Seattle schools must post list of union discrimination violations

Seattle Public Schools will post notices across the district admitting that it unlawfully discriminated against union employees for engaging in legally protected activities and explaining how it will correct those violations.

A compliance officer with the State Public Employment Relations Commission sent the sample notice to the district last week. It’s part of an order in a decision issued last month in a consolidated unfair labor practices case that found former Rainier View Elementary School Principal Anitra Jones unlawfully discriminated against three of the school’s staff members for their union work.

While the cases dealt with Jones’ alleged treatment of the Rainier View employees, a hearing examiner directed the district to cease and desist from similar practices districtwide.

According to the decision, Jones, for example, included negative comments about the employees in their job evaluations, issued a letter of counseling to another for copying colleagues on an email asking about reimbursement for substitute duties, and recommended more intense evaluations for two employees because of their union activities.

Neither the district nor the Seattle Education Association, which represented the employees, appealed the decision.

Some of the admissions in the notice include:

• We unlawfully issued written discipline to employees for including their union and other impacted employees on an email concerning a potential grievance.
• We unlawfully included negative comments in employees’ summative evaluations in reprisal for their protected union activity.
• We unlawfully discriminated and interfered with employee rights by considering an employee’s protected activity when evaluating their job performance.

SPS must post the notices — in color and on 11-by-17-inch paper — for 60 days in “conspicuous places,” where it normally posts notices for union members, which likely means in more than 100 schools. The notice must also be read into the record at a School Board meeting and included in the meeting’s minutes.

Last month’s decision stemmed from long-running complaints about the former principal at the 200-student Rainier View Elementary in South Seattle. Teachers and parents also had raised concerns about what they described as a “toxic” working and learning environment at the school under Jones’ leadership.

The district temporarily transferred Jones to its central administrative office in April and later assigned her to the curriculum and instruction department. She is still a district employee, Bev Redmond, a district spokesperson, said Friday.

As part of the decision, the district must also withdraw the letter of counseling and the evaluations with the negative comments from the employees’ files. It must also conduct new evaluations for the impacted employees.

If the union and the district cannot agree on whether the district has complied with the requirements in the decision, the compliance officer assigned to the case can hold a hearing to resolve any issues.