Gilroy
– Controversial English teacher Kristen Porter reached an
undisclosed monetary settlement with the school district, six
months after she was dismissed from her job for not being a
”
good fit.
”
By Lori Stuenkel
Gilroy – Controversial English teacher Kristen Porter reached an undisclosed monetary settlement with the school district, six months after she was dismissed from her job for not being a “good fit.”
Porter and the Gilroy Unified School District reached an out-of-court agreement within the past couple weeks after she filed a grievance with her union. But she, district officials and board trustees are not disclosing the amount of the settlement.
At least one trustee says the district left him in the dark about the whole deal, much as he says some trustees were in the dark when it came to the reasons for Porter’s firing in the first place.
Porter was not re-hired by the district this spring. Then, after challenging the board to openly review GUSD’s evaluation process, she was unceremoniously dismissed from her classroom, escorted off campus by security, and replaced with a long-term substitute.
The amount Porter received from the district remains unclear.
“I’m not going to get into the details (of the settlement),” she said. “I’m just happy that integrity was vindicated and unethical, Gestapo politics lost.”
Superintendent Edwin Diaz would not make any comment on Porter’s grievance, and would not acknowledge that she and the district settled.
“At this point, I’m not willing to talk about that process,” Diaz said.
When asked, Diaz also would not comment on whether any information about Porter’s settlement – and the taxpayer money involved – would be made public. “It’s a pretty sensitive personnel issue,” he said.
Trustee TJ Owens confirmed that the district settled with Porter.
“There was an agreement made between our negotiators and her negotiators,” he said, but did not know when the agreement was made. “One of the things that they agreed to was that this was still confidential, and it’s not to be publicly broadcast.”
Porter filed what is known as a grievance with the school district about six months ago. At issue was GUSD’s evaluation process, said Michelle Nelson, president of the Gilroy Teachers Association.
Grievance settlements usually don’t require board approval, Diaz said, because they occur between the employee and GUSD’s human resources department.
He and Nelson gave examples of grievance settlements, that trustees did not approve, in which employees were compensated for work they completed that was above and beyond their contract. Diaz said he did not know whether other types of grievances would require board approval.
Owens said he thought board members were not only aware of Porter’s grievance, but had voted in closed session to authorize the district to settle.
“We agreed to do this while the (grievance) discussion was going on,” he said.
The district did not have “carte blanche to go out and do whatever” they wanted, Owens said, but were given a range with which to work. The final settlement was approved by Diaz and not voted on by the board, he said.
No closed-session vote or report of action on Porter’s grievance has been disclosed at a regular board meeting.
The Gilroy Dispatch is filing a Public Records Act request to obtain the financial terms of the settlement.
While Owens was “pretty sure” that all trustees were present when the district was directed to reach an agreement with Porter, but Trustee John Gurich adamantly disagreed.
“I’m surprised to hear that,” he said. “That I have no knowledge of … and I haven’t missed anything.”
Discussions between Porter and the district came to Gurich’s attention within the past two weeks, he said, in an e-mail from Diaz. Trustees were directed not to discuss Porter’s case after The Gilroy Dispatch contacted Diaz regarding the status of the grievance, because it was being handled by GUSD lawyers, Gurich said.
Whether grievances generally go to the board or not, Gurich said Porter’s should have.
“We caught the brunt of this when we voted to axe her out …,” he said. “We voted this woman out, and we should have a vote on whether we pay the grievance or not.”
The way the district removed Porter from her classroom the morning after board members approved her immediate dismissal blindsided Gurich, he said. He raised questions – Is this really necessary? How are we going to handle this? – before consenting to the move, he said.
Now, more questions are being raised as to how well board members are informed of issues.
“Some of us don’t know things,” Gurich said. “We’re not told, or we’re told right when we’re in closed session, so we don’t have time to make a logical decision. “This has been a complaint of mine for a while.”
Other board members could not be immediately reached for comment before press time Wednesday night.
Porter said the lack of communication between the superintendent and the school board shows that Edwin Diaz is “unethical” and not running things by the board.
“And the school board is the only check and balance we have to make sure that the school district is run appropriately,” she said.
