Rainy Day Fund $7,900,000
Taxpayers appearing at the meeting shall have a right to be heard. The additional appropriations as finally made will be referred to the Department of Local Government Finance (DLGF). The DLGF will make a written determinations to the sufficiency of funds to support the appropriations made within fifteen (15) days of receipt of a certified copy of the action taken.
Dated: May 26, 2010
Bob Harris
Chief Financial Officer
10-6048--5:24 (3)

Now if these funds are eventually repaid to the debt service fund when future operating funds are received from the State , then this transfer is temporary and makes sense. If not, then it could be digging the Decatur taxpayer into a bigger hole, even as the district has already laid off a score of teachers and accepted about 30 early retirements. We shall have to await more answers before we can be sure which is the situation.

The Decatur School District Culture of Fear

Fear rules the MSD Decatur Township school district. Fear that if you step out of line, you will be gone. Fear that if you speak up, you will be gone. There is no recourse - the School Board just rubber stamps everything.

Superintendent Don Stinson doesn't handle the tools of fear mongering himself. He has Assistant Superintendent Jeff Baer and soon to be Assistant Superintendent Susan Adams for that nasty business. Baer is leaving at the end of the school year. But, according to what Susan Adams is saying around the District, she will be getting a promotion to take over the non-business activities that Baer currently handles, but his successor wants no part of. Adams will relinquish her head custodian job, and become the overlord of Transportation and Safety.

Now, I have heard Adams referred to as 'the dragon lady' a couple of times. And by criteria of how she has treated the custodians, she deserves that moniker. She has trimmed their ranks substantially. She cuts the heat off in the winter and the AC off in the summer - even while the custodians lug around vacuum cleaners on their backs and even while they clean carpets. The freezing cold and the sweltering heat and humidity she subjects the custodians to is immoral in my book. I think they should be complaining to the EEOC about their work conditions, quite frankly. But, they are afraid of doing so lest they be released from their employment as revenge. Don Stinson lets the dragon lady mete out this injustice and is ultimately responsible. Well, let me amend that - the School Board is ultimately responsible. If we had a School Board who actually cared to listen to the employees in the district, they might have a very different work environment - one that respected the dignity of all workers.

I will be referring to this again in the section on Security below - the custodians have been told by the dragon lady, that, should there ever be a bomb threat in a school that causes evacuation of the building, they are to remain behind and search for the bomb. Let me repeat that - should there ever be a bomb threat in a school that causes evacuation of the building, the custodians are required to remain behind and search for the bomb.

Now, should you not be that alarmed about the treatment of decent, hard working people in Decatur Township Schools, maybe you would be interested in another aspect of the no heat, no AC for custodians rule. It turns out that what mold needs to flourish is hot, humid conditions. Say, like the conditions one would find in the summer with the AC turned off and right after carpets are steam cleaned. Thanks to the no AC for custodians rule, the district now has a mold problem in the Early Childhood Center and the Decatur Intermediate Learning Center. The problem in the ECC is being 'solved' by moving the school to the Lynwood campus. There appears to be no resolution on the table for the DILC mold problem. Eventually the taxpayers will be on the hook to reclaim these spaces.

Even before assuming her new duties, the dragon lady and Jeff Baer have been 'working' on the bus drivers. The community needs to become more aware of what is going on in the Transportation Department. That budget is being slashed by Don Stinson - seemingly without any Board action or public disclosures. It would seem that the push is to 1) get senior drivers to quit and 2) cut benefits.

The first steps are in the works as we speak. The drivers' hours are being cut from 6 or 7 per day, down to 4 hours per day. Meanwhile more drivers are being hired so that the bus schedule can continue unabated. Dropping the driver's time immediately cuts their take home pay and puts their ability to get benefits in jeopardy. This again is immoral in my book. The bus drivers have families to support. With only 4 hours per day - two in the morning and two in the afternoon - the drivers are also precluded from taking second jobs. Clearly this is a move to get them to quit their jobs. Yet again I emphasize that I consider this immoral.

But it doesn't end there. Senior drivers are being targeted with 'non-compliance write-ups'. These write-ups claim that the drivers were tail gating or speeding. This will provide a paper trail should Baer, Adams, and Stinson want to remove more drivers than those who voluntarily leave their District jobs.

As mentioned in a comment to a previous blog entry, the drivers have now received letters claiming that the cost of repairing any damage to their bus will come out of their pay. One needs to ask what insurance is for?

That leads me to the Security Department. When the midnight shift in that Department was eliminated, Baer said 'that's what insurance is for'. Susan Adams claims that we can do away with the entire department because 'we have cameras on all the buildings'. As I spoke about in some detail in "Security is First Casualty of Budget Cuts", the dragon lady refuses to give keys or floor plans to the officers, as recommended by national standards promulgated by the Department of Homeland Security. Now she is being promoted over Security, which she believes can be handled by cameras and custodians. This is unbelievable.

As mentioned in comments to other blog entries, the custodians and the bus drivers are not the only employees in the District who are enveloped by this culture of fear. The teachers also must watch their backs and do not feel that they can afford to speak up or speak to the Board about mistreatment. Don Stinson, through Susan Adams and Jeff Baer, has created a hostile work environment, paid for by good hearted, hard working Decatur taxpayers. This culture is not in keeping with the attitudes of our community, and at some point we have to ask why the School Board allows it to continue.

Security is First Casualty of Budget Cuts

Before Columbine, school security was entirely different. Threats of this source and magnitude weren't really imaginable. And the standard operating procedure for how security forces responded was entirely different. Not only did Columbine shatter our image of what threats are possible, it changed entirely, the recommended methods of response.

Let me cut to the chase of this blog entry. Summing it all up, the Metropolitan School District of Decatur Township has not implemented recommended key facets of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) first responder standards, have laid off trained MSD Security Officers, and propose cutting the MSD Security Department down to one, maybe none. This irresponsible attitude toward the safety of Decatur's children while they are in school MUST be reversed.

In the High School, Superintendent Don Stinson has contracted with a private guard company whose personnel act as glorified hall monitors. They carry no weapons and they receive no DHS first responder training. Decatur Central High School is now the only High School in Marion County that does not have an armed and sworn Officer on premises for the protection of the students. I have mentioned much of this before in Decatur Central High School - Budget Cuts Target School Safety.

In his "Fiscal Restructuring Plan", Stinson proposes cutting the MSD Security budget by another $54,000 and possibly winnowing it down to one, or even zero, Officers. This is an outrage. The School District must protect the children from harm while they are in school. And they must be prepared to protect them from the worst scenarios. I doubt that the entire MSD Security budget, even before the cuts began last year, amounts to half of what Stinson pulls down every year. That entire amount needs to be restored so that we have trained professionals on our school campuses.

Let me give you a glimpse of how badly prepared our School District is to respond to a Columbine-like incident.

The response to the takeover of Columbine High School was the standard operating procedure at the time. Isolate. Contain. Negotiate. Analysis of the entire incident and an evaluation of the effectiveness of the response led to a complete nationwide overhaul of the recommended methods employed by first responders. After Columbine the recommendations for first responders became to react immediately. Get into the building as soon as possible once you are aware that there is an serious incident of violence playing out. Turn the attention of the 'active shooter' away from innocent lives and toward the armed responders. Incidents that followed Columbine - in Pearl, MS, and Jonesboro, AK - show that the sooner armed first responders can gain entry to the building, the sooner the attack on innocent lives stops.

So, training in first responder methods and standards recommended by the DHS is a MUST for our Security Officers in Decatur Schools. The contracted services of unarmed, untrained, glorified hall monitors does not meet that requirement.

How should the trained security officers respond? Well, simply put, the first thing is AS FAST AS POSSIBLE. To do that we need to have the full contingent of officers on the School District payroll and on campus. While IMPD will always be called and will always come running - being on the spot as soon as possible and being on the spot with folks who know the campus and are familiar with the buildings as soon as possible - is a MUST. Laying off our School Security Officers and reducing the department to only one person would be laughable, if this weren't such serious business.

Once on site, DHS recommends gaining entry from three different doors, simultaneously. That means you MUST have at least 3 first responders. At this point we have only two. If Stinson has his way, we will have only one. He calls it the 'Wayne Township model' - one full time officer and the remainder of the staff made up of moonlighting, off duty, IMPD officers. Only, that's not what the Wayne Township School District is doing. They have 4 full time Security Officers. We simply MUST return the Decatur Security Department to full staffing. That might cost another $50,000 - 75,000 a year. But, the priority MUST be on the safety of the students. PERIOD.

To gain entry from three different doors, simultaneously, you need at least 3 trained Security Officers with 3 master keys. Susan Adams, the highly paid Administrator whose role is to be the head custodian, has refused to provide the Security Department with a sufficient number of master keys to facilitate immediate entry as recommended by the DHS model. She refuses to provide all District Security Officers with keys in direct contradiction of DHS first responder methods. We MUST provide all of our Security Officers with master keys. Come on. It's NOT THAT HARD !

What is supposed to happen once the first contingent of IMPD Officers arrive on the scene? They, too, are trained in DHS first responder methods and standards -- but, they are not familiar with the layout of our schools. DHS recommends that all School Security Officers carry a 'SWAT box' in their police vehicles at all times. In this SWAT box are to be the floor plans for each and every school in the district. They can share these floor plans with the IMPD Officers. It is not difficult to see how very important this recommendation is. Also in the SWAT box are to be the master keys needed to gain entry to every school in the district. Not only does Susan Adams refuse to provide the master keys, she even refuses to provide the required floor plans. Oh, for the love of Pete ! What on earth is going on in this School District ? What part of "Department of Homeland Security first responder standards" is so hard to understand as important ? Why is Stinson allowing Susan Adams to refuse to hand over keys and floor plans to our first responders? Why is Stinson hell bent on gutting our District Security Department?

This petty, short sighted, crazy attitude toward the safety of Decatur's children MUST STOP. The cuts already implemented MUST be rolled back and no further cuts made. Keys MUST be provided to the District Security Officers. Floor plans MUST be provided to the District Security Officers. Stinson and his highly paid cronies like to say that the children are the priority. But, you sure cannot tell that by their actions.