VB School Board settles lawsuits with 4 Savage teachers

At the end of Monday’s regular meeting, the Van Buren Public Schools Board of Education went into closed-door session to discuss a settlement of the law suits brought by four teachers at Savage Elementary School more than a year ago.
Then, board members went back into regular session and voted to settle.
The motion by board secretary Kevin English was supported by Trustee Kelly Owen. Both had been named in the suits.
The vote authorized School Supt. Pete Kudlak to execute the settlement documents and make contribution to the district’s insurance carrier to resolve case numbers 16-CV-11805, a federal civil rights case, and 16-00711-CD, an employment discrimination case filed in Wayne County Third Circuit Court.
There was no discussion of the decision at the meeting and no written statement issued. The circuit court case had been settled Sept. 6 before Judge Daniel Hathaway and the court was waiting for final paperwork.
A jury trial had been set to begin Dec. 11 in U.S. District Court for the federal case.
The four teachers were on paid administrative leave for more than five months before they filed the suit in federal court against the school district, two administrators, and six of the seven school board members.
The 32-page suit was filed in May 2016 by Bloomfield Hills’ attorney Deborah L. Gordan and Benjamin I. Shipper on behalf of teachers Pamela Bradley, Michelle Komaromi, Brent Held, and Rebecca Tennis.
They claimed a violation of their constitutional rights rising out of their employment relationship with the defendants.
Defendants in the suit were the Van Buren Public School District, Michael Van Tassel, Shonta Langford-Green, the Van Buren Public School District Board of Education, Brent Mikulski, Martha Toth, Kathy Kovach, Kevin English, Alison Bennett, and Kelly Owen, with all individuals sued in their individual and official capacities, jointly and severally.
Board Trustee Sherry Frazier, who had spoken out repeatedly in support of the teachers, was not named in the suit. All the teachers suing were residents of the school district. Bradley had taught for the district for 18 years, at the time the suit was filed, Komaromi for 13 years, Held for 18 years, and Tennis, 25 years.
The suit’s timeline starts with the May 2015 M-STEP standardized test given to third and fourth graders in the district. The teachers did not proctor the test for students in their own classroom, rather the students from all classrooms were mixed and divided into separate classrooms.
About June 12, 2015 the popular principal of Savage Elementary, Kelly Villa, resigned after 19 years with the district due to harassment by former Supt. Van Tassel, the suit said.
Van Tassel became superintendent in 2012 and “ever since has had a history of harassing behavior, which resulted in multiple teacher resignations, and which provoked several lawsuits against VBPSD,” the suit said.
“In addition, Van Tassel had sent bizarre, anonymous letters to third parties about VBPSD employees with whom he was unhappy,” the suit said.
In 2014, under Principal Villa, Savage Elementary had received the highest State of Michigan “Report Card” rating of all schools in VBPSD. The resignation of Villa as principal at Savage caused a great deal of concern on the part of parents and the community.
At a standing-room-only meeting of the school board on June 22, 2015 the board was questioned by the audience about why Villa and other educators had left the district while Van Tassel was superintendent. Some parents pressed for exit interviews and a survey of remaining teachers to gauge their morale.
Van Tassel was clearly the subject of concerns raised at the board meeting and questions about him continued to be raised after the board meeting by parents and the community, the suit states.
“Under pressure, Van Tassel began a secret campaign to find ways to discredit Villa and Savage Elementary in the fall of 2015,” the suit states.
Then, the M-STEP scores showed Savage had performed very well.
“As a part of his plan or scheme to discredit Ms. Villa and her school, on a date shortly before Dec. 2, 2015, Supt. Van Tassel contacted the Michigan Department of Education and reported that he believed the M-STEP scores from Savage Elementary were indicative of cheating in some way,” the suit states.
Van Tassel wanted the MDE to take some action which he could then use to his advantage in his campaign against Villa and other teachers that worked at Savage Elementary, the suit states.
At Van Tassel’s instigation and request, on Dec. 2, 2015, the MDE asked Van Tassel to have the school district conduct a “self-investigation” of the data Van Tassel had pointed out as unusual, the suit states.
Van Tassel and the school board retained Collins & Blaha legal counsel to investigate “unusual data anomaly patterns on the M-STEP results at Savage [Elementary].”
The investigation was not “independent” as it purported to be, the suit states; the results were pre-ordained by Van Tassel with the support of the school board. On Dec. 18, 2015, the Collins & Blaha written report was provided to the defendants, but it has never been released to the public.
In fact, defendants publicly took the position into 2016 that the matter was still under “investigation,” although the investigation had already concluded and the Collins & Blaha Report was issued, the suit said.
The report’s conclusion was that some level of coaching did occur by staff members during the testing. This conclusion was allegedly based on interviews with unnamed third- and fourth-grade Savage Elementary students who were questioned seven months after the M-STEP was conducted without notification or permission from their parents or guardians, the suit states.
The report does not name any teachers who allegedly coached students, nor does it reference any rule or policy the teachers violated, the suit states.
Van Tassel and the board members, without releasing the Collins & Blaha Report, made multiple public statements about “cheating” having occurred and that “it would not be tolerated within our schools,” the suit states.
All of the public statements were designed to place Villa and Savage Elementary in a poor light, the suit states, and Van Tassel, with the support of the school board, had a plan in place to fire the teachers.
In January, frustrated parents and community members who had received no answers formed a Facebook group called “SavageStrong” in support of removing Van Tassel as superintendent, the suit states.
On Jan. 21, in furtherance of Van Tassel’s plan, five teachers were publicly escorted out of the building, while school was still in session, as if they were criminals, the suit states.
The five teachers, including those bringing suit, were targeted for suspension and termination because they were known to Van Tassel to be friends with Villa, their former boss, the suit states.
A letter from the district states they had been placed on “a non-disciplinary paid administration leave, due to alleged improprieties with M-STEP testing,” the suit states.
The teachers were informed in the letter that upon conclusion of the investigation they will be informed of any discipline up to and including filing tenure charges against them recommending termination of employment.
Until then, they were warned not to appear on any school district property or it will be treated as a trespass. They were directed not to discuss this investigation with staff, parents, students, other than union/legal representatives. Failure to comply with the directives will be deemed insubordination, subjecting them to discipline up to and including discharge.
The suit states the teachers have never been given notice of any violation of any rule giving rise to suspension and never have been provided a hearing to allow them to refute the allegations.
Two of the teachers have children enrolled in the Van Buren Public schools, but they have been prohibited from freely associating with them, their teachers, administrators, or other parents on school property under threat of discharge.
The suit states that in February 2016, in furtherance of his plan to discredit and retaliate against Villa, Van Tassel stepped up his malicious, reckless activities and sent to Villa’s new school district employer and its board of education an utterly false and defamatory letter stating she helped teachers cheat on the Savage M-STEP and, “A teacher who is being investigated for cheating told friends at a recent gathering at a local bar, ‘well yeah, she [Villa] told us ‘if they don’t know the answer, I’d just give it to them.’ ”
The suit states the letter Van Tassel sent to Villa’s new employers said Villa is the defacto head of a group called SavageStrong which aims to remove the superintendent for exposing and reporting the cheating scandal to the State of Michigan. He wrote Villa wants to be reinstated as Savage principal and to remove the superintendent who has done nothing wrong.
The letter also states, “Villa has spoken vehemently at VBPS School Board meetings and has encouraged violence and massive disruption to the daily operations of the school district…” according to the law suit.
Van Tassel also is quoted as stating to Savage Elementary staff on Jan. 6 that, “case law says cheating on a test is worse than having sex with students.”
On Feb. 22, due to community pressure and Van Tassel’s bizarre action, the school board terminated Van Tassel’s employment as superintendent. However, as part of the ongoing scheme and developing cover-up, the board took the public position – and continued to take the position – that Van Tassel had suddenly and without notice simply resigned, the suit states.
In exchange for this resignation without notice, the board approved a payment to Van Tassel of $350,000. Around Feb. 16, the teachers received phony teacher tenure charges, marked “Draft.” Teacher tenure charges are brought by school districts for the purpose of terminating the teacher’s employment permanently, the suit states.
These charges were designed to intimidate the teachers by including such terms as “academic fraud” and statement that the “data incontrovertibly proves that cheating occurred.” After the phony teacher tenure charges were given to Plaintiff they were never pursued, the suit states.
Around March 23, the Defendants presented a Voluntary Settlement Agreement to the teachers between Plaintiff and VBPS and between Plaintiffs and the MEA and NEA. In the agreement the teachers included language stating everything the school district did was “true, accurate, and appropriate” including their removal from their classrooms.
The Defendants were also required to accept disciplinary counseling, which would be put in their files, indicating wrong doing on their parts and release all possible legal claims. The agreement also would release the MEA from any possible claims by the teachers. A joint public statement with the school district was also required.
The agreement tried to convince the teachers to give up their legal rights, the suit states. The five teachers refused to sign. They wrote a letter on March 31 to Interim-Superintendent Green asking to be returned to the classroom since they had not been charged with any wrongdoing. Green did not reply.
On April 2, the agreement was changed in hopes of getting the five to sign. Now disciplinary counseling was dropped completely, as was the requirement that the five teachers had to sign in unison.
In April, one of the five teachers who had the least seniority, agreed to sign the agreement and on April 18 she was returned to her classroom with no counseling or discipline of any kind.
The law suit pointed out the teacher who was returned to work after she signed the agreement had allegedly performed the same “cheating” as the other four teachers, who now are suing.
The suit said if the teachers give up their rights in order to return to work, they will have no discipline, the prohibition against stepping on school property and speaking freely will be removed and they will be allowed to continue their careers as teachers.
The suit alleges four Violations of Civil Rights: Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Petition, Freedom of Association, and Due Process.
The suit requests compensatory, exemplary, and punitive damages, and an award of interest, costs, reasonable attorney fees and expert witness fees. It also requests removing files and records on the allegations and investigation at issue from their records and reinstatement as tenured teachers in good standing. The suit also asks for an injunction prohibiting any further acts of wrongdoing or retaliation against the teachers.
There was no release on the terms of the lawsuit settlement.
Federal Judge Robert H. Cleland was the presiding judge on the case.
At a recent meeting of the school board, former Trustee Sherry Frazier estimated the district had paid more than $500,000 in attorney fees to fight these law suits.