Black Oak Creek Principal Fired For Performance, Not Race: Court

OAK CREEK, WI — The Oak Creek-Franklin school district won its case after a former principal, who is black, filed a racial discrimination suit and appeal against the district over the non-renewal of her contract.

A three-judge panel on the state's Seventh District Court of Appeals on Monday affirmed a lower court's ruling that the district's non-renewal was based on well-documented performance, and not along racial lines.

In July 2008, Superintendent Sara Burmeister hidred Pamela Ferill to be the principal for Edgewood Elementary School, a K-5 school in the district, for a period of two years. The contract contained an automatic rollover for an additional year unless the Board of Education opted out before January 31, 2010. After two years that the court described as "turbulent" and plagued with "low morale," the district opted out of her contract, and Ferill sued.

According to the court, here are some of the district's claims regarding Ferill's performance that were re-affirmed by the Seventh Circuit of Appeals on Monday:

After a number of incidents at the school during 2008, Burmeister met with Ferrill to discuss the rapidly deteriorating morale at the school and numerous complaints from teachers about Ferrill’s management style.
In brief, the court stated, Ferrill was described as confrontational, inconsistent
in her treatment of the staff, and quick to suggest that others were either racist or culturally insensitive.

In January 2009, A black student accused a teacher of hitting her, and the school district launched an investigation into the incident. Although the matter was being handled at the district level, Ferrill conducted her own independent investigation, which upset the teachers and staff, who thought that Ferrill was
conducting her own investigation only because the student was black.

In the spring semester, Dr. Burmeister hired an outside consulting firm to help address the ongoing concerns about Ferrill’s contentious management style. This intervention did not go well. The consultants reported that Ferrill resisted their efforts and faculty feared retaliation whenever they shared ideas that she might reject. The consultants frankly concluded that removing Ferrill was the only way to solve the ongoing strife.

Also at the start of the new school year, Burmeister gave Ferrill a list of goals and objectives in an effort to improve her performance. The goals and objectives roughly tracked the issues the superintendent had identified in her year-end evaluation. At the top of the list was a requirement that Ferrill meet regularly with a mentor throughout the fall semester. Ferrill did so only four times before the mentor declared the effort futile and called it quits because Ferrill could not admit to any need to improve her job performance.

On November 23 Burmeister met with Ferrill—this time with the human resources director in attendance—to address her continuing performance deficiencies. The meeting was tense, and when it wrapped up, the superintendent
handed Ferrill a letter containing a detailed critique of her job performance.

On December 4 Burmeister gave Ferrill a formal performance-improvement
plan covering the remainder of the school year. They agreed to meet on January 7, 2010, to review it more thoroughly. When the meeting date came, Ferrill arrived with an attorney. The discussion did not go well. Ferrill wanted to talk about racial issues at the school. Indeed, her attorney said the real problem was that the

white faculty members did not want to take direction from a black principal.

On Jan. 11, Burmeister recommended that the Board opt out of Ferrill’s contract rollover. The Board accepted the recommendation. A week later Ferrill sent a letter to the Board taking issue with the performance-review plan and raising various racial issues at Edgewood, laying the blame at the superintendent’s doorstep.

Ferrill then sued the school district and the Board. The alleged claims of racial discrimination arising from the Board’s decision to place her on administrative leave and opting out of her contract rollover.

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