SEATTLE — A state agency found that the former principal of Seattle’s Rainier View Elementary School unlawfully discriminated against employees for their union work.
An examiner with the state determined that Anitra Jones targeted three employees by including negative and disparaging comments in their evaluations for the 2022-23 school year and recommending harsher evaluations from human resources for two of them after a disagreement over the school’s budget.
The examiner, Labor Relations Adjudicator/Mediator Jessica Bradley, also concluded that Jones’ decisions to reprimand a teacher and threaten her with discipline for copying colleagues in an email asking how they’d be paid for substitute teaching work and whether the work was in line with union policies were “textbook examples of interference with union activity.”
“The pattern of discriminatory conduct by the employer in this case is concerning,” the examiner wrote in a Nov. 4 ruling. None of the employees were fired, but they didn’t return to Rainier View for the 2023-24 school year, “demonstrating the chilling effects of the employer’s discriminatory actions,” the examiner wrote.
Seattle Public Schools removed Jones from the school in April and later assigned her to its curriculum and instruction department. At a Seattle School Board meeting in March, some teachers and parents had complained about a toxic work environment, high staff turnover and strict student behavior rules during Jones’ tenure. She had been principal at Rainier View since 2011.
In her evaluations for the employees whose union advocacy Jones disagreed with, she wrote some had engaged in some combination of “dishonest interactions,” “unprofessional conduct” and spreading “misinformation.”
Jones did not respond to a request for comment from The Seattle Times.
The examiner ordered the district to withdraw the evaluations with negative comments from the employees’ personnel files and to conduct new evaluations for the 2022-23 school year.
While the decision focused on complaints at the 200-student Southeast Seattle school, the examiner proposed policy changes that would affect union members districtwide.
The examiner directed SPS to stop interfering with employees’ right to organize and collectively bargain and to no longer consider employees’ union activities in job evaluations.
The examiner also told SPS that it cannot discipline employees for including union representatives and co-workers on emails about wages, hours, working conditions or potential grievances.
SPS said in a statement that it was still reviewing the findings. While some of the allegations had been dismissed, “district leadership is considering next steps due to the allegations that were upheld,” the statement read.
As of Tuesday, the district had not appealed. It has 20 days from the date of the ruling to do so.
Meesh Vecchio, president of the Seattle Education Association, which filed the complaints, said the ruling acknowledged that “educators’ concerns were being ignored.”
“After years of sounding the alarm, we’re hopeful that SPS will ensure that no SEA member faces retaliation for speaking up for their rights,” they said. “It sets a precedent, especially in a time when educators feel like their profession is under attack. … It’s unfortunate that Seattle Public Schools allowed this level of retaliatory behavior from their leader at Rainier View.”
In May, the district hired the Puget Sound Educational Service District to review whether it followed its policies when responding to complaints at the school. The agency did not investigate Jones’ alleged conduct.
PSESD’s investigation found that while SPS largely followed its policies, the policies were insufficient. The agency suggested several improvements in June. SPS did not respond to questions last week about changes it had made in response to the recommendations and whether it had independently reviewed Jones’ alleged actions.
The Seattle Education Association filed three unfair labor practices cases against the district in 2023, alleging interference and discrimination by Jones. The broader interference claims were dismissed, mainly because the union didn’t file within the required time frame.
The examiner found that Jones discriminated against two teachers and an administrative secretary. They were active in the union and on the school’s building leadership team, a group made up of the principal, staff and parents who decide how to spend the school’s budget.
The union did not prove that Jones discriminated against another staff member.
Jones and the teachers disagreed over the budget that year and the two sides developed dueling spending plans. One of the teachers, the team’s co-chair, asked Jones to leave the room during deliberations, reasoning that it was a union process and Jones’ presence might influence the vote.
Days later, Jones wrote to the teacher that her communication style was not courteous or respectful and did not align with SPS’s workplace civility expectations. The examiner wrote that the teacher’s union activity was a “substantially motivating factor” for the referral to the comprehensive evaluation cycle.
Jones added negative comments to the three employees’ evaluations.
The district must post public notices about the Public Employment Relations Commission’s findings for 60 days, read the notice into the record at a School Board meeting and include it in the meeting’s minutes.
