Does JCPS have a culture of fear and retaliation? What some employees and officials say

Tonya Clinkscales began working for Jefferson County Public Schools more than two decades ago, starting as a substitute bus driver and working her way up to become one of three transportation specialists who oversee the district's massive fleet.

That was until November, when JCPS investigated her for alleged unprofessional behavior after she sent a text message in group chat stating her support for JCPS bus drivers during their sickout over the district's problematic busing system.

Clinkscales said the district reassigned her to another department to "stuff envelopes" for four months and eventually moved her to a different job with less responsibility, even though the investigation cleared her of any wrongdoing.

To Clinkscales, her reassignment is proof that district leaders retaliate against employees who question their decisions — a sentiment echoed in a recent transportation audit that cited a widespread sense of fear among staff about speaking out on various issues.

Other school district officials The Courier Journal interviewed said they also are concerned about how the district treats employees who are critical of leadership decisions.

School board Chairman Corrie Shull said Clinkscales' story "wasn’t surprising" at all because he has heard similar stories for years.

"There seems to be — when you take the narratives of district employees and you read the transportation audit — it paints a picture of people in leadership demonstrating the lack of appreciation for people who speak up," Shull said. "It seems like those are the people who end up getting moved or being retaliated against."

JCPS officials, including Superintendent Marty Pollio, declined to comment about the audit report's findings of a "corporate culture" of fear among employees. JCPS officials also refused to answer questions about Clinkscales' case, saying they do not comment on personnel matters involving specific employees. However, they did say while they moved Clinkscales to a different department, she still holds the same position.

School board members requested the audit, which cost nearly $225,000 and was conducted by Prismatic Services Inc., after severe busing problems led to some students not getting home on the first day of school until around 10 p.m. The district was forced to shut down school for six to seven days to try to fix the faulty routes.

While Prismatic was gathering information across the district, it found an unusually high number of staff members who said they did not feel comfortable providing information to investigators about what led to the transportation failures.

"When interviewed regarding activities leading up to August 9th, multiple staff noted a negative environment in the central office that discouraged questions and collaboration," the audit states. "Post-incident, some employees noted that they feared retribution for providing Prismatic with information. These communications faults appear to be a problem of corporate culture."

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In addition to the reluctance to speak with investigators, a survey Prismatic sent to JCPS principals showed that 55 of the 107 who responded declined to name their schools.

Clinkscales said she did set up an interview with Prismatic investigators despite being under investigation and told not to speak to any district employees.

She also has filed a grievance asking to return to her former role.

"I'm humiliated," Clinkscales said. "I'm embarrassed because I was accused of misconduct and there was never an intent to do such. With my reputation, a lot of the employees of the district looked to me for answers and all of that hard work that I'd done has been stripped away. I feel dehumanized."

A ‘toxic’ culture in JCPS

Kumar Rashad, the incoming Jefferson County Teachers Association vice president, said he also has experienced retaliation by the district.

He worked as a teacher for more than a decade without any disciplinary actions taken against him. That changed in 2016 after he criticized a new principal assigned to his middle school and filed a discrimination grievance.

Since then, he's been written up by the district multiple times, including for taking students to a Metro Council committee meeting while he was a council member for what he referred to as a learning experience and for using his district email address to send a critical email to the former education commissioner.

"They write you up for things that other employees are doing but they want to zero in on you," Rashad said.

Last year, he was reassigned out of the classroom while under an investigation that started one month after he was named one of Kentucky's top teachers and shortly before the teachers union elections. He was out of the classroom for nearly three months before investigators found the claims against him were unsubstantiated.

"There is a large culture of fear, intimidation, downright harassment and bullying — all the way from the top down," Rashad said of JCPS. "It's just very harmful that people feel afraid to speak their truth because they know when they do, they will be persecuted."

"It really puts you in a position where you know directly that if you are going to speak out in a way to benefit our children, you will be harassed," he said. "You will be written up because you’re making good trouble."

Board member Sarah McIntosh took her concerns with the audit findings to Chief Operations Officer Rob Fulk and Superintendent Pollio, though she wasn't surprised by the fears employees shared with the investigators.

"This audit simply reinforces a long-established culture in JCPS that I believe is toxic," McIntosh wrote in an email to Pollio and Fulk.

McIntosh worked as a teacher for 16 years before resigning in 2016. "Throughout that entire period, there was always a culture of 'you don’t talk to board members'," McIntosh told The Courier Journal. "There's a real strict hierarchy on where you could go for assistance if you felt there was a problem."

Now, as a board member, McIntosh said she struggles to find out what's going on in the schools she represents.

"I reach out to admins at schools in my district or folks I’ve known for years and, in many instances, I'm told 'we’re not supposed to talk to board members.' I understand operations and going through the right process, but the only way we — as school board members — can have a good understanding of what is happening in our district is to talk to the people who are in our schools every day."

Staff, she said, "shouldn't be afraid to speak up."

'Why was I the target?'

Clinkscales says she still wants to understand why she was targeted. Shortly before she sent the text message that led to her being investigated, JCPS Chief Operations Officer Fulk sent a text message critical of the district in a separate chat with Clinkscales and four other JCPS administrators, including Transportation Director Marcus Dobbs.

In that text, Fulk said the reason for the busing problems is that JCPS leaders chose to hire AlphaRoute, a Boston firm, to create a new routing system this year.

“I also believe the worst mistake in all of this was trusting an unproven outside company to do this much to our systems, and that our drivers are out of their geographic region," Fulk texted on Nov. 3.

Two days later, Clinkscales sent her text in a group chat with transportation administrators and compound coordinators, according to investigation interviews The Courier Journal obtained through an open records request.

"WDRB just reported and has reported for several weeks now about this 'new referral system online' again the district takes no responsibility of the lack of discipline," Clinkscales texted. "The new system will be real time and not the afternoon or us turning referrals in late. Always a slap in our face and never accountable for the lack of support to the drivers. It was okay for the teachers to do a sick out, so it should be okay for drivers. #istandwithdrivers"

Her text was sent Sunday, Nov. 5, following the Friday when 87 drivers called in sick and the day before more than 100 called in.

Fulk was not in that group chat but he took a screenshot of the text to the district Compliance and Investigation department Nov. 11, investigative records show. The district launched its investigation shortly thereafter.

"I really believe I was out on investigation to get me out of the way because of the knowledge that I have," Clinkscales said, indicating she told supervisors in July that the new routes would not work, and the department wasn't ready for the first day of school. The investigation was launched right when Prismatic investigators began setting up interviews with transportation staff.

On Feb. 5, Clinkscales was cleared of any wrongdoing. District investigators wrote in their report that "based on the interviews conducted, it is unsubstantiated that Tonya Clinkscales displayed unprofessional behavior..."

Multiple people interviewed, including Dobbs, said she was simply venting and would not encourage drivers to call out.

Despite this finding, Clinkscales was notified on March 20 she was being reassigned to the Exceptional Childhood Education department, which has less than 10 passenger vans. In her previous role, she supervised about 300 employees across four bus compounds. She decided to share her story, she said, because "they've done the worst they can do to me."

"I’m not sure why I was the target," Clinkscales said. "I think it’s a little bit of retaliation. I think it is discrimination. I definitely believe it is an abuse of power."

JCPS said "supervisors are placed in positions that best fit the needs of the district and, most specifically and importantly, the needs of our students."

Shull questions what would have happened if Clinkscales was listened to rather than punished.

"I think what is curious to me is to whether or not the people that have been demoted or removed may have held the institutional knowledge that could have prevented some of the encounters we had on the first day of school," he said.

Additionally, he did not see an issue in the text Clinkscales sent about supporting drivers.

"We all should be supporting drivers," he said. "Drivers were not engaged, their expertise was not sought, they were not given the opportunities to weigh in on this (transportation) plan. They were rendered, essentially, 'the help.'"

Contact Krista Johnson at kjohnson3@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Does JCPS have a culture of fear and retaliation?